Chapter 25 special news

It was not a good experiment to do on the white round surface of my drum.I should have known this.My iron skins always just need the same wood.It is willing to be tapped to ask questions and tapped to be answered, or to chatter freely under rapid taps, leaving question and answer aside.So my drum is neither a frying pan artificially warmed to scare the hell out of raw meat, nor a dance floor for unrequited partners.Therefore, even in his loneliest moments, Oscar would not sprinkle soda powder on his drum, and then accumulate saliva to flow on it, reenacting the play that he had not seen for many years.But how much I miss it!To tell the truth, Oskar couldn't completely give up experimenting with the powder mentioned above, but he would rather do it himself than let the drums take part; Always a shameless person.

First, it's hard to get soda powder.I sent Bruno to run through all the colonial shops in Earl's Hill and put him on the tram to Gresheim.I asked him to try it in the city too, but Bruno couldn't get powdered soda, even in the kind of soda shops you'd find at tram terminals.The young saleswoman didn't know it at all, and the older cold drink store owners recalled talking a lot. According to Bruno, they rubbed their foreheads and said in thought: "Man, what do you want? Soda powder? What era is this?" Stuff! In Wilhelm's time, in the first few years of Hitler's time, it was sold. That was a long time ago! Now, how about a juice soda or a Coca-Cola?"

So my caregiver drank several juice pops and Cokes with my money, but just didn't buy me what I wanted.However, he still helped Oscar.Bruno was not at all discouraged, yesterday he brought me a small white bag with no printing on it.The female laboratory technician of the nursing home, a lady named Klein, expressed full understanding and was willing to help, and spread out reference books, opened drawers and bottles and jars, and took a few grams here and a few grams there. Gram, after many trials, finally formulated into soda powder.It foams, irritates, turns green, and smells of woodruff, Bruno told me.

Today is visiting day.Maria is coming.But Klip was the first to come.We laughed together for three quarters of an hour about things that should only be forgotten.I tried to keep Klip and his Leninists from getting emotional, and I avoided talking about practical issues, not saying a word about the portable radio that Maria had given me a few weeks ago- The special news I heard, that is, the report on the death of Stalin.However, it seems that Klepp must have known that Christian Marxism was born and popular in the 1930s and 1940s, because the sleeves of his brown checked coat are sewn with black yarn, but the stitches are very bad.Then Klepp stood up and Vitra entered the room.The two friends appear to be quarreling again, as Vitra greets Klepp with a smile, curling her fingers like the horns on the devil's head: "While shaving this morning, the news of Stalin's death scared me. One jump!" He taunted, helping Klepp put on his coat.There was a reverent expression on Klepp's broad, balsam-smeared face.He raised his arms and shook the black gauze on the sleeves of his coat. "That's why I wear black," he sighed, humming the first few bars of New Orleans-featured funeral music in imitation of Armstrong's trumpet: tra- tra da da tra ——Da da——Da da da... Then, he slid out of the room with dancing steps.

-------- ①Louis Armstrong (1900~1971), a famous American jazz trumpeter. Vitra stayed.He didn't want to sit, he would rather stand in front of the mirror and jump up and down.The two of us smiled knowingly at each other for about a quarter of an hour, but it had nothing to do with Stalin. I didn't know whether I was going to confide in Vitra, or whether I was trying to drive him away.I beckoned him to the bed, beckoned him to bring his ear close, and whispered into his big lobe ear, "Soda powder! Do you know what it is, Gottfried?" Vitra was horrified. He jumped away from my railing bed; he immediately did his best trick, pointed at me with his index finger, and said in an excited tone: "Satan, why are you trying to seduce me with soda powder? Don't you know that I am Is it an angel?"

Like an angel, Vitra first looked at the mirror above the washbasin, and then walked away.The young people outside the sanitarium are really queer, they like to put on airs. Then Maria came.She had a tailor make a fashionable spring suit with a fashionable slate-grey hat with delicate straw-yellow trim, a work of art she would not take off even in my hospital room.She gave me a curt greeting, refused to let me kiss her cheek, and turned on the portable radio.Although she gave it to me, it seemed to be entirely for her own use, since on visiting days this obnoxious portable radio always took the place of part of our conversation. "Did you hear the broadcast this morning? It's exciting. Isn't it?" "Yes, Maria," I replied patiently, "they don't even want to keep the news of Stalin's death a secret from me. Turn off the radio!"

Maria complied without saying a word.She sat down, still wearing the hat.So we talked about Kurt Jr. as usual. "What do you think, Oscar, that little rascal doesn't want to wear stockings anymore. It's only March and it's going to get colder, that's what the radio said." I pretended I didn't hear the weather forecast, And speak for little Kurt on the matter of wearing stockings or not. "The boy is twelve years old now, and he's ashamed to wear stockings to school because his classmates will make fun of him." "I'm more concerned about his health. He'll have to wear the stockings until Easter." She made the date unequivocal.I had to back off: "Then you'll have to buy him a pair of ski trousers, wool socks are really ugly. Think back to when you were his age. In our yard on Labes Road. The little guy always wore The stockings were worn until Easter, you think back, what they did to him? Nushi Ike, he died in Crete, Axel Mischke, near the end of the war in Holland, and Harry Schlagel, what did they do to little people? They put tar on woolen stockings, and the socks stuck to the skin, and the little people were sent to Hospital."

"It's Susie Carter's fault, not the stockings!" exclaimed Maria, furious.Although Suzie Carter had been a female messenger at the beginning of the war and later married her husband in Bavaria, Suzie, who was a few years older than Maria, always had a grudge.Only women can do such things, and they can carry the resentment from their youth to their grandmothers.However, I mentioned that the little man's tarred woolen socks helped somewhat.Maria promised to buy Kurt Jr. a pair of ski pants.We can move on to some good news about our little Kurt.At a recent parent-teacher meeting, Principal Knemann praised him. "You see, he's second in class. And he's helping me in the store. He's been a great help."

I nodded approvingly, and then listened to her talk about a recent purchase for Gourmet Foods.I encourage Maria to open another branch in Oberkassel.I said the timing was good and the market would continue to prosper (I just heard that on the radio).Then, thinking the time had come, I rang for Bruno.He walked into the ward and handed me a white paper bag of soda powder. Oscar's plan was carefully considered.Without explaining anything, I asked Maria to give me her left hand.She first wanted to stretch out her right hand, then changed to stretch out her left hand, shook her head and smiled, and stretched out the back of her left hand in front of me, maybe hoping that I would kiss the back of her hand.But I turned her hand over and poured the powder in the paper bag between the Moon Mountain and the Venus Mountain on her palm, only then did she show a surprised look.She let me do it, though, only to be terrified when Oscar leaned over to let his mouthful of spit flow over this mountain of soda powder.

"Don't mess around, Oscar!" Annoyed, she jumped up, stepped back, and stared in amazement at the fermenting, green foaming powder.Maria's face flushed gradually from her forehead.Just when I thought there was hope, she took three big strides to the sink and water, nasty water, first cold, then mild water, washed off our soda powder and washed it off with my soap her hands. "You can be intolerable sometimes, Oskar. What will Mr. Münsterberg think of us?" She asked for forgiveness on my behalf, looking at Bruno, who had been standing by my side while I was doing the experiment. At the foot of the bed.I sent the nurse away so that Maria would not feel ashamed.As soon as the door was locked, I asked Maria to come to the bed again: "Can't you remember? Please recall! Soda powder! A small packet of Sanfenni! Recall: woodruff flavored, strawberry flavored, Fermentation, froth, beauty! And emotion, Maria, emotion!"

Maria couldn't remember.Stupidly frightened of me, she trembled a little, hid her left hand, nervously turned to another topic, and talked to me about little Kurt's grades at school, Stalin's death, the Matzerath gourmet food store. A new refrigerator and plans to open a branch in Oberkassel.But I am loyal to soda powder, only talk about soda powder.She stood up, soda powder, I begged.She said goodbye in a hurry, put on her hat, and didn't know whether to go or stay, so she turned on the radio.I let go and shouted over the din of the radio, "Soda powder, Maria, think about it!" And now she's standing in the doorway, crying, shaking her head, leaving me with this creaking portable radio.She closed the door carefully, as if leaving a dying person. So Maria can't remember the soda powder coming.But as long as I'm breathing and drumming, soda powder won't stop fermenting and foaming for me; for it was my saliva that gave the woodstalks and strawberries the late summer of 1940. Life, awakened by emotion, sent my flesh to seek, trained me to be a collector of champignons, morels, and other mushrooms I couldn't name but could still enjoy.It made me a father, yes, a father, a very young father, collecting and begetting; for by the beginning of November there was no longer any doubt, Maria was pregnant, Maria was two months pregnant, and I, Oscar, was Father. I still believe this today because the incident between Maria and Matzerath took place much later.That was me on the bed of Maria's older brother Herbert with scars on his back, facing the military postcard from her second brother, the sergeant, and then in the room with the lights out, under the anti-aircraft blackout paper And between the walls, two weeks, no, ten days, after impregnating the sleeping Maria.That's when I bumped into Maria on the couch at our house.She was not asleep, but busy breathing with her mouth open; she was lying, under Matzerath, above Matzerath. Oskar came from the attic, where he thought for a while, and went downstairs, with a drum around his neck, through the doorway into the living room.Those two people didn't see me.Both of their heads were turned towards the tiled stove.The two of them took off their clothes in an irregular manner.Matzerath's underpants hung in the hollows of his knees.His trousers were piled on the carpet.Maria's skirt and petticoat reached over her bra and below her armpits.Her panties were wrapped around her right foot, which was dangling out of the couch in a hideous twist.The left leg is bent, resting on the back cushion, as if uninterested.Between these two legs is Matzerath.He turned her head aside with his right hand, while he manipulated with the other.Maria cast her dull gaze from Matzerath's spread fingers to the carpet on one side, as if following the patterns on the carpet all the way to the bottom of the table.He bit into a velvet upholstery, and it was only when the two of them spoke that he let go of the velvet.They spoke now and then without interruption.They stopped only when the clock struck three quarters, and when the clock stopped he went on as before, saying: "It's three quarters." Then he asked her if it was all right.She kept saying yes, and asked him to pay attention.He promised her to be careful.She told him, no, she begged him to pay special attention this time.Then he asked her if it was time soon.She said it would be there soon.At this time, her foot hanging outside the sofa twitched.She kicked it out, her panties still hanging on.He went to bite the velvet upholstery again, and she yelled, "Get off!" He wanted to get off too, but he couldn't because Oscar was on top of both of them before he got off, because I had put the The drum was placed on his waist, and I picked up the drum stick to hit the iron sheet, because I could no longer hear the cry of "Go away!", because my drum sound was louder than her voice of "Go away!", because I Can't bear him to go away, just like Jan Bronski used to always go away from his mother; because mother used to say "Fuck off" too, "Fuck off" to Jan, and "Fuck off" to Matzerath ".Then they parted, and they flung their snots somewhere, on special towels, and if they weren't handy, on the couch, and possibly on the rug.But I can't stand it.Anyway, I didn't roll away.I'm the first person who hasn't gotten away, so I'm the father and not that Matzerath.He always believed, and he believed until the end, that he was my father.But that was Jan Bronski.I got Jan's inheritance, I got ahead of Matzerath, but I didn't roll, I stayed, stayed in, came out, it was my son, not his!He has no son at all!He is not a real father at all!Even if he married my poor mother ten times, if he married Maria!Because she is pregnant.The neighbors in the apartment and down the street must think so, he thought.They would naturally think so, Matzerath had made Maria's belly big, he married her, she was seventeen and a half, and he was forty-five.For her age, she is really capable.As for little Oscar, he would be glad to have such a stepmother, because Maria treated the poor child not like a stepmother, but like a real mother, although little Oscar was not so clear-headed. Should have been sent to Silverhammer Army Hospital or Tapio Sanitarium. Matzerath followed Gretchen Scheffler's advice and decided to marry my lover.If I call him, my imaginary father, my father, I have to establish the fact that my father married my future wife, after which I call my son Kurt his son Kurt , he therefore asked me to recognize his grandson as my half-brother, to recognize my beloved, vanilla-scented Maria as my stepmother, and to put up with the stench of caviar she lay lying on him. on the bed.But if I prove that this Matzerath is not your imaginary father at all, he is a stranger who deserves neither your sympathy nor your loathing, who cooks well because of your pity Your mother left him to you, so he reluctantly took the place of your father, cooked delicious food for you, and took care of you until today, and now he has taken the best woman from you in front of everyone , turning you into a witness to a wedding and a baby shower five months later, into a guest at two seders that were supposed to be held by you and should be given by you Take Maria to the household registration office. It is up to you to decide who will be the godfather and godmother. If I were to examine the protagonist of this tragedy, I would have to find that the play was performed with the protagonist replaced by someone else. I'm going to despair of this play, because Oscar, the real lead actor, was sent to a sideshow, which should have been cut from the show. Before I named my son Kurt, before I called him as if he never had a name—in fact, I used to call him after his real grandfather, Vincent Bronski. Before naming him—that is, before I put up with the name Kurt—he didn't want to keep quiet about how Oscar had thwarted the birth date while Maria was pregnant. After bumping into the two on the couch that night, drumming on Matzerath's sweaty back so he couldn't be as careful as Maria demanded, I tried again desperately, Want to get my lover back. At that point, Matzerath finally shook me off his back, but it was too late.He beat me for it.Maria defended Oskar, blaming Matzerath for not being successful and not being careful.Matzerath defended himself like an old man.It was Maria's fault, he said, that she should have been content, but she was never satisfied.Maria cried when she heard that.She said that she couldn't be so fast, and it would be over in threes and twos. If so, he should have found another woman. Yes, Gust told her, it’s not okay to go so soon, and she needs to be careful, Gust said, there are such men, they just get rid of the snot, and he, Matzerath, is ready Such a man, she will never do it again, she must ring the bell at the same time.Therefore, he should have acted carefully, no matter what, he didn't even consider being so considerate.She cried after saying that, and sat on the sofa all the time.Matzerath, in his underpants, yelled that he didn't want to hear the wailing tone again; then, feeling that he was getting angry again, he started to attack Maria again, that is to say, he wanted to put his hand under her skirt. Touching the bare spot, this made Maria annoyed. Oscar had never seen her like this before.Red blotches appeared on her face, and her gray eyes were getting darker.She called Matzerath a pustule, and Matzerath reached for his trousers, put them on, and buttoned them.Maria shouted that he could pat his ass and go to the party chiefs, who were pussies like himself.Matzerath grabbed his jacket, then pinched the doorknob, and said he was going to change his appetite now, he had had enough of women's troubles, if she was such a slut, she should have seduced the foreign workers, Seduce the French guy who delivers the beer, he must be much better.In him, Matzerath, the love in his heart is not just doing such nasty things, he is going to play schkatter now, and he has the bottom of his heart to do such things. So it was just me and Maria left in the living room.She stopped crying, thought about dressing, whistled a few times, and put on her panties.She spent a lot of time smoothing the skirt that had just suffered on the sofa.Then she turned on the radio, and listened attentively while the water levels of the Wexel and Nogat were reported, and when the announcement of the waltz and the music began after the report of the water level of the Lower Mottlau, she Suddenly she took off her panties again and walked into the kitchen.I heard her take the basin, turn on the water and the hiss of gas, and I figured Maria must have made up her mind to take a bath. In order to avoid such embarrassing imaginings, Oscar concentrated on listening to the waltz.If I remember correctly, I even played a few bars of the drums along with Strauss, which was kind of fun.Then the waltz played by the broadcasting building was interrupted abruptly to report special news.Oscar guessed that it was about the Atlantic War, and he guessed right.Several submarines sank seven or eight ships west of Ireland, totaling several thousand tons.In addition, another submarine penetrated the bottom of a ship of almost the same size in the Atlantic Ocean.Lieutenant Shepke - and possibly Lieutenant Kretschmal - anyway the submarine commanded by one of the two in the middle or a third famous lieutenant did a particularly good job of sinking the most tonnage , in addition to including or adding a British XY-class destroyer. -------- ① Johann Strauss (1825-1899), Austrian composer, known as the "King of Waltz". I nearly turned that song into a waltz by playing variations on my drum to the British song that played after the special news.At this moment Maria entered the living room with a towel over her arm.She said in a low voice: "Did you hear, little Oscar, there is another special news! If they keep going like this..." She didn't tell Oscar what would happen if this went on, so she sat down on a chair, usually Matzerath always put his coat on the armrest of this chair.Maria twisted the wet towel into a sausage shape and whistled quite loudly and correctly to the English song.After the singing on the radio stopped, she played the end of the song on repeat, and just as the immortal waltz began, she turned off the radio on the cupboard.She put the sausage-shaped towel on the table and sat down with her little hands in her lap. At this time, the living room of my house became very silent, only the voice of the grandfather clock was getting louder.Maria seemed to be wondering if it would be better to turn the radio back on.But then she made up another mind.She pressed her forehead to the towel sausage on the table, dropped her arms to the carpet at her knees, and wept silently, regularly, in fits and starts. Oskar wondered if Maria was getting shy because I surprised her by surprise on such an embarrassing occasion.Determined to cheer her up, I slipped out of the living room into the darkened shop, found a small pocket next to a small box of puddings and glued paper, and saw in the half-darkness that it was a bag. Small package of vanilla soda powder.Oscar was very happy with what he found, because among the various scents, Maria liked the woodruff scent the most. The right side of Maria's face was still pillowed on the sausage-shaped towel when I walked into the living room.Her arms were still dangling between her legs as before, not knowing where to put them.When Oscar approached her from the left, he was disappointed to find that her eyes were closed and there were no tears.I waited patiently until her eyelids lifted, along with her slightly glued eyelashes, and handed her the little paper bag.However, she didn't notice the woodgrass, she just turned a blind eye to the little paper bag and Oscar. I forgive Maria, who may have been blinded by tears.After some consideration in my mind, I resolved to take more direct action.Oscar crawled under the table, crouched between Maria's slightly turned inward feet, grabbed her left hand whose fingertips were almost touching the carpet, turned it over until I could see the palm of her hand, and ripped open the small hole with her teeth. Paper bag, sprinkle half a pack of powder in the palm of this hand that I can manipulate, and let the saliva flow down.I was watching the powder start to foam when Maria kicked my chest, it hurt so badly, and she kicked Oscar onto the rug in the center of the living room, under the table. Regardless of the pain, I immediately stood up and got out from under the table.Maria also stood up.We stood facing each other, panting.Maria grabbed the towel, wiped her left hand clean, and dropped the glob at my feet.She called me a damned dirty pig, a mean dwarf, a lunatic dwarf who deserved to be sent to a madhouse.So she grabbed me, hit me on the back of the head, and scolded my poor mother for giving birth to a rascal like me.I was about to yell and declare war on the glass in the living room and the world when she shoved the wad of towel in my mouth.I - bite down, it is harder than old beef. She didn't stop until Oscar's face turned purple and blue.At this point I could have shouted and shattered all the glassware, the window panes, and the glass in front of the grandfather clock hands without breaking a sweat.But instead of shouting, I let a hatred take possession of my heart.That hatred is there, and to this day, when I see Maria step into my room, I feel it like the four towels between my teeth. Maria's face really changed at every turn.She stopped teasing me, smiled kindly, reached out and turned on the radio again, whistling to the waltz music, and walked towards me, trying to stroke my hair to express reconciliation, because I used to like her to do so. Oskar asked her to come up to him, and then punched the place where she let Matzerath go from bottom to top with both fists.When I was about to hit the second time, she grabbed my fist, but I bit the damn place, and I fell down on the sofa with her.I heard another special on the radio, but Oscar didn't want to hear it; so he couldn't tell the reader who sunk what and how much, because a violent spasm before a cry made me loose teeth.I lay motionless on top of Maria, who wept with pain, Oskar, who wept with hatred, and who also wept with love, which had turned into a faint, but which still did not stop.