Chapter 46 ring finger

"Okay," Zeidler said, "you two don't seem to want to work anymore." He was annoyed because Klepp and Oscar were either in Klepp's room or Oscar's , doing nothing.On the day of Shi Mu's burial, I paid the rent for the two of us in October for the balance of the money that Dr. Diusch advanced to me at the Chengnan Cemetery. However, from the economic point of view, November is likely to become gloomy. November danger. However, there are indeed many places to invite us.We can play jazz music in this or that dance hall and nightclub.However, Oscar did not want to play jazz anymore.Klepp and I, we're arguing.He said my new way of dealing with the tin drum was not the same as jazz.I do not refute.He therefore called me a traitor to the idea of ​​jazz music.

In early November, Klepp found a new percussionist, Bobby "The Unicorn," a capable man, and applied with him in the Old City.In this way, the two of us could talk as friends again, although by this time Klepp had begun to agree with the German Communist Party not so much in thought as in speech. The only thing left open to me now is the little door of Dr. Düsch's concert manager.I could not and would not want to go back to Maria, especially since her suitor, Stanzel, was planning to divorce and after the divorce to turn my Maria into Maria Stanzel.Sometimes I went to Bitlukonev to carve inscriptions, and I also went to the Academy of Arts to translate the Russian version of "The Complete Works of Dalin".The Russian version was originally planned to be 16 volumes.But only out of 13, let those hard-working art apprentices paint me black or abstract, and often visit the muse Ulla without any purpose.Not long after our trip to the Atlantic Wall, she broke off her engagement to Lankers, who wanted to paint precious pictures of nuns instead of beating Muse Ulla.

Dr. Dousch's business card was on the table next to the tub, quietly but aggressively.One day I tore up my business card and threw it away, not wanting to have anything to do with Dr. Dusch.But I am surprised to conclude that I have been able to recite the phone number and detailed address of the concert management office like a poem.For three days I couldn't sleep because I couldn't remember the phone number, so on the fourth day, I went into a phone booth, dialed the number, and heard Diusch's voice, as if he was waiting every moment. my phone.He asked me to come to the broker's office that afternoon, and he wanted to introduce me to his boss: the boss was waiting for Herr Matzerath.

The "Western" concert agency is on the ninth floor of a newly built office building.Before I got on the elevator, I asked myself if there might be some nasty political activities hidden behind the name of the brokerage office.With a "Western" concert agency, there must be an "Eastern" agency in some similar office building.The choice of the name was not stupid, as I immediately chose the "Western" brokerage.When I got to the ninth floor and got off the elevator, I did feel myself on the way to the brokerage office on the right.Tapestries, lots of brass, lighted windows, all soundproofed, doors next to each other without interfering with each other, long-legged female secretaries, hurrying past me with the smell of their boss's cigarettes, I almost passed from the "West" Turn around and run away from the door of the brokerage office.

Dr. Dusch greeted me with open arms.To Oscar's delight, he didn't hug me.When I entered, the typewriter of a girl in a green sweater suddenly fell silent, and then made up the work that was delayed by my presence.Dusch went to the boss to report that I had arrived.Oscar was seated in the left front sixth of an English upholstered armchair.Then the double doors opened, the typewriter held its breath, and a suction lifted me from the cushion.The door closed behind me, and a rug flowed through a bright hall, carrying me forward until a piece of tubular steel furniture told me: Oskar was now standing in front of the boss's desk.Guess, how many kilograms does he weigh?I raised my blue eyes to look for the boss behind the empty oak tabletop, and found my friend and master Bebra in a wheelchair that raised and swiveled like a dentist's chair.He was paralyzed, and only his eyes and fingertips showed that he was alive.Yes, he still has a voice!Bebra's voice said: "So we meet again, Mr. Matzerath. Didn't I already tell you a few years ago, when you would rather deal with the world as a three-year-old, like we Such people will not be separated from each other?! Only one point, I regret to point out, is that your figure has changed a lot, and it is not good at all. Back then, you were only ninety-four centimeters?"

I nodded, on the verge of tears.My master's wheelchair is powered by an electric motor and hums evenly.On the wall behind the wheelchair hung the only painting, a life-size bust in a baroque frame, and that was my Rosweta, the great Laguna.Bebra didn't follow my gaze, but in order to know where my gaze was directed, he said almost without moving his mouth: "Ah, good Rosweta! Does she like this new Oscar?" What? Of course not. It was another Oscar, a three-year-old Oscar, plump and rosy-cheeked, quite charming. She adored him, and she proclaimed it to me instead of admitting it. But there was One day he wouldn't get her coffee, so she did it herself, and died. As far as I know, it wasn't the only murder that plump, rosy-cheeked Oscar committed. Mother was sent to the grave, isn't that what happened?"

I nodded, thank God I was able to cry at last, and turned my eyes to Roswitha.By this time, Bebra was ready for the next blow: "What about three-year-old Oskar, the post office clerk Jan Bronski, whom Oskar likes to call his imaginary father? Oskar handed him over to the Executioner. They shot him in the chest. Mr. Oskar Matzerath, if you dare to appear in a disguised form, perhaps you can tell me that the second imaginary father of the three-year-old tin drummer and the colonial goods store owner Ma What happened to Zerath?" I also confessed that it was murder, that I did it to get rid of Matzerath, and described how I caused him to suffocate, no longer covering myself with a Russian machine gun, but saying: "It was I Inorganic matter is even worse. The monadism of Leibniz in Germany is a typical example of panpsychism. Master Bebra. This is what I did, and that is what I did. This death was caused by me, and that death I am not innocent even in death. Forgive me!"

Bebra smiled.I don't know how he managed to laugh.His wheelchair vibrated, and the wind was blowing through his dwarf white hair above the thousands of tiny wrinkles that made up his face. I begged him to forgive me again, and brought a sweet tone to my voice that I knew would work.I covered my face with my hands. I knew in my heart that these hands were beautiful, and they would also produce results: "Forgive me, Master Bebra! Forgive me!" He played my inquisitor really well, with an ivory button plate between his knees and hands.He pressed a small button on it. The rug behind me brought the girl in the green sweater.She took a clip and spread it out on the oak table.The tabletop is installed on a steel pipe frame, and the height is about as high as my collarbone, so I can't see clearly what the sweater girl is spreading out.She handed me a pen: sign to buy Bebra's forgiveness.

However, I dare not ask questions in the direction of the wheelchair.It's hard for me to sign my name blindly where the fingernails are painted. "This is a work contract." Bebra spoke. "Your full name is required. Please sign Oskar Matzerath. That way we will know whom we are dealing with." I had just finished signing when the hum of the electric motor intensified fivefold, and I took my eyes off the pen just in time to see how the speeding wheelchair shrinks, folds together, rolls across the parquet, Through a side door, disappeared without a trace. One would think that the contract was in duplicate and that I would have to sign it twice to buy my soul back or to obligate Oscar to commit some terrible crime.That's not the case at all!When I returned to the drawing room and studied the contract with the help of Dr. Dusch, it became clear to me very quickly and effortlessly: Oscar's task was to appear in front of the audience alone with his tin drum, and I had to act like three Drums like they did at the age of Oscar, or like they did later in Schmuel's onion cellar.The concert management was in charge of organizing my travels and doing some advertising before I showed up with the tin drum under the name Oscar the Drummer.

For the second time during the advertising period, the "Western" concert agency gave me a large advance of money, and I lived off it.I sometimes visit that office building, meet with reporters, have my photographs taken.Once, I got lost in this box-shaped building. Everywhere here looks the same, smells the same, and feels like a very nasty thing, covered with a condom that can extend infinitely and isolate everything.Dr. Duse and the sweater girl were very polite to me, but I never saw Master Bebra show up again. I could have rented a decent apartment before my first gig tour.However, because of Klepp, I still stayed at Zeidler's house.Klepp complained about my dealings with the managers, and I tried to reconcile with this friend, but I didn't budge on specific points, I stopped going to the Old Town with him, I stopped drinking beer, and I stopped eating fresh blood sausage and onions.In preparation for the train journey, I dined at the train station's fancy restaurant.

Oscar could not find the space to describe his various achievements in detail.A week before I set off for the tour, the first posters came out, blazing the trail for my success, announcing the arrival of a magician, prayer healer, and savior, a poorly crafted, yet spectacularly effective campaign.I first visited the cities of the Ruhr area.The hall where I appear can accommodate 1,500 to 2,000 people.I was crouching in front of a black velvet curtain on the stage, alone.A spotlight shines on me.I'm wearing a smoking suit①.Although I played the drums too, none of the young jazz fans became my followers.Adults over the age of forty-five came to listen to my performance and cheered me on.To be precise, a quarter of my audience is people between the ages of forty-five and fifty-five.They constitute a younger layer of my followers.Fifty-five to sixty-year-olds make up another quarter.Old men and women over the age of sixty account for half of my audience, and they are the most appreciative.I chatted with these elderly listeners, and they all answered me.Nor are three-year-olds silent when I let their drums speak.Whenever I play on the drums the magical life of the magical Rasputin, they are very happy, but not in the language of the old people, but inarticulate like a three-year-old child, babbling and screaming: "La! Shu, Rashu, Rashu!" Playing Rasputin is too much to ask of most listeners, so the success with other themes is even more remarkable, such as: the first teeth - bad Whooping cough—itchy woolen socks—bed-wetting in dreams of fire.These themes are loved by children and adults alike.They are all there.When baby teeth come out, they hurt.When I had a whooping cough attack, two thousand elderly people in the audience coughed to death.When I put woolen socks on them, they scratched their itch.Some old ladies and gentlemen pissed their panties and chair cushions because I made these old kids dream about a fire.I can't remember whether it was in Wuerntal or Bochum, oh no, it was in Recklinghausen, I played for old miners, and the trade union supported the show.I thought to myself, these old miners have dealt with black coal all their lives, and they can always withstand a little black scare.So Oscar knocked out "The Black Cook". Unexpectedly, 1,500 miners had experienced mine gas, flooded tunnels, strikes and unemployment. Many panes of glass behind thick curtains fell victim to it.That's why I'm referring to this episode.In this way, I indirectly recovered my broken glass voice.However, I rarely use it because I don't want to ruin my business.My traveling gig is a business.I went back to Düsseldorf and settled accounts with Dr. Düsseldorf, and my tin drum proved to be a goldmine. -------- ①A jacket worn over clothes when smoking at home. I had already given up hope of seeing Master Bebra again, and I stopped asking about him, but Dr. Dousch informed me that Bebra was waiting to see me. My second visit to Master Bebra was different from the first.Oscar no longer needed to stand in front of the steel pipe table. He found an electric swivel wheelchair designed according to his figure opposite the master's wheelchair.We sat for a long time in silence, listening to news and reports about Oscar's drumming.These are all recorded by Dr. Diusch on tape and are now playing to us.Bebra seemed quite satisfied.I was embarrassed to hear the nonsense of the press.They're running a cult of my personality, claiming that me and my drums have healing properties, that my drums can counteract memory loss. The term "Oscarism" also popped up, and it is said that it soon became a buzzword. After listening to the recording, the sweater girl brought me tea.She put two more pills on Bebra's tongue.We chat.He no longer counts my crimes.It was the same situation as we sat in the Four Seasons Café all those years ago, only missing the lady, our Roseweta.I found that when I was talking about Oscar's past, Master Bebra fell asleep.So I played with my electric wheelchair for a quarter of an hour, making it hum and whistle on the parquet floor, let it spin side to side, let it rise and retract.I can't bear to part with this universal piece of furniture, it's like a harmless vice that offers endless opportunities. My second traveling gig coincided with Advent.I also developed a corresponding program, and the Catholic and Protestant newspapers sang my praises.Said I succeeded in turning old sinners, who had been boiled hard as stone, into infants, and made them sing the Advent hymns in thin but moving voices.2,500 people sang "Jesus, I live for you, Jesus, I die for you".These people, at such an age, no one believed at first that they could have the religious zeal of children. -------- ① Christian term, referring to mortal mortals. The third trip to perform and meet the carnival, my show is also targeted.A few of my performances turned any trembling old grandma and grandpa into childish and ridiculous robber women and robber kings with bangs and guns. Any so-called children's carnival has never been so joyous and unrestrained. After the carnival, I signed several contracts with record labels.I was recording in a soundproof studio, and it was difficult at first because the atmosphere stifled any creativity.Later, I had them hang huge photos of old naiveties in nursing homes or park benches on the studio walls, and I could drum as effectively as I could perform in a steamy auditorium. Records sold like hot buns.Oscar got rich.Did I thus give up my poor apartment where the Zeidler apartment was a bathroom?I didn't give up.why?I did not give up my room for my friend Klepp's sake, nor for the little room behind the milky-glass door where Sister Dorothea had breathed and was now vacant.What is the use of so much money for Oscar?He made a proposal to Maria, his Maria. I said to Maria: If you give Steinzel the certificate of dismissal, not only do not marry him, but drive him away, I will buy you a modern gourmet restaurant in the best location, Dear Maria, because after all you were born for business, not for some wild man named Mr. Stanzel. -------- ①It means to drive away. I read Maria right.She broke up with Stanzel and built a first-class gourmet restaurant in Friedrichstraße with my funds.Yesterday, Maria told me cheerfully but without gratitude that the store that opened three years ago had opened a branch in Oberkassel a week earlier.I'm back from another tour and gig.Is it the seventh or eighth time?Anyway, it's the hottest month of July.At the train station, I hailed a taxi and headed straight for the office building.As at the train station, there was a bunch of nasty autographers waiting in front of the building.There are retired old people and old grandmothers, wouldn't it be better for them to go home and take care of their grandchildren?I had someone report it to my boss right away, and saw the double doors open and the carpet leading to the steel pipe furniture.However, it was not Master Bebra sitting behind the desk, and it was not a wheelchair that was waiting for me, but Dr. Dusch's smile. Bebra is dead.It has been several weeks since there was no Master Bebra in the world.Following Bebra's wishes, they did not tell me that he was critically ill.He didn't let anything interrupt my tour, not even his bad news.Immediately after the will was unsealed, I inherited a large amount of property and a bust of Rosweta, but suffered a considerable financial loss, because I had already signed a contract for two tours to South Germany and Switzerland. When the contract was suddenly broken, people demanded compensation. In addition to the loss of several thousand marks, Bebra's death dealt a heavy blow to me, preventing me from recovering for a long time.I locked up my tin drum and hardly ever went out.Plus, my friend Klepp happened to get married within those few weeks, and a smoking redhead became his wife, because he once sent her a picture of himself.He didn't invite me to the wedding.Shortly before the wedding, he quit his house and moved to Stockum.Oscar remained Zeidler's only tenant. My relationship with hedgehogs has changed slightly.He treated me with respect since nearly every newspaper had my name in the headlines.He also gave me the key to the cell where Sister Dorothea lived, and received a small sum in return.Later, I rented this small room and did not let him rent it to others. My sorrow then has its course.I opened two doors, walked from the bathtub in my room, stepped across the coir carpet in the corridor, entered Dorothea's closet, stared blankly at the empty wardrobe, let the mirror on the chest of drawers mock me, I was cornered in front of my bed without a bedding, rescued myself in the corridor, and hid in my room to escape the coconut fiber, and there was still no peace there. There was an East Prussian who had lost his property in Masuria, but he was good at doing business. He opened a shop near Jülich Street and named it simply and aptly - "Dog Rent Shop". Maybe he considered the needs of lonely people. I went there and rented Lukes, a black Rottweiler, robust, a little too fat and shiny.I go for a walk with it.This way I wouldn't have to run back and forth between my bathtub in Zeidler's apartment and Sister Dorothea's empty closet. Lukes often took me to the Rhine.There, it barks at ships.Lukes often took me to Rat, to Earl's Hill Forest.There, it barks at lovers.At the end of July 1951, Lukes took me to Gresheim, one of the suburbs of Düsseldorf, next to several factories, including a larger glass factory, but did not completely change the place The original rural style.Just beyond Gersheim there are many small orchards, and between, beside or behind the small orchards there are pastures, and the waves of the valley, I think, are rye fields. It was a hot day when Lukes took me to and out of Gerresheim between the small vegetable orchard and the fields.Have I mentioned this before?I took Lukes off his belt when the last row of houses in the suburbs remained behind us.He still walks beside me, he is a faithful dog, a very faithful dog.As a dog in a dog rental shop, it must change hands and be loyal to many owners. In other words, Luke the Rottweiler obeys me, which is very different from the badger.I think it's exaggerated for a dog to be so submissive, I'd rather see him bouncing, kicking him, making him jump.But he ran about guiltily, turning his smooth black neck over and over again, his absolutely faithful dog eyes always on me. "Go away, Lukes!" I demanded, "Go away!" Lukes obeyed every time, but the time to walk away was very short.Therefore, I noticed with satisfaction that it took a longer time to walk away this time, and disappeared into the crop field.Here grows rye, undulating with the wind.What am I talking about!There was no wind at all, and it was muggy before a thunderstorm. Lukes went after the bunny, I thought.It may also need to be alone, to be a dog, just as Oscar wants to get rid of the dog and be a human for a while. I didn't pay attention to my surroundings.Little Vegetable Orchards, Gresheim, and the low, steamy city beyond the suburbs didn't catch my attention.I sat down on a rusty empty drum, but I had to call it a drum, because Oskar started banging on the rusty drum with his knuckle bones as soon as he sat down.Hot day.My clothes weighed on me, not thin clothes for summer.Lukes walked away and didn't come back.The cable drum certainly couldn't replace my tin drum, but I was slipping back into the past after all.When the memory was reluctant to continue, and when the images of the hospital environment in the previous years reappeared again and again, I grabbed two small round sticks and said to myself: Wait, Oscar.Now we're going to look at who you are and where you come from.They already lighted the two sixty-watt light bulbs I was born with.Moths fluttered among the bulbs, and in the distance, a bolt of lightning illuminated the heavy furniture.I heard Matzerath talking, followed by my mother.He promised me a store, my mother promised me toys, and when I was three I was going to have a tin drum.Oscar tried to get through these three years as quickly as possible.I ate, drank, excreted, rested more, had them weigh me, wrap me in faded clothes, bathe, brush, powder, vaccinate, let them watch, and call my name.I smile when they want, shout when they want, sleep when the time comes, wake up on time, and in my sleep I wear that face that grown-ups call an angel's face.I had diarrhea many times and had frequent colds.I fetched the whooping cough and kept it with me for a while, letting it go after I understood its intricate rhythms and stayed permanently in my wrist.As we know, the ditty "Whooping Cough" belongs to my repertoire.When Oscar slammed the whooping cough to an audience of two thousand, two thousand men and women coughed in unison. Lukes wailed at me, rubbing his body against my knee.Oh, this dog I borrowed from the dog shop when I was alone!He stands on four legs and wags his tail.It was a dog, with a dog's eyes, and something in its drooling mouth: a stick, a stone, whatever the dog thought valuable. My childhood, which meant so much, slowly slipped away.The pain between the jaws caused by the original milk teeth gradually disappears.I lay back sleepily: a grown, carefully over-warmed hunchback, wearing a watch, ID card and a handful of bills in a wallet.I've put a cigarette between my lips, lit it with a match, and let the smell of tobacco replace the single taste of childhood in my mouth. Where is Lukes?Lukes was still rubbing against me.I pushed it away and sprayed it with smoke.It doesn't like the smell of smoke, but it still doesn't go away, still rubbing against me with its body.It licks me with its eyes.I was looking for swallows on the telephone wires between nearby utility poles, thinking of using swallows as a tool against this annoying dog.But without the swallows, Lukes couldn't drive them away.Its mouth came up between my legs, and hit that spot exactly, as if the East Prussian who rented the dog had trained it beforehand. I kick it twice with my heel.It backed away, stood on four legs, trembling, its mouth with a stick or stone in its mouth was aimed at me.It didn't seem to be holding a stick or a stone in its mouth, but my wallet, but I felt it was still in my jacket pocket.Maybe it was my watch, but the watch was ticking on my wrist. What exactly is it holding?Is there something so important and worth seeing? I've got my hand between its steaming teeth, and I've got the thing in my hand again.I already recognized what I was holding, but I pretended to be looking for a word to name the thing Lukes had found and brought to me in the rye field. There are certain parts of the human body which can be observed more easily and with greater certainty when they are separated from the body and away from the centre.This is a finger.A woman's finger.a ring finger.A woman's ring finger.Finger of a woman wearing a ring aesthetically.The finger was severed between the metacarpal and the first knuckle, about two centimeters below the ring.The section is clean and clearly discernible, with the tendons of the extensor muscles of the fingers remaining. This is a beautiful, movable finger.The stone of the ring was held in place by six gold prongs, and I said exactly what it was called at once—aquamarine, and it turned out to be true afterwards.There is a very thin part of the ring itself, and it has been worn for a long time, and it has reached the point where it is about to break.From this I deduce that it is an inherited relic.There is dirt under the nails, to be precise, dirt. It seems that this finger has scratched or picked dirt, but judging from the nail caps and trimmed cuts, it gives the impression of being neat and tidy.When I took this finger from the steaming dog's mouth, it gave me a cold feeling, and it was also proved to be cold from its characteristic white and yellowish color.For several months, Oscar had always kept a small gentleman's handkerchief showing a triangle in his left breast pouch.He took out the silk handkerchief, spread it out, and put his ring finger on it. Then he saw that there were many lines on the inner side of the finger up to the third knuckle, which made people infer that this finger was hardworking, motivated, and determined. of. I wrapped my fingers in a handkerchief, stood up from the cable reel, patted Lukes' dog's neck, squeezed the handkerchief and the fingers in the handkerchief with my right hand, and was about to start back to Gersheim, going home, with my heart full With the intention of doing something with this found thing in one way or another, and also walked to the fence of the nearest small vegetable orchard.At this time, Vitra stopped me. He had just been lying on the branch of an apple tree, watching me and the dog who brought something.