Chapter 10 Chapter 10

At the start of the new year I was going to start violin lessons—my brother had left a violin—but instead we were assigned to the Air Defense Service.Although Father Alban is still trying to persuade me to learn the violin, it is obviously too late now.He also often encouraged me to write cat and mouse stories: "Dear Pilenz, sit down and write. Judging from your first Kafkaesque poems and short stories, your writing Or ingenuity: Whether playing the piano or writing, God will give you enough talent after careful consideration." ① refers to 1943. ②Student organizations serving anti-aircraft artillery positions during wartime.

We were taken in by the Seaside Artillery Connection and settled in the Bresen-Greitkau Artillery Training Camp. In front of camp are sand dunes, swaying oats and a gravel path.Our shack smelled of tar, smelly socks, and eelweed mattresses.There are endless stories to tell about the daily life of air defense attendants, middle school students in military uniform. Every morning, they listen to the gray-haired teacher's lectures in the usual popular way, and in the afternoon they recite the gunner's operating commands and the secrets of projectile movement.However, this is neither my story, nor Horten Thorntak's childish story, nor Schilling's dull story - it can only be told here; Joachim Jim Mark had never been an air defense attendant.

At the same time, students from the Holst Wessel Secondary School were also trained at the seaside artillery camp in Bresen-Greitkau. They inadvertently provided us with new material, but did not engage in further conversations with us about cat and mouse. "Just after Christmas, he enlisted in the Youth Volunteer Army. The school gave him a diploma in advance. In fact, he never worried about the exam. He is much more experienced than us. It is said that they A detachment is stationed on the Tuchel Heath, probably digging peat. There must be a lot going on there, where the partisans hang out."

① The German Nazi authorities required young people aged 18 to 25 to participate in compulsory labor for half a year. This group of young people was called the Youth Volunteer Labor Army. ② Tuchel Wasteland is located 90 kilometers south of Danzig.In the early days of the war, it was an area where Polish resistance groups frequently operated. In February, I visited Esch at the Air Force Field Hospital in the Oliwa district, where he was hospitalized with a broken collarbone.He wanted to smoke, and I brought him some; he responded with sticky liqueur.I didn't stay long in the hospital.On my way to the terminus of the tramway to Gretkau, I made a detour to the Palace Gardens to see if the wonderful old Echoing Grottoes were still there.They remain the same.The mountain infantrymen who are recuperating are conducting field experiments with the female nurses: they lie on both sides of the porous rocks and whisper and laugh.I couldn't find anyone to talk to, so I walked down a path full of trees on both sides in a sad mood.The dense branches covered the top of the path, making it look like a tunnel; there were no leaves on the trees, and no birds could be seen.The path leads straight from Palace Pond and Echo Grotto to Tsopot Avenue.Its front is getting narrower and narrower, which is almost worrying.Two female nurses came towards me, followed by a jolly lame second lieutenant.Then came two old grandmothers and a boy about three years old; the little boy didn't want to chatter with the old grandmothers, and had a children's toy drum hanging on his chest, but he didn't beat it.Finally, at the end of the tunnel of gray, bare branches, a figure appeared, growing larger: I met Mark.

① refers to Oscar? Matzerath. The unexpected encounter was embarrassing for both of us.Approaching face-to-face on the garden path, with its tangle of branches stretching skyward, with no forks to be found, conjured up a depressingly dignified mood.The fate of the French garden architect and the rococo artistic imagination lead us to a point where I have avoided, to this day, court gardens with no exit, designed on the ideas of good old Le Nôtre. ①Le Notre (1613～1700), a French garden architect, once designed the gardens of Versailles, St. Germain and Fontainebleau. Of course, we found the topic right away.I kept staring at his hat as he spoke.Marc wore the same cap as the rest of the Youth Volunteer Army.It was a strangely ugly hat: the crown rose disproportionately from the brim, and the whole body was the color of dried excrement. So close together that an elastic pleat extruded, it's no wonder that the uniform cap of the Youth Volunteer Army got a nickname: buttocks with handles.This kind of hat looks especially funny on Mark's head.Although he had to give up staying in the middle school after joining the Youth Volunteer Labor Army, the division on his head has improved a bit because of this.

The two of us stood face to face among the thorn bushes, as if stripped of our bodies.The little rascal now came back thumping on the children's tin drum--grandmother was gone--he made a charming arc around us, and then walked to the end of the wooded path with heavy drumbeats. the end. Before we parted hastily, I also asked him some questions about the guerrilla warfare in the Hull Wasteland, the meals of the youth volunteer army, and whether there were girl volunteer labor troops stationed near them, etc. Mark only answered a few words casually.I also wondered what he was doing in the Oliva district, and whether he had visited Priest Gusevsky.He told me that the food there was decent, but he hadn't heard of any girl volunteer laborers nearby.He thought the legends about guerrilla warfare were exaggerated, but they were by no means superficial.This time, he was appointed by the lieutenant's captain to come to Oliwa District to buy some accessories, and he was on a two-day business trip. "After morning prayers today, I had a few words with Gusevsky." He continued, with a gesture of displeasure, "he's the same, let him be!" We started moving. , the distance between the two is getting bigger and bigger.

No, I didn't look back at him.Don't believe me?However, the statement "Mark did not look back at me" is beyond doubt.I did look back many times, because no one came up to me to be helped, not even the little rascal who was banging on the toy drum. Later, I haven't seen you for a long time, and it will be more than a year after calculation.Still, not seeing you then or now in no way means I forget you and the symmetry you strive for.Besides, there are always traces of you: if I see a cat, be it gray, black, or flowery, the mouse is immediately before my eyes again.However, I have been hesitant, undecided whether to protect the little mouse, or instigate the cat to catch the mouse.

We lived in the Seaside Battery until the summer and played endless games of handball.On Sundays when family members came to visit, we rolled around in the grass of the sand dunes by the sea with the girls who often came and their sisters, either skillfully or awkwardly.I always get nothing every time, and to this day I still haven't got rid of this weakness of indecision and self-ashamedness.What else?Distributing mint roll candy, conducting common sense education on sexually transmitted diseases, teaching "Herman and Dorothea" in the morning①, practicing the Type 98 carbine in the afternoon②, exchanging letters, four-flavored jam, and singing competitions. Go up the shipwreck, where you can often meet groups of lower-grade boys who have gradually grown up.There will be some conflicts between us.As we swam back we could never figure out what it was that had kept us fascinated for three summers by the guano-covered wreck.Later, we were assigned to the 88mm anti-aircraft battery in the Pelonken district, and soon we were transferred to the artillery company in the Chitonkenberg district.There had been three or four raid sirens, and our company had shot down a four-engine bomber.However, starting in the company clerk's office, for several weeks someone insisted that the enemy plane hit by chance - in the meantime, we continued to eat rolls, discuss "Hermann and Dorothea", and practice how to salute .

① "Hermann and Dorothea" (1798) is a long love poem by Goethe. ② Type 98 carbine, a carbine with automatic ejection and continuous shooting. Horten Sontak and Esch joined the Youth Volunteer Army before me, and both of them volunteered.I was always hesitating about which branch to join, which delayed my registration.In February 1944, along with most of my classmates, I took a fairly formal graduation examination in a makeshift classroom, and shortly thereafter I was notified to join the Youth Volunteer Army.I had left the Air Defense Service by this time and had a full two weeks free.I'd like to do some other deal besides my high school diploma and get someone to hang on to me.Naturally, the first thing to do was to go to Tulla Pokriefke. She was sixteen or seventeen years old, and she almost never refused any man.However, I was unlucky and didn't even get Horten Sontak's sister.With a broken heart—relieved a little by a letter from a cousin whose family had been bombed by planes and relocated to Silesia—I took my farewell to Priest Gusevsky and promised to celebrate Mass for him on my return from furlough at the front. .Before parting, he gave me a new edition of Sauter and a small bronze crucifix—a special gift for Catholic conscripts.On my way home, I bumped into Mark's aunt at the intersection of Bear and Strand.She always wears a pair of glasses with thick lenses on the street, and no one can avoid her eyes.

① Sauter (1843-1896), a German Catholic monk, once compiled a widely circulated "Catholic Missal", commonly known as "Sauter". Before we could even greet each other, she babbled on and on like a country folk.If someone approached, she would grab my shoulders and put her mouth close to one of my ears.Warm words accompanied by soft wind and drizzle. She started talking about insignificant things, such as purchasing experience: "What used to be supplied with a certificate is no longer available." I learned from her: onions are out of stock again, and there are still more Brown sugar and barley (mecha) were available, and the Allwey country butcher had some canned fried pork—"all pure pork."Although I didn't prompt a word, she finally got down to business: "This kid is doing well now. Although he didn't write that in the letter, he never complained about anything. He is just like his father, my brother-in-law. Exactly the same. He's in the tank corps now, and he's much more active there than in the infantry, even if it's windy or rainy."

①In the novel, the Matzerath family once engaged in the business of selling agricultural and sideline products produced in the colonies. Her whispers entered my ears.I learned about Mark's new invention—he scribbled pictures under the signature of every letter he sent from the front like a schoolboy. "He never drew when he was a child, and only learned a little watercolor painting when he was in school. I have his last letter in my pocket, no, it's all crumpled. Do you know, Mr. Pilenz, many people Missing him." As Mark's aunt said, she handed me the letter Mark wrote from the front: "You can read it." However, I didn't read it.The letter was pinched between my ungloved fingers.From the Max Halberplatz came a whirlwind, howling and unstoppable.My heart suddenly jumped like a heel on the ground, and I could almost kick the door open.Seven brothers spoke in my heart one after another, but none of them was willing to write down what they said.Although the snowflakes were flying and the gray-brown letter paper was of poor texture, the handwriting on the letter was clearly legible.To be honest, I knew right away what was going on, but I just stared blankly and didn't want to see what was written in the letter.Before I could hold the rustling letter in front of my eyes, I knew that Marc was at it again: under the neat Zutlin font, crooked lines formed a sketch.Thirteen or four flat circles of different sizes are arranged in a row, which is not neat due to the lack of bottom line; each circle has a breast-like bulge on top, and a small stick about the length of a thumbnail protrudes from the bulge , towering over the circle and rising towards the upper left corner of the stationery.Almost all of these tanks—despite the poor sketches I recognized at a glance as Soviet T34 tanks③—have a small mark between the turret and the hull: a small bullet indicating where the bullet was shot. .The artist considered that there might be some unresponsive people among the people who read this sketch, so he also used blue pencils to stand out on the fourteen T34 tanks drawn with pencils—the total number is about the same. It is marked with a big fork that exceeds the size of the tank. ① Alluding to the fairy tale "Seven Crows" by the Brothers Grimm.The seven brothers all turned into crows, and their little sister traveled all over the world, and finally rescued them in the magical Crystal Mountain. ② Zutlin font is a writing font invented by the German printmaker Zeitlin (1865～1917). Since 1915, it has been taught in primary and secondary schools in German-speaking countries. ③T34 tank, a tank mainly used by the Soviet Army in World War II. I smugly told Mark's aunt that the letter clearly showed the tank being shot by Joachim.Mark's aunt didn't seem surprised at all when she heard this, as many people had probably told her about it. What she didn't understand was why the number of tanks increased and decreased. In one letter, only eight tanks were drawn, while in the previous letter there were as many as twenty-seven. "No wonder, the post office is always so inaccurate these days. Herr Pilenz, you should really read what our Joachim wrote. He also mentioned you in his letter and talked about About the white candles—we've got some now." I squinted quickly at the letter: Marc asked about his mother and aunt with deep concern, especially about the veins. Varicose and low back pain—most of the letters concerned these two women.He also wanted to know about the situation in the garden: "Is the plum tree still fruitful this year? How is my cactus growing?" There are only a few words mentioned in the letter about what he considers to be an intense and responsible official business. : "Of course we also have losses, but the Virgin Mary will protect me forever." Then, he entrusted his mother and aunt to ask Priest Gusevsky to offer a stick in front of the altar of the Virgin or—if possible— - Two candles: "Maybe Pilenz can get it, they have a ration card." He also asked them to ask the Virgin Mary's second-degree nephew, St. Genealogy - praying and saying a Mass for his sadly deceased father, "who left us without anointing".At the end of the letter, he mentioned some trivial things, and the words describing the local customs were really bland: "You can hardly imagine how bad everything is here. The adults and children are poor and pitiful. There were no lights, no running water.Sometimes people can't help but ask what the point of war is - and yet, that may be the only way to go.If you are interested and catch up with the good weather, you might as well take the tram to Bresen - you must dress warmly - look, on the left side of the harbor entrance, not too far from the shore is It's not that you can still see the bridge of a sunken ship.A shipwreck once lay there, visible to the naked eye.Doesn't my aunt have a pair of glasses?I really want to know, is it still "① St. Judas Datai, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, is not the same person as the Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. I said to Mark's aunt: "You don't need to go at all, the shipwreck is still lying in the same place. If you write to Joachim again, please send him my regards. Let him rest assured that everything here is the same , the sunken ship will not be stolen easily." Even if the Xishao Shipyard stole it, in other words, even if the shipyard salvaged it and treated it as scrap iron or refurbished it, would you be saved?Are you going to stop childishly drawing Soviet tanks on letters from the front and crossing them out with a blue pencil?Who would dispose of the Virgin Mary as waste?And who would cast the spell and turn that historic high school into bird food?How will the story of cat and mouse continue?Will the story of the world have an end?