Cat and Mouse by Gunter Grass

Author:Gunter Grass [Grass, Gunter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-11-05T20:16:02+00:00

Chapter

VIII

The investigation dragged on, ruining our Saturday afternoon and bringing no results. I remember few details and those are hardly worth talking about, for I had to keep an eye on Mahlke and his necktie, whose knot he periodically tried to push up higher; but for Mahlke's purposes a hook would have been needed. No, you were beyond help.

But what of the lieutenant commander? The question seems hardly worth asking, but it can be answered in few words. He was not present at the afternoon investigation, and it may well have been true, as unconfirmed rumors had it, that he spent the afternoon with his fiancée, looking through the city's three or four medal shops. Somebody in our class claimed to have seen him on Sunday at the Four Seasons Café, sitting with his fiancée and her parents, and allegedly nothing was missing between his collarbones: the visitors to the café may have noticed, with a certain awe, who was sitting there in their midst, trying his well-mannered best to cut the recalcitrant cake of the third war year with a fork.

I didn't go to the café that Sunday. I had promised Father Gusewski to serve as his altar boy at early Mass. Shortly after seven Mahlke came in with his bright necktie and was unable, despite the aid of the usual five little old women, to dispel the emptiness of the former gymnasium. He received communion as usual on the outer left. The previous evening, immediately after the investigation at school, he must have come to St. Mary's Chapel and confessed; or perhaps, for one reason or another, you whispered into Father Wiehnke's ear at the Church of the Sacred Heart.

Gusewski kept me, inquired after my brother, who was fighting in Russia, or maybe he had stopped fighting, for there had been no news of him for several weeks. Once again I had ironed and starched all the altar covers and the alb, and it is perfectly possible that he gave me a roll or two of raspberry drops; what I know for sure is that Mahlke was gone when I left the sacristy. He must have been one car ahead of me. On Max-Halbe-Platz I boarded the trailer of a No. 9 car. Schilling jumped on at Magdeburger Strasse after the car had gathered considerable speed. We spoke of something entirely different. Maybe I offered him some of Father Gusewski's raspberry drops. Between Saspe Manor and Saspe Cemetery, we overtook Hotten Sonntag. He was riding a lady's bicycle and carrying the little Pokriefke girl astraddle on the baggage rack. The spindly little thing's thighs were still as smooth as frogs' legs, but she was no longer flat all over. The wind showed that her hair had grown longer.

We had to wait at the Saspe siding for the car coming from the opposite direction, and Hotten Sonntag and Tulla passed us. At the Brösen stop the two of them were waiting. The bicycle was leaning against a waste-paper basket provided by the beach administration.

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