The Box: Tales From the Darkroom Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Günter Grass

  Dedication

  Title Page

  LEFTOVERS

  NO FLASH

  MIRACLE-WISE

  GOD-AWFUL MESS

  MAKE A WISH

  LOOKING BACK

  SNAPSHOTS

  CROOKED BUSINESS

  FROM HEAVEN ABOVE

  Copyright

  About the Book

  In this delightful sequel to Peeling the Onion, Günter Grass writes in the voices of his eight children as they record memories of their childhoods, of growing up, of their father, who was always at work on a new book, always at the margins of their lives. Memories contradictory, critical, loving, accusatory – they piece together an intimate picture of this most public of men.

  To say nothing of Marie, Grass’s assistant, a family friend of many years, perhaps even a lover, whose snapshots taken with an old-fashioned Agfa box camera provide the author with ideas for his work. But her images offer much more. They reveals a truth beyond the ordinary details of life, depict the future, tell what might have been, grant the wishes in visual form of those photographed. The children speculate on the nature of this magic: was the enchanted camera a source of inspiration for their father? Did it represent the power of art itself? Was it the eye of God?

  About the Author

  Günter Grass (1927–2015) was Germany’s most celebrated post-war writer. He was a creative artist of remarkable versatility: novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, graphic artist. Grass’s first novel, The Tin Drum, is widely regarded as one of the finest novels of the twentieth century, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.

  ALSO BY GÜNTER GRASS

  The Tin Drum

  Cat and Mouse

  Dog Years

  The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising

  Four Plays

  Speak Out!

  Local Anaesthetic

  From the Diary of a Snail

  Inmarypraise

  In the Egg and Other Poems

  The Flounder

  Meeting at Telgte

  Headbirths

  Drawings and Words 1954–1977

  On Writing and Politics 1967–1983

  Etchings and Words 1972–1982

  The Rat

  Show Your Tongue

  Two States – One Nation?

  The Call of the Toad

  My Century

  Too Far Afield

  Crabwalk

  Peeling the Onion

  In Memory of Maria Rama

  Günter Grass

  The Box

  TALES FROM THE

  DARKROOM

  TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN

  BY

  KRISHNA WINSTON

  Leftovers

  ONCE UPON A time there was a father, who, having grown old in years, called together his sons and daughters—four, five, six, eight in all. For a long time they resisted, but in the end they granted his wish. Now they are seated round a table and all begin to talk at once, all products of their father’s whimsy, using words he has put in their mouths, yet obstinate, too, determined not to spare his feelings despite their love for him. They are still batting around the question: Who’s going to start?

  The first to come along were two-egged twins. For the purposes of this story they will be called Patrick and Georg, nicknamed Pat and Jorsch, though their real names are different. Then a girl arrived to gladden her parents’ hearts; she will answer to Lara. These three children enriched our overpopulated world at a time when the Pill was not yet available, before contraception became the norm and families were planned. Not surprisingly, another child arrived to join the others, unbidden, a gift of capricious chance. The name given him is Thaddeus, but all those seated round the table call him Taddel: Quit your clowning, Taddel! Don’t trip on your shoelaces, Taddel! Come on, Taddel, let’s hear you do your Clueless Rudi number again!

  Although grown-up now, with jobs and families of their own, the daughters and sons speak as if bent on regressing, as if they could capture and hold fast the shadowy outlines of the past, as if time could stand still, as if childhood never ended.

  From the table, distracted glances can be cast out of the window at the rolling landscape to either side of the Elbe-Trave Canal, lined with poplars, trees that are condemned to be cut down in the near future, having been officially categorized as a non-native species.

  In a large pot a hearty stew is steaming, lentils with lamb chops, which the father has set on a low flame to simmer invitingly and seasoned with marjoram. That is how it has always been: father loves to cook for a crowd. Being the provider is what he calls this tendency towards epic generosity. Wielding his ladle equitably, he fills bowl after bowl, each time murmuring one of his sayings, such as Don’t forget that the biblical Esau sold his birthright for a mess of lentils. After the meal he will withdraw to his studio, there to plunge back in time, or he may sit on the garden bench with his wife.

  Outdoors, spring has come. Indoors, the heat is still on. Once they have spooned up their lentils, the siblings can choose between bottled beer and cloudy cider. Lara has brought along photos, which she is trying to organize. Something is still missing: Georg, who answers to Jorsch and has professional training in such matters, hooks up the table microphones, because the father insists on having everything recorded. Jorsch asks the others to test the mikes, and finally declares himself satisfied. From now on, the children have the floor.

  You start, Pat! You’re the eldest.

  You showed up a good ten minutes before Jorsch.

  Oh, all right, whatever. For a long time it was only us. To my mind, four would’ve been plenty, especially since no one thought to ask us whether we wanted to be more than two, three, then four. Even when it was just us twins, we took turns feeling that there were too many of us.

  And later on, Lara, all you wanted was a puppy; I’m sure you would’ve been perfectly content to be the last daughter.

  Which I was, for years, though at times I did long for a little sister, as well as a puppy. Then one actually came along, as not much was happening between our mother and our father, and—I assume—he needed someone else, as in fact she found someone else.

  And because he and the new woman wanted something they could share and decided they could dispense with the Pill, they had you, another girl, named after father’s mother, but now you want to chime in as Lena, the name you’ve picked for yourself.

  No, there’s no rush. You two go first. I can wait. That’s something I’ve had to learn. I’ll get my time in the limelight.

  Pat and Jorsch were almost sixteen, I was thirteen, and Taddel was about nine when we had to get used to a little sister.

  And to having your mother around, too, who brought more children, two more girls.

  But because our father was still restless, he ran out on his new woman, and that left him at a loose end with the book he was working on, and he would crash wherever he could to type away on his Olivetti.

  And while he was roaming, another woman presented him with a girl.

  Our beloved Nana.

  Whom sadly we didn’t get to see till later, much later.

  The king’s youngest daughter …

  Make fun of me if you will! But instead of my real name, I want the name of that doll whose life my papa once described in a long poem in doggerel that begins …

  At any rate, you stayed the youngest. And not long after that father finally settled down, with yet another woman. She brought along you two boys, both younger than Taddel. We’ve decided to call you Jasper and Paul.

&nbs
p; Shouldn’t you ask them whether they even like those names?

  No problem.

  Our real names are completely different, of course …

  … as are yours.

  You were older than Lena and much older than Nana, but family-wise you fitted in, so from then on there were eight of us. Take a look at these pictures—I brought them along especially—here we are, either singly or in various groupings, or here—much later—all of us together …

  … getting bigger and bigger. Here I am, and look at Jorsch’s hair, short, then long, and in this one he’s making faces …

  … or me putting on a show for the camera, looking bored.

  Here’s Lara nuzzling her guinea pig.

  And there’s Taddel moping around in front of the house with his shoelaces trailing.

  There’s Lena, looking sad.

  I bet you’d find pictures exactly like these in most family photo albums. Ordinary snapshots.

  Maybe so, Taddel. But sadly, a lot of photos that were anything but ordinary disappeared at some point, and it’s a real pity, because …

  For instance, the photos of Lara’s dog.

  Or all the shots of me sailing through the air between my papa and my mama on the flying swings, which was something I always secretly wished for. Such a treat.

  Or the photo with Taddel’s guardian angel.

  Or the series showing Paulchen on crutches.

  The fact is, all the ordinary pictures, as well as the ones that disappeared, were taken by good old Marie, because she was the only one who …

  Let me be the one to talk about Mariechen. It began like a fairy tale. Once upon a time there was a photographer. Some called her good old Marie, Taddel called her dear old Marie, but I called her Mariechen. She was part of our patchwork family from the very beginning. Marie was always there, first when we lived in the city, then with you out in the country, also in various places where we went for the holidays, because she clung to father like a burr—that’s how she was—and possibly …

  But also to us, because whenever we wished for something …

  That’s what I’m saying. From the start, when we were only two, then three, then four, she took photos of us or snapped us, whenever father said, Snap away, Marie!

  And when she was in a lousy mood—and she could be moody—she’d say, That’s all I am, your snap-away-Marie!

  But it wasn’t just us children she’d snap. She took on father’s women, one after the other: first our mama, who looks in every picture as if she’s about to leap and pirouette, then Lena’s mother, who always has a pained expression, then the next one, Nana’s mother, who’s forever laughing at god only knows what, and then the last of the four women, Jasper’s and Paulchen’s mother, whose ringlets are often fluttering in the wind …

  And in whose arms our father finally found peace.

  But even if a group portrait with his four strong women was something he wished for—and I have to agree with Jorsch: a picture of him as a pasha surrounded by his harem must have been high on his wish list—Mariechen insisted on taking them on one at a time. Look here: each in her proper place in the sequence.

  But when it came to us, she snapped pictures as if we’d tumbled out of a dice cup. That’s why we have all these photos spread out on the table here, which we can arrange and rearrange—hey there, Nana, stop fooling around with the mike.

  But father also wants us to remember all the snapshots that have gone missing, the images Mariechen created of us once she disappeared with those rolls of film into her darkroom.

  You need to be more precise, Pat: she took photographs with the Leica, and sometimes with the Hasselblad, but the snapshots were all taken with the box. It was the box, nothing but the box, with which she hunted for images father could use to stoke his imagination. And there was something special about that box, even though it was just an old-fashioned box camera, manufactured by Agfa, which also supplied the rolls of Isochrom B2.

  Whether it was the Hasselblad, the Leica, or the box, she always had a camera dangling round her neck.

  They all belonged to my Hans, old Marie would explain to anyone who admired her cameras. More than those he didn’t need.

  But only Pat and Jorsch remember what her Hans looked like. You, Pat, said he was a stocky guy with a knobby forehead. And you, Jorsch, said he always had a cigarette dangling from his lower lip.

  The two of them had their attic studio on the Kurfürstendamm, between Bleibtreustrasse and Uhland. They specialized in studio portraits of actors and long-legged ballerinas. But also fat vice-presidents from Siemens, complete with wives wearing massive rocks round their necks. And then the brats of filthy-rich folks from Dahlem and Zehlendorf. In their expensive gear, they sat at a slight angle to a backdrop, grinning idiotically or trying to look serious.

  Marie was responsible for all the technical stuff—setting up special lights and anything else that had to be done: developing the film, making copies and enlargements, retouching photos to eliminate warts, pimples, lines and wrinkles, double chins, freckles, hairs sprouting on noses.

  All in black and white.

  Colour didn’t exist for her Hans.

  For him, there were only shades of grey.

  We were young in those days, but I can still hear her saying, when she was in the mood, I was the only one who learned all that stuff from the ground up. Even so, my Hans, who was self-taught, was the one who got to shoot all those folks … The darkroom was my department. My Hans hadn’t a clue.

  Sometimes she’d talk about her apprenticeship in Allenstein. She didn’t waste words …

  … that’s a village in the Masurian part of East Prussia, father explained.

  In Polish it’s called Olsztyn now.

  That’s far off in my freezing homeland, Marie always said, way out east. All gone to the dogs.

  Father and mother were very chummy with Hans and Mariechen. They used to sit around drinking a lot and laughing loudly, usually till late at night, telling stories from long ago, when they were young.

  Hans also took pictures of father and mother, in front of a white screen. Always with the Hasselblad or the Leica, never with the Agfa Box No. 54, which was also called Box I and was a huge hit when it first came on the market, till Agfa brought out other models, for instance the Agfa Special with a meniscus lens and …

  When Hans died unexpectedly, he was buried in the Grove Cemetery in Zehlendorf.

  I still remember it. They wouldn’t let a priest come and speak, but lots of birds were singing.

  The sun was shining right in our eyes. Jorsch and I stood on mother’s left, and she stood next to Mariechen. Father was the only one who spoke, over the open grave, about his friend Hans, the black-and-white photographer, and how he’d promised to look after Mariechen, and not only financially.

  He spoke softly at first, then louder.

  And finally father reeled off the names of all the brands of schnapps his friend Hans had enjoyed.

  As you can imagine, the men who’d rolled the coffin out of the chapel and then carried it to the grave—there were four of them, I think—where they lowered it on ropes, worked up quite a thirst as father listed every brand of schnapps, pausing after each one.

  That must have sounded pretty solemn.

  Like an incantation.

  We were squirming; there seemed to be no end in sight.

  Let’s see if I can remember some of them: Pflümli, Himbeergeist, Mirabell, Moselhefe, or something like that.

  One was called Zibärtle—that’s from the Black Forest, near where I live.

  Kirschwasser was another.

  It must have been some time after the Wall went up. We twins were just six then, and you were only two, Lara. You wouldn’t remember a thing.

  And you weren’t even conceived, Taddel.

  It must have been in the autumn. Mushrooms everywhere. Under the trees in the cemetery. Growing singly and in clumps. In the underbrush. Behind gravestones. Father’s always be
en crazy about mushrooms and prides himself on knowing every variety. On the way back from the funeral he scooped up all the ones he thought edible.

  Filled his hat, as I recall.

  And made a pouch out of his handkerchief.

  At home we had them with scrambled eggs.

  As a funeral repast, he’s supposed to have said.

  At the time of Hans’s funeral, we were still living on Karlsbader Strasse, in a semi-ruin, left over after the bombing.

  But when Mariechen found herself all alone in that big studio, she didn’t know what to do. Not till father talked her round—he is good at that—did she start taking pictures for him, first with the Leica, then with the Hasselblad, and eventually with the box, almost exclusively with the box: particular items and objects, like the shells he brought back from his travels, also broken dolls, bent nails, the bare stone wall of a building, snail shells, spiders in their webs, squashed frogs, even dead pigeons that Jorsch dragged home.

  And later on, fish at the outdoor market in Friedenau …

  Also heads of cabbage sliced in half …

  She started snapping those pictures for him while we were still living on Karlsbader Strasse.

  Right. It began when father had that book about dogs and scarecrows in the works. It was far from being finished, but he eventually made so much money from it that he could buy that clinker-brick house in Friedenau for us.

  And then old Marie visited us there on Niedstrasse to snap pictures of all kinds of things for him …

  … and of us kids. As we got bigger, she lined us up in front of her magic wish box. And for me, only for me, when my guinea pig started getting fatter and fatter, she …

  That was later, Lara. Jorsch and I come first, because we …

  I can still see her standing in front of the half-ruined building with her shoulders hunched, the box at waist height, her head bent, as if she were peering into the finder.

  But she always shot by feel, often looking in a different direction entirely.

  And she had this weird haircut. A bob, father called it.