The strangest thing was how these two worlds touched each other, how close to each other they were! For example, our maid Lina, when she sat with her freshly washed hands resting on the apron she had smoothed down on her lap, praying by the door of our living room and joining her bright voice to our song, belonged completely to Mother and Father, to we who lived in the world of light and truth. The next moment, in the kitchen or the barn, when she told me the story of the little man with no head, or fought with the neighbor women at the butcher shop, she was someone else and a part of the other world, and was shrouded in mystery. That's how it was with everyone, most of all myself. Of course I was part of the bright and true world--I was my parents' child--but wherever I turned my eye or ear the other world was always there, and I lived in the other world too, even though it often felt like I didn't belong there, in the spooky realm of fear and bad conscience. At times I even liked the forbidden world best, and often my return to the light, as good and necessary as it might be, felt almost like a turn toward something less beautiful, less exciting, more desolate and dreary. Sometimes I knew that my goal in life was to turn into someone like my father and my mother: so bright and pure, so superior and harmonious. But it was a long, long way to that goal, and along that way you had to sit quietly in school and study and take tests and pass exams, and all the while the path ran right past the other, darker world, or through it, and it was by no means impossible to stay in it, drown in it. There were stories of the lost boys, prodigal sons, that this had happened to, and I read them avidly. The return to the father, to what was good, was always such a magnificent liberation in these stories--I was perfectly aware that this was the only right and good and desirable outcome; but still, the part of the story that took place among the lost and evil souls was always much more exciting, and, if it were only possible to admit it, it was sometimes actually rather a shame that the lost soul had to repent and be found again. But that was something you didn't say, and didn't even think. It was just there, somehow, as a hunch or a possibility buried deep, deep down in your feelings. When I imagined the devil, I could see him perfectly well on the street down the hill, in disguise or not, or at the fair, or in a pub--but never with us at home.
My sisters were also part of the brightly lit world. I often felt they were naturally more like Father and Mother than I was--more well-behaved, more perfect, better. They had their faults, and bad habits, but ones that never ran very deep, I felt. Not like with me, where any contact with evil was so painful and difficult, and where the dark world seemed to lie so much closer. Sisters, like parents, were there to take care of and respect, and whenever you fought with them it was always you that your conscience said was the bad one, the cause of the problem, the one who had to ask for forgiveness, because to offend your sisters was to offend your parents, the benevolent authority figures. There were secrets I could share with the worst delinquents from the street much more readily than with my sisters. On good days, when the air was bright and my conscience was clear, I was often delighted to play with my sisters, to behave well with them and see myself in a good, noble light. That was what life must be like as an angel! That was the highest state we could imagine, and we thought how sweet and wonderful it would be to be angels, wrapped in a bright clear sound and smell like Christmas and happiness. But oh, how rare such good days were! Many times, even when playing a harmless, permitted game, I played with too much passion and force for my sisters, which led to accidents, or fights, and then, when anger and rage came over me, I was horrible and said and did things whose depravity I could feel, deep and burning, even while I was doing and saying them. Then came dark and bitter hours of regret and remorse, and then the painful moment when I asked for forgiveness, and then again a beam of bright light--quiet, grateful, harmonious happiness for a few more hours, or minutes.
I was a student in the Latin school, with the mayor's son and head forester's son in my class. They would come over to my house sometimes; they were wild boys, yet they belonged to the good, unforbidden world. But I also did things with neighborhood boys from the public school, boys we otherwise looked down on. It is with one of them that my story begins.
One afternoon that we had off from school--I was a little over ten years old--I was exploring with two boys from the neighborhood. Then a bigger kid came up to us, a tailor's son, rowdy and strong, thirteen years old, from the public school. His father was a drinker and the whole family had a bad reputation. I knew a lot about him, this Franz Kromer; I was afraid of him, and I was not happy that he was joining us. He already affected the behavior of a grown man, imitating how the factory workers walked and talked. We followed his lead and climbed down to the riverbank next to the bridge, hiding away from the world under the first arch. The narrow strip of shore between the bridge's bulging wall and the sluggishly flowing river was covered with nothing but garbage, rubble, and junk--tangled heaps of rusted steel wire and the like. Every so often you could find something usable there; Franz Kromer made us search with him and show him whatever we found. Then he would either put it in his pocket or throw it far out into the river. He told us to keep an eye out for anything made of lead, brass, or tin, which he always kept; he pocketed an old ivory comb too. I felt uneasy around him, not because I knew that my father would have forbidden what we were doing, but because I was afraid of Franz himself. Still, I was glad he accepted me and treated me like the others. He ordered and we obeyed, as though out of long-standing custom, even though this was the first time I was with him.
Eventually, we sat down on the ground. Franz spat into the water, looking like a man; he spat between a gap in his teeth and could hit anything he wanted. A conversation started, and the boys started bragging and complimenting themselves on all kinds of schoolboy heroics and pranks they had pulled off. I kept quiet, but I was afraid I would stand out for just that reason and draw Kromer's anger. My two companions had gone over to his side from the start and kept their distance from me; I was the outsider, and I felt that my clothes and my whole way of acting was a kind of challenge to them. As a student at the Latin school and the son of a well-to-do father, there was no way Franz could possibly like me, and I felt sure that the other two would abandon me without a second thought, if it ever came to that.
Finally, out of sheer fear, I began to talk too. I made up a grand story about robbers, with myself as the hero. One night, I said, in an orchard by the corner mill, I had stolen a whole sack of apples with a friend, and no ordinary apples either, but the best kinds, Reine de Reinettes and Golden Pearmains. I sought refuge from my dangerous situation in this story; making up and telling stories came quickly and easily to me. Then, so I wouldn't have to stop so soon and possibly end up in an even worse predicament, I gave my talent full rein: One of us, I said, had had to keep watch the whole time while the other was in the tree tossing down the apples, and in the end the sack had gotten so heavy that we had to leave half the apples behind, but half an hour later we came back for the rest.
When I was done I expected them to show their approval. I had warmed up by the end and was intoxicated with my own imagination. The two younger boys said nothing, waiting to see how Franz Kromer reacted, while he just gave me a penetrating look with half-squinting eyes then asked me in a threatening voice: "Is that true?"
"Of course," I said.
"Really and truly?"
"Yes, really and truly," I insisted, while on the inside I was choking with fear.
"Would you swear to it?"
I was terrified, but I instantly said Yes.
"Say: By God and everything holy."
I said: "By God and everything holy."
"All right then," he said, and he turned away.
I thought everything had turned out all right, and I was glad when, before long, he stood up and started back. When we were on the bridge I said timidly that I had to go home now.
"There's no hurry," Fritz said with a laugh. "We're going the same way."
He slowly strolled on, a
nd I didn't dare to run off, but he really was walking the way to our house. When we got there, when I saw our front door and its thick brass handle, the sun in the windows and the curtains in my mother's room, I breathed a deep sigh. Back home! Oh, the good, the blessed return to our house, to brightness and peace!
I quickly opened the door and slipped inside and was about to shut the door behind me when Franz Kromer pushed his way in. In the cool, dim, tiled hallway, with no light except what came in from the courtyard, he stood in front of me, grabbed my arm, and said softly: "Not so fast, you!"
I looked at him, frightened. His grip on my arm was like iron. I tried to imagine what he might have in mind, whether he wanted to hurt me. If I screamed now, I thought, a loud strong scream, would someone from up there get down here quickly enough to save me? But I didn't do it.
"What?" I asked. "What do you want?"
"Nothing much. I just need to ask you something. The others don't need to hear it."
"Well? What do you want me to tell you? I have to go upstairs, you know."
"You do know who the fruit orchard next to the mill belongs to, don't you?" Franz said quietly.
"No, I don't know. The miller, I think."
Franz had put his arm around me, and he pulled me right up to his face so that I had to look into it from close up. His eyes were evil, he smiled a nasty smile, and his face was full of cruelty and power.
"Well, my boy, I can tell you whose orchard it is. I've known for a long time that someone had stolen his apples, and I also know that he said he would give two marks to anyone who told him who'd taken them."
"My God!" I cried. "You won't tell him, will you?"
I could see there was no point appealing to his sense of honor. He was from the other world: for him, betrayal was not a crime. I felt this perfectly clearly. In such matters, people from the "other" world were not like us.
"Not tell him?" Kromer laughed. "Who do you think I am, my friend, some kind of counterfeiter who can make a two-mark coin for myself? I'm poor. I don't have a rich father like you. If I can get two marks I have to do it. Maybe he'll even give me more."
He suddenly let go of me. Our front hall no longer smelled of peace and security--the world was collapsing around me. He would report me, I was a criminal, they would tell my father, maybe even the police would come. All the terrors of chaos threatened me; everything ugly and dangerous had been called up against me. The fact that I hadn't actually stolen any apples meant absolutely nothing--I had sworn the opposite. My God, my God!
Tears came to my eyes. I felt I had to buy my way free, and I desperately searched through my pockets. No apple, no pocket knife--nothing there. Then I thought of my watch. It was an old silver watch that didn't work; I wore it "just because." It had been our grandmother's. I quickly pulled it out of my pocket.
"Kromer, listen," I said, "you can't turn me in, that wouldn't be right. I'll give you my watch here, look, I'm sorry but I don't have anything else. You can have it, it's made of silver, the works are good, there's just a little something wrong with it, it needs to be fixed."
He smiled and took the watch in his large hand. I looked at that hand and could feel how savage and deeply hostile to me it was, how it was reaching out for my life and my peace.
"It's silver. . . ." I said timidly.
"What do I care about your silver or your old watch!" he said contemptuously. "Go fix it yourself!"
"But Franz," I cried, trembling with fear that he might run off. "Wait a minute! Take the watch! It's really made of silver, really and truly. And I don't have anything else."
He looked at me coolly, scornfully.
"Well then, you know who I'm going to have to pay a visit to. Or I could tell the police, I know the sergeant."
He turned to go. I held him back by the sleeve. He couldn't! I would rather die than face everything that would happen if he left like that.
"Franz!" I begged, my voice hoarse. "Don't do anything silly! You're just playing, right?"
"Sure, I'm playing, but this game might get expensive for you."
"Tell me what I can do, Franz! I'll do anything!"
He sized me up with his squinty eyes and laughed again.
"Don't be so stupid!" he said in a fake-cheery voice. "You know as well as I do. I could get two marks for telling, and I'm not a rich man, I can't just throw away two marks. You know that. But you're rich, you even have a watch. So you just need to give me the two marks, then everything will be fine."
I could understand the logic, but two marks! That was as unattainable for me as ten, or a hundred, or a thousand. I didn't have any money. There was a piggy bank that my mother kept, with a couple five-or ten-cent coins inside from visiting uncles. Other than that I had nothing. I had not started to get an allowance at that age.
"I don't have anything," I said sadly. "No money at all. I'll give you everything else I have. A cowboy and Indian book, and soldiers, and a compass--I'll go get them."
Kromer just sneered with his arrogant, wicked mouth and spat on the floor.
"Enough with your babbling!" he ordered. "You can keep your junk. A compass! Don't make me mad, you hear? I want the money!"
"But I don't have any, I never get any money. There's nothing I can do about it!"
"Well tomorrow you'll bring me the two marks. I'll wait for you after school down by the market. Period. If you don't bring the money, you'll see what happens!"
"Yes, but, where can I get it? Good God, if I don't have any--"
"That's your problem. There's money in your house. So, tomorrow after school. And I'm telling you, if you don't have it. . . ." He looked me in the eye with a terrible look, spat one more time, and was gone like a shadow.
*
I could not go upstairs. My life was ruined. I thought about running away and never coming back, or drowning myself, but only vaguely. I sat down in the dark on the bottom step of our stairway, crawled deep inside myself, and gave myself over to my misery. Lina found me crying there when she came downstairs with the basket to fetch wood.
I asked her not to say anything to the others and went upstairs. On the rack next to the glass doors hung my father's hat and my mother's parasol--domestic tenderness streamed forth from these things and my heart went out to them, pleading and grateful, like the prodigal son when he first saw and smelled his old rooms back home. But none of it was mine anymore, it was all the clear, bright Father-and-Mother-world while I had sunk deeply and guiltily into the other flood, tangled in sin and adventure and threatened by enemies, with no hope of anything but danger, fear, and shame. The hat and the parasol, the good old sandstone floor, the large picture above the hall closet, the voice of my older sister coming from the living room--they were all dearer, all more precious and delicate than ever, but no longer any consolation or safely in my possession, just accusations and reproaches. None of it was mine anymore--I no longer had any part in its quiet good cheer. I had dirt on my feet that I couldn't scrape off on the mat; I carried with me a shadow that the world of home knew nothing about. I had already had so many secrets, been so often scared, but compared to what I had brought home with me today, those were all just fun and games. Now destiny was pursuing me; hands were reaching out for me that my mother could not protect me from, she must never even find out about them. Whether my crime was stealing or lying (had I not sworn a false oath by God and everything holy?)--that made no difference. My sin was not this or that in particular, my sin was that I had reached out my hand to the devil. Why had I gone with him? Why had I listened to Kromer more obediently than I did to my father? Why had I lied and made up that story about stealing the apples? Boasted about a crime as though it were a great accomplishment? Now I was hand in hand with the devil; now the enemy was right behind me.
For a moment I wasn't afraid of what would happen tomorrow, but mainly of the terrible certain truth that my path now led farther and farther down into darkness. I could sense with perfect clarity that my misdeed would necessarily give r
ise to new misdeeds, and that showing my face to my sisters, hugging and kissing my parents, would now be a lie--I now carried within me a destiny and a secret that I had to keep hidden.
I felt a burst of hope and trust for a moment when I saw my father's hat. I would tell him everything, accept his judgment and his punishment, and make him my confessor and savior. It would just be a penance like the many I had been through before--a hard, bitter hour and a hard, regretful plea for forgiveness.
How sweet that sounded! How beautiful and tempting it was! But it was no use. I knew I wouldn't do it. I knew I now had a secret, a guilt, that I had to expiate alone. Maybe this was the very moment I was at the crossroads: maybe it was from now on that I would belong on the side of the bad, for ever and ever, share secrets with evil people, depend on them, obey them, and have no choice but to be one of them. I had pretended to be a man and a hero, and now I had to bear the consequences.
I was glad my father was angry about my wet shoes when I walked in the room. It was a distraction; he didn't notice anything worse, and it was easy enough to accept a criticism that I secretly transferred onto other offenses. With this, the flicker of a strange new feeling rose up within me, wicked, barbed, and stinging: I felt superior to my father! I felt, for a moment, a kind of contempt for his ignorance of the truth, and his scolding me about my wet shoes seemed petty. "If you only knew!" I thought, and I felt like a criminal being questioned about a stolen bread roll when actually he had committed a murder. It was an ugly, repellent feeling, but it was strong, and there was something deeply exciting about it. And it created a tighter bond between myself and my guilty secret than anything else had. Maybe Kromer has already gone to the police and reported me, I thought, maybe the storm clouds are already gathering over my head while here they're treating me like a little child!