Read Online The Safety Net by Heinrich Böll - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Heinrich Böll
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could know his thoughts. Who could assess and predict the susceptibility of this sensitive, emotional man? No doubt he had enough knowledge of anatomy to apply a throttling grip in the bathtub that would leave no trace and make his death appear the result of his notorious frailty. The holding open of the door had made him suspicious since till then Blurtmehl had taken scrupulous care to let him do certain things for himself: open doors, light cigarettes, and certain unavoidable manipulations on the toilet. After all, he had known Kortschede, too, for over twenty years: that man of fine limbs and fine mind who ruled with quiet ceremony over banks and newsprint, steel and real estate, and yet permitted the whisperings of his beloved Horst to be monitored.
“All right, I’m coming,” he said. Smiling, he thought: No, not today, certainly not today.
2
In the end she had allowed Miss Blum to go off with Kit for the milk after all, though she knew she didn’t need it anymore and wouldn’t be taking it with her. Kit insisted on this ritual, also on carrying the milk pitcher, which, of course, was empty and would only be full on the return trip, when the four kilos would get too heavy for her. She loved the cows, the smell of the stable, and for Miss Blum it was a welcome excuse for a chat with the Beeretzes, who were about her age, sixtyish, and somehow related, and there was always plenty to talk about, from the past, present, and future: Blorr in ten or twenty years, if bungalows and roads went on being built at this rate. They were still trying to guess who among the thirty-four eligible voters might have actually voted for the Socialist Party: seven people, and it always boiled down to the newcomers who had rented the old vicarage and fixed it up, a nice couple but a bit of a mystery, they seemed Liberal but almost certainly didn’t vote Liberal: the Blömers, he was an architect, she was an attorney, with grown-up children, four cars, and her brother, who didn’tseem to do anything much, just worked a bit on the house and in the garden, smoked a pipe—seven exactly if you counted the children of voting age. The main thing was that there was plenty to talk about, and fetching the milk would take at least half an hour, or even longer, she hoped: she wanted some time to herself before Mama, before Käthe, arrived, wanted to say goodbye to Blorr, and found herself thinking about the milk: would Erwin be drinking it, would Miss Blum use it to make a dessert for him, or let it stand and thicken?—those last two of the many liters of milk they had fetched from the Beeretz farm: every day for five years, two a day, it must run into thousands.
She was too strung up to figure it out; besides, the fear had returned, rising this time from below, seeming to rise from her feet, heating her calves, blocking bladder and kidneys, creeping over her breast like a heavy, hot cloud, into her head; at other times it moved down from above, beginning in her head, sinking down, and Grebnitzer, whom Father still swore by, was still inclined to think that this was all due to her pregnancy. Of course the fear had to do with the pregnancy, yet these were not pregnancy symptoms; this was no longer the daily, familiar fear that they would kidnap Kit, and herself as well, or herself, or Erwin, or that they would simply do away with all three of them (she imagined someone drawing a line through their pictures and writing underneath: “Done”); it was no longer that intangible yet very real fear, it was quite different—palpable, tangible—and she couldn’t talk to anybody about it. There was no room inside her for two fears of such dimensions, so the tangible fear had supplanted the intangible one: for the past three months, ever since she had known positively that she was pregnant, and not by Erwin. In the four months before that Erwin had not once had contact with her in any way that could have caused the pregnancy.
Sometimes, yes, she did
“All right, I’m coming,” he said. Smiling, he thought: No, not today, certainly not today.
2
In the end she had allowed Miss Blum to go off with Kit for the milk after all, though she knew she didn’t need it anymore and wouldn’t be taking it with her. Kit insisted on this ritual, also on carrying the milk pitcher, which, of course, was empty and would only be full on the return trip, when the four kilos would get too heavy for her. She loved the cows, the smell of the stable, and for Miss Blum it was a welcome excuse for a chat with the Beeretzes, who were about her age, sixtyish, and somehow related, and there was always plenty to talk about, from the past, present, and future: Blorr in ten or twenty years, if bungalows and roads went on being built at this rate. They were still trying to guess who among the thirty-four eligible voters might have actually voted for the Socialist Party: seven people, and it always boiled down to the newcomers who had rented the old vicarage and fixed it up, a nice couple but a bit of a mystery, they seemed Liberal but almost certainly didn’t vote Liberal: the Blömers, he was an architect, she was an attorney, with grown-up children, four cars, and her brother, who didn’tseem to do anything much, just worked a bit on the house and in the garden, smoked a pipe—seven exactly if you counted the children of voting age. The main thing was that there was plenty to talk about, and fetching the milk would take at least half an hour, or even longer, she hoped: she wanted some time to herself before Mama, before Käthe, arrived, wanted to say goodbye to Blorr, and found herself thinking about the milk: would Erwin be drinking it, would Miss Blum use it to make a dessert for him, or let it stand and thicken?—those last two of the many liters of milk they had fetched from the Beeretz farm: every day for five years, two a day, it must run into thousands.
She was too strung up to figure it out; besides, the fear had returned, rising this time from below, seeming to rise from her feet, heating her calves, blocking bladder and kidneys, creeping over her breast like a heavy, hot cloud, into her head; at other times it moved down from above, beginning in her head, sinking down, and Grebnitzer, whom Father still swore by, was still inclined to think that this was all due to her pregnancy. Of course the fear had to do with the pregnancy, yet these were not pregnancy symptoms; this was no longer the daily, familiar fear that they would kidnap Kit, and herself as well, or herself, or Erwin, or that they would simply do away with all three of them (she imagined someone drawing a line through their pictures and writing underneath: “Done”); it was no longer that intangible yet very real fear, it was quite different—palpable, tangible—and she couldn’t talk to anybody about it. There was no room inside her for two fears of such dimensions, so the tangible fear had supplanted the intangible one: for the past three months, ever since she had known positively that she was pregnant, and not by Erwin. In the four months before that Erwin had not once had contact with her in any way that could have caused the pregnancy.
Sometimes, yes, she did
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