Panorama (19 page)

Whoever wants to get to the courtyard from The Box has to use the main staircase, because the side staircase is always closed, the courtyard a huge square full of dull yellow sandy gravel raked smooth every day, which is why there are no flowers or grass, but there are trees that stand in three rows with tall, doleful trunks, two of them located at right angles to the third on the courtyard side of the main building, benches running the length of them as in a park, though the fourth side has no trees at all. On that side is the gymnasium, which is closed during recess, as it is used only for instructional classes, and it is opened for special events, usually in fall, when on one Sunday a big festival is held. That’s when all the pupils and many of their parents gather there, for it provides a comfortable space for everyone to be in together as the former pupils are celebrated, Inspector Faber proudly leading them in and quickly installing them from the tallest to the shortest in a single row, at which the inspector orders them to be seated in order that others can see how splendid they look, and especially so that the current pupils can see how the older men look when they march in parade formation with the inspector at the front. The former pupils have already formed a society that almost everyone belongs to who is still alive, for there are many who died in the war, since The Box is indeed quite old, even though the building itself is not, it having been built just a few years before the war to serve as a modern and practical facility for The Box. Back then the entire Box was moved from the inner city to the outskirts, which in those days was a great advancement, though there are those who still recall the old Box, because they worked there, The Bull having been there by then, and supposedly he had a beard then as well, though each little hair was black.

Many members of the alumni society are today distinguished men of the world, some even older than The Bull, with wives and children and grandchildren of their own, some of their children also having become pupils at The Box, though it doesn’t happen very often. Josef would never
send his child to The Box, yet some members of the alumni society think the education at The Box is excellent, but they don’t actually think much about it, even though across the yard in the school building there is a special boardroom for them, with high-backed leather chairs that surround a conference table with green felt, though rarely is a meeting ever held, or at least Josef has never heard of one. Many members fought in the war, and some pupils went directly from The Box to the front because they volunteered, although they did not have to, the oldest pupil usually no more than seventeen and the youngest just ten, while in the war many pupils and even more former pupils were wounded, some turned into cripples, while for those who died there is the memorial tablet made of marble.

These former pupils also come to the fall festival and gladly don the caps that are worn exclusively by the pupils of The Box, which are brown caps with black bills, the members of the alumni society often looking funny in these caps, for they no longer fit them, especially with their big stomachs and beards and bald heads, although the pupils are urged to lend the former pupils their caps, for they are as proud to wear them as little children. Years ago The Box was completely different from today, for now there are too many wimps, mainly because proper exercises were no longer allowed, whereas earlier everyone had his own proper uniform, but Inspector Faber says that later no one was allowed to wear military dress because of the unfair peace treaty that had been signed. The education back then was far better than it is today, it now being no better than a girls’ finishing school, where everyone is a wimp because marching exercises are no longer allowed, the inspector wanting to live only to see the day when everything is like it used to be under the emperor, because how it is now is a scandal, though no one can ever say that it’s a scandal, for the Communists will just lock you up, which is why he’d rather not say anything, but that’s what he thinks, a proper youth being someone who achieves a certain poise and keeps his teeth tightly clamped. Inspector Faber complains further about how sad it is that Inspector Bemmchen will never have the chance to see it happen, because he’s dead, for he had suffered the ignominy of it all like no other, which is why it pained him so, though Josef doesn’t understand it all, for he doesn’t know how Inspector Faber thinks it really ought to be.

For the fall festival Professor Worzfeld, who is called Ojt, prepares a
gymnastic exhibition that doesn’t involve any competition but includes the high jump and the long jump, the shot put and the javelin, and much more, as well as team sports, especially soccer, which all the guests watch. They’re happy to see how hearty the youths are, and that they indeed aren’t wimps, even if they no longer do military exercises as Inspector Faber longs for. For the festival a large tent is put up in the courtyard, much as a circus does for its menagerie, and garden chairs are brought in so that all the guests can flee to it should there be rain, or a snack bar can be set up under it, the Sprites bringing from the kitchen large pitchers of herb tea like the kind that is sometimes served at dinner, and barley-malt coffee like the kind served for breakfast at The Box, the guests also having to drink such swill, which some also call donkey piss, without any milk, since not much of that is available. The barley coffee and other drinks are sold by women who are married to the alumni, while from baskets they sell the snacks, which include buns with margarine and liverwurst, though there is also cake that is not from The Box, tidbits also having been purchased from elsewhere, all of it on sale for exorbitant prices, but all of the guests are happy to pay since it’s all for The Box. In the tent there is also a raffle full of valuable items that the members of the alumni society have donated to The Box, each item carrying a number, and one can buy lots made of white paper strips that have been rolled onto a needle and look like little scrolls, which you unroll to see whether you have won anything. Most of the scrolls are blank, yet you can buy twenty scrolls or more and not win anything, but when there’s a red piece of paper with a number on it inside the scrolls, then you win a prize, which can be worth a lot or be a complete joke as well.

When there is nothing special going on at The Box, the courtyard is empty, except during recess, when it can be quite dusty if it hasn’t rained in a while, and when it gets quite bad the courtyard is watered with a long hose, which really helps in hot weather, for then it’s easier to breathe. For the most part the courtyard is empty, but there is a soccer field with two proper goals, though without nets, such that the ball always flies beyond the goal itself, breaking windowpanes for which the guilty pupil must pay, the pupils having to pay for everything they smash, or their parents do, for it’s written down and kept in the office where the bills are made out. During important matches, however, there are nets in the goals, but only then, and
in the courtyard there is lots of room for other games to be played besides soccer, such as rounders and handball or any kind of ball game, and yes, even more soccer, while in the two little courtyards to the right and left of the main staircase there are two tennis courts, though only the older pupils are allowed to use them and must pay to do so, two other little courtyards containing wooden frames on which clothes are beaten, the pupils sometimes having to beat and brush the clothes, after which their work is inspected.

That’s the way things are at The Box, and though it is quite big, it’s not too big for two hundred and fifty pupils, but in fact a bit small, for there is no place that you can ever be alone, nor are you allowed to just wander anywhere in The Box, and even where you are allowed you can’t always get to, as everything is closed off in between. Since Josef is not happy at The Box, he can’t get used to being there, and he also knows that he never could. Meanwhile, when he goes to sleep and is lying in bed and can’t sleep he breaks down and sobs out of sadness. He no longer thinks that it is hard at The Box just at the beginning, when no one is happy, while later most of them grow to like The Box, such that toward the end they are sad to reach the highest class level and must leave The Box for good. Josef has often been told this, and he has tried to believe it, but now he knows for sure that it’s not true for him; he is only suffocating here, many pupils are brutes, and he doesn’t like what they say or even play at, nor does he know how to try to make things better, Inspector Schuster having already said to him a couple of times, “My boy, my boy, you have to pull yourself together in order to become a man! You need to play with the others and make friends!” The inspector means well, but his advice is useless, and Josef must only make sure that he doesn’t cry too loudly, so instead he weeps quietly now and then in the dorm, no one noticing, until at last he falls asleep.

Every pupil in The Box has a proctor, which is a pupil who has been at The Box for a minimum of one year and whose job is to help you know what to do and get used to things, but everything is so monotonous there’s no getting used to it, even if you do know how things are supposed to go, such as when to get up, and that you have to get dressed quickly, though you don’t need to make the bed, for that’s what the Sprites are for. You then rush into the washroom and hang your jacket on a hook, open your cabinet, take the box of toiletries, and run to a washing-up spot, as your neighbor wastefully
splashes water about, the water ice-cold, such that in winter it even hurts your teeth. If you don’t bend your head down close enough to the washbasin, you are yelled at and your face is pushed into the water, the floor full of puddles as you grab the hand towel, because you have to dry off quickly, folding it over so that you can dry off your back, but since it’s so easy to bump your neighbor you hear again the cry “Hey, watch what you’re doing! Can’t you see that you’re hitting me?” And once again someone shoves you, and those who are not strong enough to defend themselves get a thrashing. That’s a main rule at The Box: you have to be strong so that you are able to thrash the others without being thrashed yourself, for that’s how you learn to be a real man who doesn’t let anything bad happen to him in life, since at The Box whoever is not a tough guy is a shit. The pupils use many such vulgar words, as they cuss a lot and are proud of how hardened they are, nor is there any protection available if someone hits too hard or is mean, except if you have an older brother or friend, and even then that doesn’t always help. The bigger kids look down on the younger ones and are proud that they are older, and they say a beating does no one any harm, because they were beaten as well, though few of them admit this and act as if they had never been small, for it’s a mortal sin to be a young boy.

After washing up and shining your shoes you rush off to the classrooms, which are arranged so that almost thirty pupils fit into each, everyone having his own desk with a chair, five desks always lined up next to one another that can be shoved out of the way if needed, the oldest pupils sitting by the window, the youngest getting the worst spots, even if their eyesight isn’t so good. If you have bad eyes you have to be very careful, for if you don’t watch out someone will rip your glasses off your nose and smash them on the ground in order to break them, or the attacker doesn’t wait for the full thrashing to begin but instead goes straight for the glasses, everything lost after that, as it is better perhaps always to have a spare pair of glasses, though actually any glasses are a handicap, and you are laughed at for having them. Meanwhile, when you get to the classroom each morning the desk stands open, the lid rising straight up, and inside are schoolbooks and notebooks, while in back of your seat, where the number is painted, there is actually a compartment that can be opened, in which books and games and whatever you want can be stored, be it care packages from home or other
extra things to eat, such as the malted balls that are always sold by a wounded veteran at a table by the main staircase. And, because locking it with a standard-issue key does nothing to prevent things from being stolen, you can make arrangements to get a padlock, for which you have to pay, some even making use of a combination lock, which you have to know which way to turn in order to open.

Across from all the desks in the classroom stands another desk that belongs to a pupil from the highest class, and whenever no grown-up is present he can order the others in the room about, especially during study hall, though he never says anything to those in his own class, the pupils from the highest two classes acting like grown-ups, each wearing a tie, and it being an embarrassment should one not wear long pants. That’s why the younger ones also like to wear long pants, or if they are short they should be breeches, for they look somewhat grown up, while even the youngest also wear a tie. In each classroom there’s a saying on the wall that says something about a good education, and in Classroom I, where Josef sits, it says on the wall:

But in another room, painted on the wall is:

Once a classmate of Josef’s had written
Preiß
with a sharp “ß,” but when Professor Felger returned the notebook
Preiß
was crossed out in red, since it was wrong, because it should be spelled
Preis
, with a round “s.” The professor was very angry and said that one should also not spell the plural as
Preiße
, as in the local dialect that would be taken to mean a “Prussian,” for
Preise
was right, but then a student said that he saw it spelled with a sharp “ß” in study hall, where
Preiß
was written on the wall. Professor Felger, however, didn’t believe him, for that was totally wrong, at which others chimed in and said that it indeed was written on the wall, Professor Felger deeply surprised to hear this, as he said he still couldn’t believe it was true, for most of the students hadn’t written
Preiß
but, rather,
Preis
, the professor then asking the entire class who thought that it should be written as
Preis
and not
Preiß
. Most then answered that they believed it should be spelled the way it was in the spelling book, but still it was written with a sharp “ß” in the study hall, at which Professor Felger said he had to see for himself, though he couldn’t do so during class.