Group Portrait with Lady by Heinrich Böll Read Free Book Online Page A

estimated at around forty-five. She was short, wiry (not even Leni, only B.H.T., did she tell that she had once been German Junior champion in the 80-meter women’s hurdles!); probably [in 1937–38 she had every reason to keep details of her origin and education to herself] she was what in those days used to be called a “highly educated person,” which by no means precludes the possibility of her having a master’s degree and perhaps (under another name, of course) even a Ph.D. Her height can only be guessed at from the recollections of witnesses: about five foot one; her weight around, say, 98 pounds; color of hair: black streaked with gray; eyes: light blue; possibility of Celtic, also Jewish, origin, not to be discounted. This B.H.T., now working as a librarian (nongraduate) in a medium-sized public library where he studies the old-books catalogue and exerts a certain influence on the new-acquisitions policy, a (for his age) relatively burned-out person, kind, although rather lacking in initiative and temperament, must, despite a difference in age of at least twenty years, have been in love with this nun. His managing to evade military service until 1944, thus representing a kind of “missing link” between Leni and Sister Rahel (when he was called up in the fifth year of the war he was almost twenty-six and in perfect health, so he maintains), bespeaks a dogged and systematically functioning intelligence.
    In any event, he brightened up, became almost enthusiastic, when addressed on the subject of Sister Rahel. He is a non-smoker, a bachelor, and—to judge by the odors in his two-roomapartment—an excellent cook. For him the only books are old books: for new publications he has nothing but contempt: “A new book is not a book at all” (B.H.T.). Prematurely bald, existing on a presumably good but one-sided diet, his organism inclines toward the formation of fatty deposits: a large-pored nose, as well as a tendency toward small growths behind the ears, observed over the course of numerous visits, point to this. By nature not very talkative, he positively bubbles over with information when the subject is Rahel-Haruspica; and for Leni, known to him from the nun’s tales merely as that “uniquely lovely blonde girl for whom many wonderful and many painful things are in store,” he harbors an infatuation, both idealistic and youthful, which might tempt the Au. (supposing he were inclined to such things and were not himself in love with Leni), at this late stage, some thirty-four years later, to pair off the two. Whatever peculiar traits, covert and overt, this B.H.T.-fellow may have, of one thing there is not doubt: he is faithful. Possibly even to himself.
    Much could be said about this fellow but it would be irrelevant since he has almost nothing to do with Leni directly and can only render certain services as a medium.
    It would be a mistake to suppose that Leni had suffered at this boarding school; no, something wonderful happened to her there: she fared as all favorites of Fortune are wont to fare: she fell into the right hands. What she learned in the classroom was more or less uninteresting; her private lessons from the quiet and kindly Sister Cecilia were important and bore fruit. The crucial figure in Leni’s life, at least as crucial as the Soviet individual who cropped up later, was Sister Rahel, who (in 1936!) was forbidden to teach, the only duties she performed being those held in very low esteem: the duties of what the girls called a “floor sister,” and her social status was roughly that of a not very superior cleaning woman.
    Her duties were to waken the girls on time, supervise their morning ablutions, and explain—something the biology sistersteadfastly refused to do—what was happening to them and in them when they were suddenly confronted with the evidence that they had entered upon womanhood; and she had a further duty that was regarded by all the other nuns as disgusting, as being