What's to Become of the Boy? by Heinrich Böll Read Free Book Online Page B

economic miracle, far from it. There were frequent quotations from Dickens, especially Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield , who, as we know, was a mathematical wizard, a financial genius—although unrecognized—able to calculate to the last penny precisely how one rose to affluence, descended to poverty—and who was forever landing in the debtors’ prison. My father was in no sense a Mr. Micawber: he was serious and conscientious, desperate too, with a certain inclination to “escape into the never-never,” preferring to live beyond rather than below his means.
    And so in 1936 we moved again—for the third time in six years. It was the last time my parents moved house, the bombs took care of the rest; it was an “escape into the never-never,” into a somewhat more expensive area, to Karolinger-Ring, into an apartment that had been built thirty years earlier as “high-style accommodation.” Having had two “furnished gentlemen” on Ubier-Ring and one on Maternus-Strasse, we now permitted ourselves the luxury (might as well go down in style!) of having none at all. In view of our financial situation, which was anything but improved, that move was certainly not logical, but it was consistent. We had the mad, perhaps even criminal, desire to live and to survive. Somehow we managed.
    School? Yes. Studying was still important to me, evenif I did my best to avoid school. I pored over math books and Latin texts, and there was one subject in which my desire to learn, indeed my craving for knowledge, was not satisfied in school: geography. I loved atlases, at times collected them, tried to find out how and on what people lived where . I suppose that’s called economic geography. I hunted through encyclopedias and—somehow—got hold of reading material. In my father’s library (which, on the whole, I despised), I found a multivolume anthropological work by a missionary that I devoured in my search for accounts of expeditions—all this on the side, of course.
    Also on the side I became “secretary” to Chaplain Paul Heinen of St. Maternus Church. I set up a filing system for him, took care of some of his correspondence, and from time to time he would give me a coin or two from his pittance of a salary. It wasn’t much more than a “game” and an escape: the deluge was not yet behind us, it still lay ahead. At some point in 1936 I saw Heinen for the last time, ran into him on Severin-Strasse. I was surprised at his haste, the way he could barely wait to say good-bye. A few days later I learned that on that very day he had been on his way out of the country, to emigrate via Holland to America. I believe he must have been too friendly with (then still Chaplain) Rossaint. I never heard any details.

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    Material survival took priority over political survival. There were grim days, weeks, and months; there were many pleasures and friends. There were the cheap, magnificent concerts in Gürzenich Hall, surprisingly bold lectures at the Catholic Academic League initiated by the priest Robert Grosche. There were movies, and at night, after dark, when you no longer had to worry about the Nazi hordes, you could go for a carefree walk, perhaps even with a girl. Cologne was still a livable city. And within a short time there appeared on the scene that special girl, called Annemarie. But that would take me too far beyond the time I am describing, and if I were to go beyond that period—back long before 1933, if possible as far back as 1750, and forward beyond 1937, perhaps up to 1981—if I were to go beyond that period, it would lead to an enormous family tome: interesting perhaps, as interesting as any family history, but no more interesting than that. So I will limit myself to the period in question, as far as possible to its externals , revealing only those internal goings-on that form part of, or arise from, the externals. Not even a hint, therefore, of the tensions, conflicts, problems, and semi-tragedies; and if I have a