That evening, as he was trying to fall asleep, he had to be satisfied with these images.
The next day, however, during his morning run he decided to go back there and take off his clothes. He figured he should arrive a bit earlier to be sure to find them. He did not notice that he wasn’t thinking of the two women but had the two men in mind. When, on that first day, he had finally left on his bike and looked back toward the lake one last time, he’d seen that the two figures were engaged in intimate conversation on the far shore. He looked toward the far shore to avoid looking at the solitary man who was still working on himself on the near side of the lake and who followed the bicycle with his eyes until it disappeared among the trees. And if Döhring was curious to know what bound people together and how lasting this bond might be, or whether this bond saved them from a howling loneliness to which others fall prey because of their nature, then he would rather identify with the Ethiopian girl or the dark-skinned man than with the red-haired athlete woman or the white giant. Döhring was shy, reticent, but by no means bashful or especially prudish. If he noticed someone watching him, he did not dare return the look, because he dreaded the contact, though he liked to expose his body to the eyes of others.
That in itself would not oblige him to do anything.
But he rode his bike into the woods in vain, because he did not find the fabulous little lake.
He didn’t even find the wider promenade from which he had strayed and which could have led him back to the lake. He rode across unfamiliar clearings, wound up in unfamiliar woods. It was a bright clear day, sharp breezes vibrated in the air; it was a pleasure to pedal hard. As if he had narrowly escaped a life-threatening situation. As if he were missing out on something, but compensating himself with the relief of an escape. Finally, as a substitute, he found a large body of water, a lake or river, he couldn’t tell, whose sunny banks were filled with people lying about. He didn’t have his swimming trunks with him, and he did not really feel like mingling.
It seemed to him that the large water had some movement to it.
He parked his bicycle, sat down at a respectable distance from the bathers and watched them, not so much the children squealing in the water or the adults playing ball among large beach baskets, but the water, the strange mass of air, the slow-moving sailboats, and the entire faraway high sky. This was the public world; he, however, was already familiar with the secret one. He had no doubt as to which one he should belong. The air was not free of vapors near the water, it was late afternoon, but above the greenish-blue woods on the opposite shore the disk of the sun was still very much present in its glowing yellow dazzle. And in the sky, very slowly, three tiny clouds were making their way toward the sun. Much time went by before one little cloud slid into the sun; everybody waited for it to move on.
But it would not go away.
Rather, the other two clouds slid into it. First, only the people who wanted to sunbathe sat up, looking about and asking what would happen now. A little later parents fished their children out of the water because a wind came up and it was no longer pleasant.
People had not realized that summer was over, but they began to gather their belongings.
Döhring’s Continuous Dream
Slowly, silence reigned and whiteness; and everything was sweet weightlessness.
First, they sat him on a bench, and then they helped him stand up. They argued a little as to what to do. He let them, did not care about anything, though he found it a bit embarrassing that it took two people to take care of him. They took off his coat. If he could have spoken, he would certainly have protested, because he feared for his coat. It wasn’t that good a coat, but without it he wouldn’t have gotten this far. They threw it aside. Freed his long arms from his shirt, loosened his pants around the waist. The priest who said it would be easier sitting up was right.
I told you we couldn’t take it off like this.
They could probably pull his pants over his shoes but not the long underpants. They quickly made him sit back on the bench. Familiar smells were mixing in the thick steam, most of them overwhelmed by that of chamomile, but this did not keep him from seeing himself, wearing these awful clothes, standing in a familiar summer meadow where chamomile was flowering.
He wanted to warn them there would be big trouble, but did not dare.
He fainted when they tried to take off his shoes the first time; it was clear that afterward, along with his tattered underpants they might pull off his striped pants, which were completely soiled on the inside. Then this would be discovered. He could already hear them starting to shout and then beating him up but good. He felt a bit of joy when his shoes wouldn’t let go of his feet. He’d gain some time. He was so weak; his flesh would not survive another beating. And these men are well fed; no longer young but fit as a fiddle, their blows must be really hard. He had learned well what a pleasure it was when death grants a small reprieve. The shabby, three-buttoned, wooden-soled prisoner’s shoes in which his bloody, pus-encrusted feet were embedded swelled up and absorbed his toe rags. He would have liked to warn the priests not to experiment, accept that this was how things were, but could not put together a proper sentence because he had no idea what language he should use. Not German. It was easier to imagine an entire remaining lifetime without ever taking off his shoes.
It pained him that he would never again be German, that he could be.
He let everything happen, endured it all, let them do whatever they wanted to do; let it be. This did not take much effort on his part since his mouth was filled with the sweet, familiar taste of the sticky sugared milk; let them have their way.
He remembered the promise that he would get more after a bath.
Wait, for the love of, are you blind, cried the monk who stood above his shoulder in alarm, watching what the other priest was doing to the boy’s terrible hooves.
His foot is completely stuck in it.
What do you mean stuck; it’s rotted into it, said the monk irritably, squatting in front of the boy and trying to hold the shoe so as not to soil his frock. He did not pull it to him completely, his face showed restrained disgust, but he did peek into the uppers, and then sent in his fingers, cautiously, drilling down. He reached into something soft and slippery, mud, filth, clotted blood, or bare, oozing bones.
Should be cut off along with his foot. He looked up, grinning, he didn’t know what to do, he mumbled desperately, and he had nothing to wipe his fingers with.
It’s a good thing you always know what to do.
He concluded he had no choice, he must pull off the shoe with one swift yank.
He looked up again at the other monk, but another grin would have been out of place.
Are you holding his shoulders, he asked.
Why should I hold his shoulders, retorted the other monk irritably.
But then the boy spoke up too, because he really didn’t want to have any trouble.
Truth is, he told them quietly, I shat in my pants.
He would have liked to explain, to make them understand he couldn’t help it when he got stuck atop a hedgerow and two people were beating him, which actually helped him fall down on the other side of the hedge. But before he’d even finished his words the monks were already shouting, except it was not shouting but guffawing with no trace of jollity.
You don’t say, shouted one of them, almost choking, this is fantastic. Shat in his pants.
Who would have thought.
For half an hour we’ve been enjoying nothing but the smell of your shit, you wretch, enthused the other monk, who hugged him from behind, pulled him close, buried his face and shoulders in the sleeves of his frock, as though dipping him into the homey fragrance of a lemon drop’s sweet filling.