Gunter Grass - The Flounder

and suspected of terrorism, especially since they had been absent from the proceedings during the final pleas; only at the great flounder dinner had they been silently present.

The next morning the Flounder had to be carried on foot through a beech forest to the coast. The task fell to me. The tank hung from my neck by two straps like a peddler's tray. Looking through the glass wall of the tank, I could see the Flounder trying with deft fin play to compensate for my uneven gait. First we took a dirt road, then a narrow path through the woods. Ahead of me (and the Flounder) went the Danish delegation and the few newspaperwomen who had been authorized to accompany us. Behind us, Witzlaff and Osslieb, Helga Paasch and Erika Nottke. Ms. von Carnow had pronounced the walk too much for her and stayed behind at the hotel.

Of course I attempted a last conversation with the Flounder. As soon as the women ahead of us and behind us were far enough away, I whispered, "For God's sake, Flounder, say something. Anything, just a word. Is it really all over between us? Have you really written me off? Aren't you going to advise anyone but those stupid women? Flounder, what's to become of me? Flounder, say something! I'm completely at a loss!"

But the Flounder's silence remained unbroken. I carried him as if, along with my burden, I were carrying myself and my historic mission, the male cause, to the grave. Before and behind me the women were chatting merrily. How airily their dresses with their large-flower prints took in the breeze. A Dutch television team shot us for the news. Erika Nottke gathered a bunch of flowers. There was flint all about, and Paasch picked up a few handy-sized pieces to keep as souvenirs. Ulla Witzlaff, with her clarion voice, sang a Christian hymn, "This day so full of joy. ." And in a spirit of sisterhood, Osslieb joined in.

When we came to the unprotected edge of the cliff and were able, since the weather (as promised) was fine, to make out the chalk cliffs of the isle of Riigen, the temptation rose up in me to unbuckle the Flounder in his glass tank (my peddler's tray) and hurl him down onto the flinty beach (three hundred and fifty feet below), or, rather, I was

tempted to leap to my death from the cliff — after all, I'm done for! — with the Flounder still buckled to me, if possible crying aloud, "Long live the male cause!" — or perhaps just to fling myself alone, sparing the Flounder and the future, or pulling perhaps not Osslieb but then Ulla with me-lovingly united in death.

But already Erika Nottke was anxiously at my side. "I'm worried," she said. "Don't you think the sudden change may be too much for the Flounder? For nine months his water has been changed frequently, he has been adequately provided with oxygen and fed regularly, in other words, safeguarded against environmental hazards. Don't you think the Baltic, with its pollution and supersaturation with algae, might be dangerous for him? In the last few weeks, it's true, we've tried to prepare him by gradually increasing the chemical adulteration, but it will be a shock all the same, possibly too great a one. Think how he has changed in captivity. Look how pale he is, how transparent, almost glassy. Oh, I do hope the Flounder outlives us."

Helga Paasch was worried, too. But Osslieb reassured Erika Nottke, saying the change wouldn't hurt the Flounder, he was a tough customer, sure to live through the next ice age. A few blobs of tar and a bit of mercury wouldn't mean a thing to him, he'd adapt: if only for the principle of the thing, he'd go on living. "Just look at him!" cried Ulla. "He's getting his color back. He'll soon be in the pink!"

After we had all enjoyed the splendid view for a while and posed for the television crew-fillers were needed-we started down through a wooden gully embedded in the chalk cliffs. For tourist use, yard-long logs provided natural steps. By holding my peddler's tray in both hands, I tried to spare the Flounder excessive jolting in my passage from step to step, but it was pretty bumpy even so. Seeing me bathed in sweat, Erika Nottke wanted to relieve me. Manfully I declined. (Damned if I let them take my Flounder away from me. He used to be my Flounder. I'll stick it out to the bitter end. I'll keep faith with my history.)

When we got to the bottom, there wasn't much time for a breather. A glance up the face of the cliffs revealed the grim reality, the danger we were in. Up top stood the bitches of the radical opposition-the Revolutionary Advi-

sory Council — clustered around Griselde Dubertin and Ruth Simoneit. I recognized Elisabeth Giillen and Beate Hage-dorn. "Christ!" cried Paasch. "Huntscha is with them!"

When the first stones were thrown down, I thought I recognized the court-appointed defense counsel among the infuriated women.

"Good God!" I cried. "Look who's gone over to the enemy!"

"Where is she?" Osslieb asked. "Where?"

"There!" I cried. "There!"

But Bettina von Carnow didn't show herself again. Besides, the hail of stones kept us from getting a good look at the traitor or snapping her picture. It was easy later on to make out Huntscha, Hagedorn, housewife Gtillen, and Griselde Dubertin in the newspaperwomen's numerous photos and in the pan shot taken by the Dutch television team, but not Ms. Carnow. I saw her though, the stupid bitch.

Most of the stones missed us. Poor Erika Nottke was hit on the head and bled profusely. There was flint all over the isle of M0n, and that's what they were throwing. Two members of the Danish delegation, an English newspaperwoman, and the Dutch camerawoman were slightly bruised. A piece of flint struck the Flounder's tank, but no damage was done. In trying to dodge a fist-sized stone (flung perhaps by Griselde Dubertin), I fell on the stony beach and cut my left knee through my trousers. Thank the Lord, I had put the Flounder and his tank down a moment before. Lying thus prone and slightly befuddled with pain, I found a tiny petrified sea urchin, so corroborating the Flounder's contention that the Baltic had been an almost tropical sea right after the last ice age. (I kept my find. I expect it to bring me luck and protect me from my Ilsebill. Who knows what the future may bring?)

While cries — most likely of "Treason!" — came down from above, Paasch and Osslieb cursed back like fishwives. Meanwhile Ulla Witzlaff took off her shoes and stockings, opened the Flounder's tank with the key that had been entrusted to her care, reached under the white belly side of the flatfish with both hands, lifted him out of the tank, showed him to us, to the photographers, to the television camera, and to the cursing, catapulting women on the chalk

cliff, then carried him step by step across the sandy beach until she stood knee-deep in water. Then she proclaimed in her singing voice, "I hereby carry out the sentence pronounced by the Women's Tribunal upon the Flounder. Henceforth he shall be available to us alone. We shall call him! We'll call him, all right!" Then she put him in the water, and all was still. Only the clicking of the photographers and the whirring of the television camera.

Witzlaff reported that he had swum straight out to sea. Then we had to attend to the injured Erika Nottke. In the meantime the radical opposition had evacuated the cliff. It was a hard climb, but Ms. Nottke declined to be carried. She was still holding her bunch of flowers. Helga Paasch threw away her collection of flints. I'd have liked to spend a few days on M0n with Witzlaff, but at the hotel there was a telegram for me: return imperative, baby imminent, no excuses please, ilsebill. I made it home just in time.

In the first month we were not sure,

and only the oviduct knew.

In the second month we argued about

what we had wanted and not wanted,