Gunter Grass - The Flounder

After Mestwina had slain the subsequently canonized Adalbert of Prague, I buried the cast-iron spoon, for we had reason to fear that if found it would be elevated to the status of a Christian relic. As for the body, we threw it into the river. A little later all of us in the Wicker Bastion (and with us Mestwina) were driven by Polish mercenaries into a shallow stretch of the Radune, where Adalbert's successor, the prelate Ludewig, subjected us to forced baptism. This Ludewig, incidentally, had a feeling for art and was devoted to me. He liked my little carved Madonnas. He even put up with the Virgin's third breast (under the drapery). The honey-colored amber eyes I had fitted into the linden wood gave the Mother of God a magically compelling gaze, but that, too, he interpreted in the light of triumphant Catholicism. Perhaps it was because of my useful talent that I went scot free when Mestwina was condemned to death; as an artist, one is welcomed by all religions. And besides, as you know, Ilsebill, I haven't got the makings of a martyr.

It was in April of the year 997 that Adalbert was slain by the drunken Mestwina, that we Pomorshians were baptized and the spoon buried. I buried it not far from the future settlement of Sankt Albrecht. And there, in the exact same place, it was dug up in the fall of 1889 by Dr. Ernst Paulig, sometime rector of the Sankt Johann Gymnasium, who donated it to the Museum of the City of Danzig. "Pomeranian cooking utensil," said the little tag. Actually the spoon was of Bohemian origin. Actually Adalbert had brought it to

convert the heathen with. Mestwina used it only to ladle out the mare's milk fermented for her own use; for cooking she used wooden spoons.

What else happened when Mestwina, shortly after the forced baptism, was condemned to death and beheaded by a Polish executioner will be told later on: who betrayed her, what signs and wonders befell as the sword descended, and what absurdities schoolbook history has handed down to us.

"Only with Mestwina," said the accused Flounder before the Women's Tribunal, "did Awa's rule come to an end. From then on, the male cause alone counted." But the women weren't listening. They had other preoccupations. The case of Mestwina had become secondary. Strife was the order of the day. The feminist cause threatened to lose itself in resolutions.

But one day, after prolonged tergiversation, in the course of which the opposing or tactically allied groups expressed themselves in urgent motions, the Tribunal finally arrived at its seating order, for it was not always the accused Flounder who forced recesses and adjournments. Along with the judge and her eight associate judges, the prosecutor, and the court-appointed defense counsel, all of whom had, and wished to preserve, their symmetrical seating order — the judge and associate judges upraised, before them in the pit the Flounder in his tub, and to the left and right of him the prosecution and the defense — there was a further group, which was also part and parcel of the Tribunal, namely, an Advisory Council consisting of thirty-three women who were supposed to have been seated in the first two rows of the former movie house, but were so divided among themselves that they had thus far brought forth only two resolutions:

(1) that the current proceedings should be recessed, or else

(2) that the Tribunal should be adjourned. The Flounder had frequent occasion for irony at their expense: "If the esteemed Advisory Council of the High Court, which has recently taken, so I hear, to calling itself 'revolutionary,' has no objection, I, as the accused, should prefer to carry on with the proceedings, because, you see, I want very much to treat of the pre-Christian episodes of Awa, Wigga, and Mestwina together, as part of a larger context, the decline

of the matriarchy. That, too, was development. Or-if you pref er — revolu tion!''

It was only after discussion of the Mestwina case that the Advisory Council had begun to call itself "revolutionary," because the murder of Bishop Adalbert of Prague suggested parallels down to our own day. Since the thirty-three members of the Advisory Council represented groupings separated by only the haziest of dividing lines, ad hoc coalitions were frequent. Throwing ideological scruples to the winds, the left-wing majority, consisting of four different factions, had suddenly (and only because the Flounder had three times used the word "evolution") allied itself with the radical-democratic Federation of Women, and voted in favor not only of prefixing the title "Advisory Council" with the word "revolutionary" (which decision was carried by a bare majority) but also of the proposed new seating arrangements. They no longer wished to sit at the front of the pit, where they had to crane their necks; they wanted to be up on the stage, to the right and left of the judge and the eight associate judges, and arrange themselves in accordance with the results of the last vote. The Flounder commented, "New vote, new seating arrangement. Marvelous! That will keep the ladies moving."

And so it did. Accordingly as the Revolutionary Advisory Council voted, the chairs to the left or right increased or decreased. And since even during the Tribunal's regular proceedings new political conflicts kept arising, the public often took more interest in the factional infighting of the feminist movement than in the cases of Awa, Wigga, and Mestwina, which are also my case or cases; after all, it was I who buried the cast-iron cooking spoon a good three feet deep.

Despite the Flounder's annoyance, he was ignored amid the passions aroused by these procedural debates. When the first two rows were evacuated by the Revolutionary Advisory Council and thrown open to the public, he protested and threatened to withdraw from the proceedings. "This is intolerable," he cried. "I can't have the public so near me. There have already been several menacing incidents. I, too, am entitled to security. Reserve the first two rows for experts. I'm expecting several gentlemen and a lady whose

publications have established them as authorities in the field of archaeology or of medieval canon law. They, too, must be seated. And for myself I demand security guards."

His pleas were granted. From then on the first and second rows were occupied by various experts, two female security guards, and witnesses for the prosecution — all women who, whether destitute, divorced, working, disadvantaged, deserted, battered, or oversupplied with children, had in some way been victimized by the institution of marriage. Stammering, whispering, voiceless, or shrill, now on the brink of tears, now with malignant laughter, they gave expression to the misery of oppressed womanhood: But after my fifth child. . Sleeping with my head next to the radiator. . But he just wouldn't stop. . He even threatened my mother. . And the relief checks stopped coming… So I took those pills. . But nothing helped. .

Whatever sufferings the witnesses for the prosecution invoked, men were always to blame. I felt guilty at every turn. But the Flounder remained on a high plane and stuck to facts. He knew everything and the opposite. He was even up on canon law. That was why he waived his right to defense witnesses, including me, who after all was the man most intimately involved. By and large I was mentioned only in passing. Tried anonymously, I was a mere member of the public. Silent, often bored, because the factional struggles were again drowning out the case of Awa, Wigga, or Mest-wina, I, in my place in the eleventh row, drew parallels.

True, I found no Awa among the judges — except perhaps for the always serene Ms. Schonherr — but I had discovered my morose Wigga in the form of Ms. Helga Paasch the nursery-garden owner. And Mestwina, too, sat facing me among the associate judges: how beautifully round everything about her was! The small head, framed in strictly ordered hair. The round, columnar neck with — really, Use-bill — an amber necklace on it. The gently sloping shoulders. And the latter-day Mestwina — this, too, must be mentioned— also had the glazed and empty look that had betrayed my then Mestwina when she had sopped up too much fermented mare's milk.