Gunter Grass - The Flounder

It must be evident to anyone who has ever fished in the North Atlantic or browsed in a fish market that the fish depicted on the dust jacket of this book, described on pages 3031, and eaten on page 524 is not what is commonly called a flounder. He's too big, stout, and pebbly. I call him a flounder because he is no ordinary fish, but an archetypal one, harking back to the dawn of human consciousness but first revealed to the general public in the Grimm Brothers' tale "The Fisherman and His Wife," all English translations of which concur in calling the fish (who was really an enchanted prince) a flounder. As is made clear on page 30 of the translation with some violence to the original, Giinter Grass's fish is actually a turbot (Stein-butt). The Grimms' fish, on the other hand, is only a Butt, or flatfish, and the flatfish family includes both Grass's turbot and our flounder. Moreover, Webster defines "flounder" as "in a broad sense any flatfish," which puts us perfectly in the clear.

The translation of this book called for a range of knowledge that I cannot lay claim to. I am deeply grateful to the late Wolfgang Sauerlander and to Helen Wolff for their help and advice.

R.M.

Ilsebill put on more salt. Before the impregnation there was shoulder of mutton with string beans and pears, the season being early October. Still at table, still with her mouth full, she asked, "Should we go to bed right away, or do you first want to tell me how when where our story began?"

I, down through the ages, have been I. And Ilsebill, too, has been from the beginning. I remember our first quarrel, toward the end of the Neolithic, some two thousand years before the incarnation of our Lord, when myths were beginning to distinguish between raw food and cooked food. And just as, today, before sitting down to mutton with string beans and pears, we quarreled more and more cuttingly over her children and mine, so then, in the marshland of the Vistula estuary, we quarreled to the best of our neolithic vocabulary over my claim to at least three of her nine kids. But I lost. For all the ur-phonemes my nimble, hard-working tongue was able to line up, I did not succeed in forming

the beautiful word "father"; only "mother" was possible. In those days Ilsebill's name was Awa. I, too, had a different name. But the idea of having been Awa doesn't appeal to Ilsebill.

I had studded the shoulder of mutton with halved garlic cloves, saut^ed the pears in butter, and bedded them on boiled string beans. Even though Ilsebill, speaking with her mouth still full, said there was no reason why it shouldn't come off, or "take," right away, because she had thrown her pills down the John as the doctor advised, what I heard was that our bed should have priority over the neolithic cook.

And so we lay down, arming and legging each other around as we have done since time immemorial. Sometimes I, sometimes she on top. Equal, though Ilsebill contends that the male's privilege of penetrating is hardly compensated by the female's paltry prerogative of refusing admittance. But because we mated in love, our feelings were so all-embracing that in an expanded space, transcending time and its tick-tock, freed from the heaviness of our earthbound bed, a collateral, ethereal union was achieved; as though in compensation, her feeling penetrated mine in hard thrusts: we worked doubly and well.

Eaten before the mutton with pears and beans, Ilsebill's fish soup, distilled from codfish heads that have had the hell boiled out of them, probably embodied the catalytic agent with which, down through the ages, the cooks inside me have invited pregnancy; for by chance, by destiny, and without further ingredients, it came off, it took. No sooner was I out again as though expelled than Ilsebill said with perfect assurance, "Well, this time it's going to be a boy."

Don't forget the savory. With boiled potatoes or, historically, with millet. Our mutton as always advisable had been served on warmed plates. Nevertheless our kiss, if I may be forgiven one last indiscretion, was coated with tallow. In the fish soup, which Ilsebill had made green with dill and capers, codfish eyes floated white and signified happiness.

After it presumably came off, we lay in bed together, each smoking his (or her) conception of a cigarette. (I, descending the steps of time, ran away.) Ilsebill said, "Incidentally, we need a dishwasher. It's high time."

Before she could engage in further speculation about a reversal of roles"I wish I could see you pregnant some time" I told her about Awa and her three breasts.

So help me, Ilsebill, she had three. Nature can do anything. Honest to goodness, three of them. And if my memory doesn't deceive me, all women had that name in the Stone Age: Awa Awa Awa. And we men were all called Edek. We were all alike in every way. And so were the Awas. One two three. At first we couldn't count any higher. No, not below, not above; in between. The plural begins with three. Three is the beginning of multiplicity, the series, the chain, and of myth. But don't let it tie you up in complexes. We acquired some later on. In our region, to the east of the river, Potrimpos, who became a god of the Prussians along with Pikollos and Perkunos, was said to have had three testicles. Yes, you're right: three breasts are more, or at least they look it; they look like more and more; they suggest superabundance, advertise generosity, give eternal assurance of a full belly. Still, when you come right down to it, they are abnormal though not inconceivable.

Naturally. A projection of male desires! I knew you'd say that. Maybe they are anatomically impossible. But in those days, when myths still cast their shadows, Awa had three. And it's true tfrat today the third is often wanting. I mean, something is wanting. Well, the third of the three. Don't be so quick on the trigger. No, of course not. Of course I won't make a cult of it. Of course two are plenty. You can take my word for it, Ilsebill, basically I'm satisfied with two. I'm not a fool. I don't go chasing after a number. Now that, thanks to your fish soup and no pill, it must have come off, now that you're pregnant and your two will soon weigh more than Awa's three, I'm perfectly, blissfully contented.

The third was always an extra. Essentially a caprice of capricious nature. As useless as the appendix. Altogether I can't help wondering: Why this breast fixation? This typically male tittomania? This cry for the primal mother, the super wet-nurse? Anyway, Awa became a goddess later on and had her three tits certified in hand-sized clay idols. Other goddesses-the Indian Kali, for instance-had four or more arms. But these may have served some practical purpose. The

Greek mother goddesses Demeter, Hera on the other hand, were normally outfitted and managed to stay in business for thousands of years even so. I've also seen gods represented with a third eye in their forehead. I wouldn't want one of those if you paid me.

All in all the number three promises more than it can deliver. Awa overdid it with her three boobies as much as the Amazons underdid it with their one breast. That's why our latter-day feminists always go to extremes. Get that sulky look off your face. I'm all in favor of the libbers. And I assure you, Ilsebill, two are plenty. Any doctor will tell you so. And if our child doesn't turn out to be a boy, she'll certainly have enough with two. What do you mean, aha? Men just happen to be crazy, always this yen for bigger and bigger bosoms. The truth of the matter is that all the cooks I have ever sojourned with have had one on the left and one on the right, the same as you: Mestwina two, Amanda Woyke two, and Sophie Rotzoll had two little espresso cupfuls. And Mar-garete Rusch the cooking abbess smothered the wealthy patrician Eberhard Ferber in bed with her two admittedly enormous tits. So let's not exaggerate. The whole thing is kind of a dream. No, not a wish dream. Why must you always pick a fight? Can't a man dream a little? Can't he?