The Kitchen Clock (Translation)

Die Küchenuhr 

The Kitchen Clock (Wolfgang Borchert, 1947) 

(I made this translation, with much assistance from my German tutor, Patricia)

They had already seen him coming towards them from a distance, because he stood out. He had a very old face, but by the way he was going, you saw that he was only twenty. With his old face, he sat down with them on the bench. And then he showed them what he was holding in his hand. 

“It was our kitchen clock,” he said, and he looked at them one after another. They were sitting on the bench in the sun. “Still, yes, I have found it. It has been left over.”

He held a round, plate-white clock in front of him and dabbed the blue-painted numbers with his finger. 

“It has no further worth,” he said, apologetically, “I too know that.” 

“And it is also not very pretty. It is only like a plate, with white paint. But the blue numbers, however, look quite pretty, I find. The hands are of course only sheet metal. And now they too do not work anymore.”

“No. Inside she is broken, it is certain. But it still looks as always. Even though now it does not work anymore.” 

He made with his fingertip a careful circle around the rim of the clock. And he said softly: 

“And it has been left over.”

Those sitting on the bench in the sun did not look at him. One looked at his shoes and the woman looked into her stroller. Then someone said:

“You have probably lost everything?”

“Yes, yes,” he said joyfully, “imagine, really everything! Only she here, she is left over.” 

And he lifted the clock again, as if the others did not know it yet.

“But it does not work anymore,” said the woman. 

“No no, not that. It is broken, I know that well. But as for the rest, she is still quite as always: white and blue.” And again he showed them his clock.

“And, the most important part is,” he continued excitedly, “that, I have not yet told you at all. Because the most important part is still to come: think of it, she is stopped at two-thirty. Right at two thirty. Really. At two-thirty. Imagine.”

“Then your house was certainly hit at half past two,” said the man, and he pushed his lower lip forward importantly. “I have already heard this often. When the bomb drops, the clocks stop. That comes from the pressure.”

He looked at his clock and shook his head in a superior way. “No, dear sir, no, there you are mistaken. This has nothing to do with the bombs. You do not always need to speak of the bombs. No. At half past two, there was something completely different that  you just do not know. Because this is the point, that it stopped right at half past two. And not at a quarter past four or at seven. Around half past two I have always come home. At night, I mean. Almost always at half past two. This is exactly the point.

He looked at the others, but they had turned their eyes from him. He didn’t notice it. Then he nodded to his clock. 

“Then naturally I was hungry, right? wasn’t I? And I always went immediately into the kitchen. Then it was almost always half past two. And then, then  you know, my mother came. I could open the door as quietly as possible — still, she always heard me. And when I looked for something to eat in the dark kitchen, the light suddenly turned on. Then she stood there there in her wool-jacket and with a red scarf. And barefoot. Always barefoot. And our kitchen was tiled there. And she made her eyes very small, because the light was so bright for her. Because she had been sleeping, after all. It was night, after all.”

“‘So late again,’ she said then. She never said more. Only ‘so late again.’ And then she warmed dinner for me and watched me eat. Then she always rubbed her feet together, because the tiles were so cold.”

“She never put on shoes at night. And she sat so long with me, until I was full. And then I heard her puting plates away, when I had already turned off the light in my room. It went this way every night. And mostly always, at two thirty. This was entirely as a matter of course, I found, that she made food in the kitchen for me at two-thirty at night. I found that entirely as a matter of course. After all, she always did that. And she never said anything more than, ‘So late again.’”

“But she said that every time. And I thought that it could never stop. It was a matter of course to me. All that had been alway as such.”

For a breath long, it was quiet on the bench.

Then he said quietly, “And now?” 

He looked at the others. But he didn’t notice them.

Then he said quietly to his clock, into its white-blue, round face, “Now, now I know, that it was Paradise. The real Paradise.”

It was totally silent on the bench. The woman asked, “And your family?”

He smiled at them, embarrassed. “Ah, you think my parents? Yes, they are gone too. All is gone. All, imagine. All gone.”

He smiled from one to another, embarrassed. But they did not look at him.

There he lifted the clock again and laughed. He laughed, “Only she here. She is left over. And the important part is of course, that right at half past two she is stopped. Right at half past two.”

Then, he said nothing more. But he had a very old face. And the man who sat beside him looked at his shoes. But he did not see his shoes. He was thinking incessantly on that word Paradise.