9th May, 1919. A Friday.
Paul Simon returned from the World War.
For six days he had tramped home from France to the Hunsrück.
THE CALL OF FARAWAY PLACES
Isn't that Paul Simon?
Oh, go away!
The cart belongs to Kath Legrand.
Her Helmut was killed on the River Vistula.
Thank God!
Paul's back home.
Mother, wait a moment.
Pauline, come here.
Eduard, your lung.
You're sitting at the window again.
You'll tip over; don't keep fidgeting.
He's supposed to take care of his health.
Come away from that window...
...you'll catch your death with your chest.
Wiegand's bought a motorbike.
With a sack of berries.
He sits on it like a cat on a grindstone.
Yesterday he almost ran over my foot.
Don't exaggerate.
It's true.
- Shut up! - I always have to be quiet with you.
Paul, did the French feed you so well in France...
...that you've no appetite at home?
Listen to this.
"In London, May Day went practically unobserved."
Paul! To think you're still alive. It's hard to believe.
Just fancy.
It's hard to believe.
"All heaps of horse or cow dung...
"...in places occupied by French or American troops...
"...must be cleared away by 1st May, 1919.
"Manure must be shifted at least twice a week onto fields...
"...at least 1,000 metres beyond village boundaries."
They're mad.
Paul's hands are so white.
Paul always had slender white hands. Don't you remember?
I thought men had different hands after a war.
Leave Paul's hands alone. Isn't that right, Paul?
Anyway, I always knew...
...he'd come home.
And there he sits.
When Paul was in France...
...and no post came for seven months...
...I heard his footsteps under my window at night.
Then I knew he was alive.
In Munich...
...the Spartacists robbed passengers on a tram.
Thank God we've no trams in Schabbach.
I'll never go to a city.
I remember when mobilization came.
We were in the fields, cutting the corn...
...and the bell tolled...
...and Willi, the postman...
...delivered the letters and they pulled up a poster.
We ran through the village, we thought there was a fire.
Mobilization had started.
And the dead will never rise again.
It's all right for you, Eduard.
The boy's got lung trouble, as you well know.
It's in writing, from the Army Selection Board.
I'd have liked to have been an airman.
Well, one's got money, the other's pretty.
But she's so dark
she could easily be a gypsy's child.
You don't know her, Paul.
That's Apollonia from Dickenschied.
She went into service here, because of Helmut Legrand.
The Schissbach rag-collectors moved on to Dickenschied...
...and someone there took her in, of course she's gypsy.
Marie, you can't say that. Nobody knows for sure.
Now she's in service at the inn.
I'm surprised Maria Wiegand's her friend...
...and Helmut wanted to marry her.
I'm sure she put a spell on him.
Now he's been dead two years by the Vistula.
In Woppert, we had an aviator, Rudi Molz.
He shot down fourteen aeroplanes.
Now he's in the ground, dead.
When airmen crash, they don't suffer.
Eduard, don't talk.
They're as if hypnotized before they crash.
Maybe they think of the nice turf they're going to ruin...
...but they don't think of themselves.
Airmen are the true heroes.
I recognized him immediately. That's Paul Simon.
Paul, you're back home and my Helmut was killed in Russia.
Did you know?
Pauline, the glasses.
In Russia they've shot...
...four grand dukes.
Four at one go and they had to strip naked first.
What? Naked? Where?
Karl Glasisch, too.
Apollonia's got him on her conscience, too, the witch.
He came home from the war with a skin infection from poison gas.
Now she's turned his head and keeps turning him down.
So he's boozing.
Marie-Goot, be quiet.
And Eduard, stop rocking that chair.
But it's true. She thinks only of tormenting the men, that gypsy.
She doesn't want Glasisch because of his scabs...
...that's all.
He got that from the mustard gas in Flanders.
Were you ever in a gas attack, Paul?
City folk just came, looking for food.
Wiegand drove them away.
We've always had food. Tell Paul, Mother.
The French want us to starve.
We're in the country here.
French! French!
We'll drive you from your trench!
We said that but now we've got them here.
When the French occupied us...
...they stabled their horses in the church.
In the church!
In Flanders, we played different tricks.
A Frenchman came into our farmyard.
He kept going around, looking for chickens.
Then he shouted, "Come on, chick, chick!"
And whacked his stick against his boots.
Then the Americans came.
They were more decent.
They didn't whistle at the girls.
When Big Bertha shelled enemy villages...
...everything shook, we had to drive the tent-pegs deeper.
The German army wasn't defeated, but its strength ebbed away.
My Helmut never fired at villages.
And first the airmen with their bombs.
We had good guns.
- What's wrong with his eye? - He's the basket maker's boy, Hans.
I knew him when he was little.
At his Confirmation party his brother put his eye out with a fork.
- With a fork? - With a fork.
- During the meal? - During the meal.
Exactly.
Two men in Rhaunen killed Hartmann, the chemist.
What?
I got my heart medicine from him only last week.
"Murder and robbery in Rhaunen.
"As Hartmann had invested nearly all his money in war bonds...
"...the loot was less than the criminals expected."
Only last week I saw gypsies in Rhaunen.
"Two hawkers suspected of the crime have been arrested."
I knew it!
Does it say how he died?
"One of the criminals was throttling Hartmann...
"...while the second used a heavy object...
"...to smash his skull in as he lay on the floor.
"It was this in particular which brought about his instant death."
Hallo, Paul.
See my white robe?
...Smashed in his skull...
I have a white robe like an angel.
All soldiers go to heaven and get a white robe.
My rash came out and the sun went in.
Murder in the Hunsrück.
There was never such a thing before the war.
I can see the snow in Russia.
All my life there was never such snow in the Hunsrück.
That he's spared your wicked gossip is a good thing, too.
Our Paul and Helmut were always the best of friends.
Son, your lung!
You can't be friend with such a swarthy person.
My Helmut and Apollonia had agreed to marry...
...before he went off to war.
Apollonia's a beautiful girl.
Has she bewitched you, too, old fool?
I see the battlefields below.
They lie there so peaceful, as if they wanted to rest.
In Kirchberg in the last three years of the war...
...you could hear the thunder of guns from France.
So we went out...
...and listened to the war.
Sit down.
Paul's falling asleep.
Paul, your trousers are torn.
- Have you heard? - What?
They're making a new sports field.
They want to make a sports field, Paul.
Paul's gone to sleep.
Down on earth, as you all know...
...there's high German and there's low.
Some say das, some say dat.
Some say was, some say wat.
But in heaven, as you'd expect...
...they speak the Hunsrück dialect.
Airmen have oxygen masks now...
...so they can go higher than 6,000 metres.
That's worn right through.
Do it the other way round.
What's that, then?
That's my new aerial. I may get Hilversum.
- Hilversum? That's a new transmitter in Holland.
Have you got there yet?
- Where? - Hilversum.
Give me a pencil.
"The Elizabeth"is carrying...
...four hundred...
...four hundredweight of cod...
...to Wilhelmshaven.
End.
That's marine wireless. Morse code.
I learnt it in Signals during the war.
And all that comes through the kite?
We're making progress. We can listen to the whole world.
Not yet awhile.
Walter, there's a kite up there.
I was just thinking about you, Paul.
The bell ringer rings the village bell
and stinks like an old goat as well!
I'll hit you with a stick.
The bell ringer with his stick, we hope he drops dead quick!
Otto and Adolf.
We might soon have been on there, too, Karl.
And now we watch...
...our girls bed down with Frenchies.
I've seen you with Apollonia.
Tell me...
A wireless like that... I mean a real one, a big one...
...with a horn like you see in pictures...
Is that expensive?
Well, I know a Leipzig firm that makes the parts.
It's cheaper to make it yourself...
...only nobody will deliver nowadays for our inflation money.
Paul, come here.
If it could be for in dollars...
I've got some in reserve, but don't tell anyone.
At home I've got a circuit diagram...
...and assembly instructions...
...for a two valve set.
If I could find out...
...how he's paying for the car he's ordered.
Like us, he invested all his money in war bonds.
I paid gold for iron.
When you've got as much land as he has...
Such a skinflint.
Our richest farmer...
...and he doesn't even feed his dog decently.
And he must always have the latest...
First a motorbike, now a car.
Since my grandfather's day...
...the District Council's...
...always met in the inn.
But since Wiegand's been mayor...
...they always meet in his parlour.
So they can save paying me for a few beers and wines.
And in his parlour they won't be so quick to contradict him, will they?
If only he'd break his neck on his motorbike.
That envious, dirty dog!
I've heard that gypsy women shave themselves down below.
Is that right?
Take your scabby fingers away.
Are you shaved, or not?
Glasisch, keep your hands off Apollonia.
She wants nothing to do with you.
Has she had a kid from a Frenchman, or not?
Glasisch, that's no concern of ours.
But if it's true, that the kid's in your midden...
...as people say, then it does concern you.
Glasisch, there's nothing but shit in my midden.
Would you like to stick your nose in it, like the other people?
What's Stinker from Morbach doing here?
Apollonia's baby, they say it's buried in the midden.
Start your work.
Let's go and see.
That thick muck must be removed.
With buckets, or better, with a pump.
Just leave it to us, Herr Glasisch.
- Here's something solid. - Can you get it?
I know my job, I tell you. There's something solid.
They've found something. So Glasisch was right.
It's too hard to be a child.
That's metal. There's no question about it.
Maybe shells.
Maybe from the last war.
Did any shells come this way?
Stay here, Herr Jakob. Please.
Can you tell us what hard object there could be in there?
I don't know about anything hard.
Eduard, come and help.
It seems to be quite big.
It's Wiegand's motorbike!
How did my bike get into your midden?
I don't know. I didn't chuck it in.
I reckon you know something. Do you think I drove it in there?
Anyway, the thing was in there.
Inspector, I'm lodging a complaint against persons unknown.
Mind where you point that finger.
Note that my bike...
...has lain for over a year in Jakob's midden.
All suspicion and insults.
But someone's got to withdraw and Wiegand, it is time you did.
Inspector, shall I go on searching?
For over a year, I've looked for the rascal...
...the rotter...
...the Lucifer!
Wiegand, I've still got five thousand-mark notes from 1914.
I'd give them for the stinking thing.
The other day I threw such notes into the stove.
The Ohlsweiler scrap merchant...
...will give you two hundred marks for it.
Give me your money and do what you like with it.
I'm buying a car, anyway, when times are better.
If my patent invention for unveiling monuments works...
...it'll spread like wildfire from village to village.
They'll adopt it even beyond Morbach.
You in the middle, you on the left... no, I'm left, you're right.
The cue is, "Bow silently before them."
It's got to go like clockwork.
Lower it or it will already be unveiled.
Now it's up to us.
Let's hope the rope doesn't break.
It would be so sad, it would be funny.
Be serious, now.
The children's choir is coming.
- Is it working? - An Eduard patent never fails.
What's the matter?
It's been going on for three years.
They keep saying bad things about me.
I work myself to death and they won't even give me a friendly word.
I can't live like that, Maria.
Don't take it to heart.
Only Paul Simon has stood up for me.
Paul Simon?
The heavens praise...
...the eternal glory...
They're consecrating memorials everywhere.
This week they were in Simmern, Kirchberg and Sohren.
In Sohren's memorial, there's even bells.
And they always make the same speech.
Know who profits most? The quarry by the River Nahe.
They're delivering 5,000 memorials as far as beyond Trier and the Eifel.
Well, enough men got killed.
My dear friends assembled here.
The men whose names are inscribed here
knew what they were fighting for.
They did not carry the heavy pack of a guilty conscience...
...like their enemies...
...who made a cowardly attack on a peace-loving people.
No, they marched against this universal enemy...
...with the light pack of an easy conscience.
At last a man who stands up to the occupiers.
A courageous man.
We Germans who still have ideals...
...should work to bring about better times.
We should fight for justice, loyalty and morality...
...in the name of our war dead.
Because of the farcical Versailles Treaty...
...which so deliberately humiliates our people...
...Germany will one day arouse the genius...
...of its blood...
...who will deliver us...
...from His dungeon of humiliation...
...like a saviour.
Already we sense His shining presence in the distance.
Then peace will come.
A peace necessary for the strong future of our state...
...and which will influence world history.
Our loved ones did not die in vain.
- Let us bow silently before them. - Ready!
Keep in time with the music.
Mäthes-Pat, I'm here too.
A bullet...
...came towards us...
...meant for me...
...or meant for you?
Who's that?
Böhnke, the baker from Simmern. He lost three boys in the war.
You're always holding what I need.
- Why is there always blue smoke? - The flux always burns blue.
- Is this the valve? - Don't touch it, it's delicate.
You'll burn the house down one day.
Wilfried, time for bed.
- It is only half past seven. - No arguments.
He always has to have the last word.
Did you catch it?
What?
The music I just heard.
There wasn't any music.
But I heard it, drums and trumpets.
Impossible, I haven't unpacked everything yet.
I've so looked forward to hearing music from you soon, Paul.
The valves are not connected yet.
I've brought you this.
You must let the chocolate melt very slowly in your mouth.
I always do, when I'm in bed.
I put a piece in my mouth and let it slowly melt.
Then you can enjoy it for a long time.
Why are you giving it to me?
You're so quiet. I like that.
Quiet?
Yes, you are.
I like people like you.
During the war, I used to think...
...if I come through this, then I'll do something special...
...and I won't stop until I've done it.
- But you're doing that. - Think so?
Of course. You're the only one who can do something like this.
Do you really think so?
If you're the only one, then you're also the first one.
Hold this.
Steady. Don't wobble.
One day, I'll make a short-wave receiver.
With that, I can listen to the whole world.
But I need a battery.
Then get yourself one.
Paul, what are you doing on the Rhine?
Apollonia, I've bought a battery...
...for Wiegand's wireless.
Why is it so lovely...
...on the Rhine...
...the German Rhine?
Because the French side over there pollutes the healthy air.
Appollonia...
I can't get it into my head that you're the mother of a child.
Nor can l. I just can't believe it.
But I've got one.
Such a beautiful baby, with such beautiful dark eyes.
You should see Armand's eyes.
He's the little Frenchman, the baby's father.
You'd have liked him, Paul.
I only wanted to dance with him. But he was so far away from home.
I couldn't say no to him.
The worst thing is what they say in the village.
Take no notice of them.
And Jakob won't even pay me for my work at the inn now.
He says I should be glad not to lose my place.
I work as well as ever.
They call me a French whore.
In church, they tipped me off my chair.
They call me a witch because of my black hair.
They say I've trodden Helmut's memory into the mire.
I was seventeen. I'm twenty now.
Must I pay for ever because there was a war?
They say I flung my baby into the midden...
...but I didn't want them to see it.
I'm glad you let me see it.
Your child.
Paul, people aren't like you.
You're different from the village people.
I'm not different.
You are, you're making your wireless.
You came back three years ago, but you still aren't at home here.
Where are you?
Are you catching the three o'clock train, too?
Go on, we'll meet later.
Armand!
Paul, Armand wants to marry me. That's why it took so long.
And you?
I don't know.
Armand thinks his parents...
...will leap for joy to see me, but that's not so.
That's not so.
How quick it seems when I'm beside you.
We're almost in Simmern.
They're all unhappy with me at home.
Father wants me in the forge and the fields...
...to carry on his work.
I could travel like this with you for ever.
They talk about grandfather and great-grandfather and so on...
...and the trade the family has carried on for years.
And I look at my wireless, and I no longer know who I am.
I've got the feeling I know.
Who am l?
You don't belong to Schabbach. Like me, Paul.
If only I were sure.
It's an evil village. Like all the evil villages out there.
When they flash by...
...faster and faster, I can breathe again, Paul.
Paul, I'm never going back to Schabbach.
I'd like to be with you always.
Let's just go on.
We won't get out in Kirchberg, we'll travel on.
To the end of the world?
You misunderstand me.
I mean, we really won't get out here.
- Where, then? - We'll find somewhere.
What about my battery and my wireless?
Then go alone to Schabbach.
Where our sweet little village ends
Where, by its wheel, the mill-stream wen?
Here stands, amid dark blossom's foam
My old beloved parents' home
I long to go there when I sleep
I often think of it and weep
My parents' home, so dear and neat
We haven't touched any of your things.
It's all just as you left it.
In Berlin, they've built a radio tower with a café on the top...
...and from there, they blare out music, I've read.
Can you get Berlin on it?
Paul, I'd open a shop...
...and sell wireless sets to the whole district...
...then your father would have money.
Look at the lovely linen, all spun by Maria.
For eternity.
There's Wiegand's car, with Wilfried.
- Come one, let's have a go at him. - Good idea.
Know-all Wiegand! Nice car you've got!
Have you got goggles like your dad has for his motorbike?
My father doesn't ride a motorbike any more.
The gentry only let their dogs ride back where you're sitting.
Stop, I can't bear...
...to watch Wiegand ducking.
He'll crack his starched collar.
Take your scabby fingers off my car!
You bastard!
You idiot!
You'd have done better to go to church.
If I'd fallen in Flanders, I'd be on this memorial.
And people would lift their hats to me.
Go on, Hans, stretch out the aerial!
That should be enough.
Careful!
Don't cut their heads off!
Perfect.
Clap your hands, Wiegand.
A bit higher, Hans.
Higher! Still higher!
Now pull it tight.
Paul has made it.
My Paul's got a flair for that.
Eduard, help me attach the earth lead.
- No, go to where it's earthed. - What?
To the walking stick.
Wilfried! What are you doing?
Eduard, your lung. You're sitting on damp earth again.
That boy with his lung!
I don't know. Something's building up over there.
I think there'll be a thunderstorm.
- I don't think so. - Never.
My cellar steps were dry this morning.
There'll be no storm if the steps are dry.
You should have brought the steps for us to see.