Schwangere

Schwangere is a volatile regular at the Zum Goldenen Handschuh, known for aggression toward strangers and for a violent confrontation with Rolli. Her nickname comes from the heavy apron of fat around her middle, rather than any confirmed pregnancy. In the bar’s crowded social order, she is both an object of bodily labeling and a person who turns anger into physical force: after deciding Rolli should no longer come there, she kicks his wheelchair and sends him rolling across the room.

Identity and Place in the Bar

Schwangere appears among the bar’s drinkers in a setting where nicknames often reduce people to a striking feature or perceived type. The narration traces hers to the powerful fold of fat around her waist, which it describes as a shield, and presents her as particularly aggressive toward people she does not know. The name therefore does not establish that she is pregnant; it records how the bar classifies her body. Her place in this world is conveyed less through personal history than through the reactions she provokes and the violence she threatens.

The bar’s usual protections are unreliable. On one earlier occasion, WH 2 refused her a cigarette. She responded by emptying several partly full glasses of Jägermeister across the counter, splashing his suit and making a conspicuous mess. Though furious enough to nearly faint, WH 2 stayed still because she was regarded as unpredictable. That episode establishes a pattern: others may resent her, but fear of what she might do restrains them. Her outbursts are not confined to the later dispute with Rolli.

The Dispute with Rolli

On the evening of the confrontation, the bar is short of its usual supervision. Herbert, normally behind the counter, has had the night off, visited as a guest, drunk heavily, and gone home; the thin, frail Wolfgang has taken his place. The room is full of drinkers who are already aggressive and short of money at the end of the month. Against this unsettled background, Schwangere singles out Rolli, whose given name is Rolf. An accident has left him in a wheelchair, and hepatitis has turned his skin markedly yellow. He also suffers from severe, worsening itching, which the narration describes in distressing physical detail.

When Rolli is drunk, he shouts instructions at other customers. They do not protest, the narration says, because he is paraplegic and therefore helpless. That tolerance infuriates Schwangere. She wants him barred from the room and imagines him left at home to starve or thirst, scratch himself to death, and become part of the neglect around him. She also pictures tipping him from his chair and beating him with her feet. These are stated as her fantasies and threats; the violence that follows is specifically directed at his wheelchair.

Violence and Escalation

While Wolfgang goes to the back to fetch beer, the argument gets out of control. Schwangere kicks Rolli’s wheelchair with full force, sending him rolling from one end of the bar to the other. She calls him a broken cripple. Rolli is initially so angry that he can barely speak, then answers with a crude insult of his own. The exchange does not settle the conflict: Schwangere’s forehead veins stand out as she threatens to kick him until he wants to die, and Rolli challenges her to try.

She kicks the chair again. Rolli’s body rocks like a cloth doll, and the people around them shout. The physical disparity in the scene is plain: Rolli is in a chair and cannot protect himself from the kicks, while Schwangere is able to move and strike it. Yet the bar’s response comes through a crowd’s uproar rather than any earlier intervention. Once it appears that she may be banned, she flees the premises. Her exit ends the immediate assault but does not restore Rolli’s sense of safety.

Consequences and Narrative Significance

Visibly shaken by the encounter, Rolli asks Soldaten-Norbert to watch out for him outside because he fears Schwangere may lie in wait. As he rolls out, he shouts that he will not return, imagining himself descending into the mud and being swallowed by it. His declaration turns a quarrel over whether he belongs in the bar into an announcement of departure: he leaves under threat, not in the calm assurance that the conflict has been resolved.

The episode makes the bar’s system of recognition look double-edged. Nicknames and bodily descriptions make patrons legible to one another, but they also compress them into stigmatizing types. Rolli’s paralysis is the reason the other customers reportedly tolerate his drunken commands; Schwangere treats that same helplessness as an offense and answers it with violence. Her earlier outburst over a refused cigarette foreshadows the escalation, while her flight after the crowd reacts shows the limit of her power in this moment. Rolli, meanwhile, asks for an escort and leaves saying he will never come back. The scene gives no later confirmation of whether he keeps that promise.