Rudi “Attacks” Stoltenberg with a Toy Gun

Rudi “Attacks” Stoltenberg with a Toy Gun is the abrupt climax of Dr. Gerhard Stoltenberg’s visit to the new psychiatric hospital building. As the minister-president leaves the ceremony, Rudi calls out a threat and appears with a revolver. The case-carrying men accompanying Stoltenberg respond as if the danger were real, knocking him into the mud and shielding him with their bodies. The narrator’s father recognizes the assailant as one of the hospital’s patients and talks him into abandoning the game. Only when the revolver hits the road and sounds unmistakably like plastic does the danger recede. The incident makes the gap between staged play and actual peril visible in an instant, while ending the official occasion in a scene of mud, confusion, and grotesque comedy.

The Departure from the Ceremony

The incident begins after the minister-president has spent time with the family and the patients. He has shaken hands with everyone at the patient table, and, before leaving, praised the narrator and his brothers for their part in the occasion. He has thanked the narrator’s father for the completed building and told him to get in touch if problems arise. The visit has included the ordinary courtesies of an official departure; the rain has even stopped by the time Stoltenberg steps onto the yellow walkway toward his waiting limousine.

The narrator’s mother had earlier greeted the minister-president familiarly and urged him toward the fish meal awaiting him. Now the group gathers under the entrance canopy as Stoltenberg approaches the car, accompanied by the two men carrying long cases. He has lowered his head as he prepares to get in when a voice orders the people present to raise their hands or be shot. The narrator emphasizes how completely the scene changes within a fraction of a second: a departure becomes an apparent armed attack before anyone has time to interpret what they are seeing.

The Threat Becomes Real to Its Witnesses

The two case-carrying men throw themselves at Stoltenberg. He is a large man and does not go down easily, but they bring him to the ground, open their cases, and pull out black pistols. Stoltenberg lands full-length in the mud with the men on top of him, their weapons drawn. The narrator freezes, but explains that the shout itself was not what caused the shock. The voice was familiar to everyone gathered under the canopy. What astonishes the narrator is the force the voice has over the people who hear it: recognition does not prevent the threat from producing a sudden, apparently real crisis.

The men aim toward the source of the shout. The narrator’s father raises his hands and urgently tells them that there is no danger, explaining that the person behind the threat is Rudi, a patient who does this often and is harmless. A red-haired head appears from behind one of the newly installed concrete flower planters, followed by Rudi’s narrow face. The men turn their weapons toward him. The father keeps his voice calm and measured as he tries to stop the armed men from treating the encounter as an actual attack. The narrator confirms that Rudi’s ambushes are familiar across the hospital’s large grounds: few people present have not been surprised by him there before.

The Game Is Stopped

Rudi looks delighted by the effect of his threat. He steps out from behind the planter, raises his silver Colt, and aims at the men in the mud. The narrator’s father tells him that the game is over and orders him to throw away the pistol. Rudi makes a strange grimace and takes another step. One of the men shouts that he will shoot if Rudi comes closer and insists that the weapon be dropped. Rudi continues to beam and advances again, so the father steps into the line of fire.

Rather than challenge Rudi’s sense of victory, the father redirects it. He points out that the men are already on the ground, tells Rudi that he has won, and asks him to put the weapon away. Rudi considers this and then throws the revolver into the air. When it hits the road, its unmistakable plastic sound allows the men in the mud to begin to understand that the father has been telling the truth. The toy does not make the preceding danger imaginary: until that sound, the men have acted on the possibility that Rudi is armed, and the father has had to place himself between them and the approaching boy.

The Aftermath and Its Reversal

A brief, almost ceremonial silence follows. The men roll off Stoltenberg, while the narrator’s father and mother approach him and reassure him that he can get up. Two attendants run to Rudi and twist his arms behind his back, a response the narrator considers excessive. The deputy director repeatedly runs her fingers through her short hair, the narrator’s middle brother quietly marvels at what has happened, and a reporter rapidly takes photographs. Each reaction registers a different consequence of the same sudden event: apprehension, disbelief, excitement, or the impulse to record the spectacle.

Stoltenberg remains face down in the mud, motionless enough to look, to the narrator, as if he has been shot. He slowly lifts his head with a sucking sound as it comes free of the mud. When the father offers him a hand, Stoltenberg declines the help and says that he can manage alone. He gets to his feet, dripping and covered in mud, and the narrator compares his upright bulk to that of a pig emerging from a mud bath with two companions. The comparison completes the scene’s reversal: the distinguished visitor who had just praised the hospital stands transformed by the encounter, while the toy weapon has exposed how a familiar patient’s play could command the full force of an official security response.