“If someone calls?”
“Get their name and number and tell them I’ll call back tomorrow. There’s beer in the icebox.”
On my way down I ran into Mr. Knapp. He studied biology, owned a car plastered with campground stickers from all over the world and equipped with a removable tape player, which he carried around everywhere, as well as a girlfriend who also was a biology student. This time he was carrying the tape player and a cordovan briefcase with a combination lock. His outfit was beige. Even his green jacket was beige, somehow. He would probably look beige even if he wore a black suit with red polka dots.
As always, he greeted me cordially: “Guten Tag.” As never before, I replied: “Heil Hitler!”
Totally confused, wildly waving his briefcase and tape player, he stopped and stuttered. “Wha-what did you say?”
“Didn’t you sign that petition? For the Republikaner billboard?”
“But …,” he shook his head in protest, “I didn’t do it because I support their aims-on the contrary. In fact, I am an outspoken-how should I put it …” He opened and shut his mouth a couple of times, searching for the word. “Friend of foreigners.” He nodded and beamed.
“If I’m included in that,” I said, “you better watch out that this friend doesn’t punch you in the nose.”
“Please don’t say that, Mr. Kayankaya. I signed only because I think it is important to give everyone a chance to voice his opinion freely-this is a democracy, after all.”
“Right. Even when there are times when it seems as if that freedom of expression had been reserved only for Republikaners-and people who have no opinion-it is still available to others. And on that note, Mr. Knapp,” I raised my right arm, “break a leg!”
7
“You’re my baby, baby, baby-oh yeah. You’re my sunshine, sunshine, sunshine-oh yeah. You’re my-” krzzzzzzfghtntrzzzzzz “-the Chancellor put on a hat in honor of the Jewish victims of National Socialism. President Richard von Weizsacker, who also attended the ceremony, concluded his speech by asking, aren’t we all human beings, after all? And I agree wholeheartedly: Yes! Yes, we are human beings. The weather-” krzzzzzzzerbgmgnzzzzzz “-in the light of stars far away, I love you night and day, as if we were two stars, shining there so fa-” krzzzzzzzzfghnlrtzzzzzzz “-now a purely technical question, Mr. Fips. How do you manage to concentrate on your text while Simultaneously trying to beat a hole into the table top with your forehead? Just considering the rhythmical-” “In my heart lives a machine gun, and my texts are bursts fired into the dark future.” “I see, well, that’s nicely put. But you haven’t answered my question. Could you tell us something about the visual aspect-what do you do when blood starts running into your eyes? Do you wear sweatbands on your wrists, like a tennis player, or does it just fly off to the side?” “In my heart lives a machine gun, and my words are bursts into the dark future-if you like, I can read a poetic sequence that will answer your question.” “Uh-well, why not. But please let’s not have any blood stains on the carpeting-” krzzzzzzfgnerzzzz “-the President’s speech yesterday, on the theme Joy through Peace, at the beginning of the NATO exercise Friendly Touch, met with both national and international acclaim …”
I turned it off. I thought that I would have liked to work for the radio. It is a medium in sore need of improvement, and I know hardly anyone who has not at least a hundred times, behind the wheel or the shop counter, thought about what a good radio program might sound like. But people who work for radio stations probably think the same thing. They sit there at their turntables, put on “Tommy and His Jolly Bavarian Brass,” and think they’d like to work for the radio.
Fifteen miles later I passed the sign that told me I had entered Dietzenbach. I parked the Opel, got out, and looked around. A bird, a distant moped, and somewhere else a lawnmower. It seemed as if the inhabitants were busy laying their town to rest. The corpse was laid out before me: sparkling windows with drawn curtains, shiny mailboxes, manicured front yards, disinfected sidewalks. The parked cars looked as if they had just been removed from their Styrofoam packaging. I liked small German towns. They made me think that I had made a few good decisions: rush-hour traffic, winter sales, noisy neighbors, even the construction work on the expansion of the Frankfurt subway that had been going on right under my window-in a place like Dietzenbach, all those things now appeared in a much kinder light.
I walked fifty yards down the street, up to a “rustic” fence and a man who was cleaning the license plate of his BMW with a toothbrush.
“Good afternoon.”
The guy looked up and assumed the expression they all do when they stand in their front yard next to their automobile behind their “rustic” fences and assume that another person might have less than or nothing like what they have. Waving the toothbrush he approached me: “No need nothing, no buy nothing!”
“Is it caries, or does his breath just smell bad?”
“What smells bad here?”
He stopped in front of me, shoulders back, chin jutting.
“Your friend over there. The one with the rubber feet and the pipe up his ass.”
He turned, then turned back, looking irritated. Flexing his right arm like a weightlifter, he repeated: “No need nothing, no buy nothing.” When I still didn’t make a move to leave, he said it a third time, roaring on behalf of the town of Dietzenbach: “No need nothing, no buy nothing!”
“Very good. Now we know that one. Let’s move on to Lesson Number Two: How do I get to the After Hours club? And let’s be a little more on the ball if you don’t mind.”
He froze in the middle of a motion that could have led to all sorts of things. Slowly, setting one foot behind the other, he backed off in the direction of his BMW.
“Fuck off! Get the hell outta here!” His voice turned falsetto. “I sure hope I didn’t catch anything from talking to you, you-”
I held up my right hand and imitated the motion of a windshield wiper while pulling a scrap of paper out of my pants pocket with my left. “Number seventeen Hirschgraben. Tell me how to get there, or I’ll spit on your tulips.”
Pale, and holding the toothbrush like a crucifix in front of his chest, he leaned back against the radiator. “Go straight, then right at the second traffic light, and you’ll see a pink neon sign …”
“Much obliged.” I waved. “And keep on studying your German. There are times, these days, when the place feels like a foreign country.”
A heavy, dark brown, wooden door with a one-way peephole; to the left of it, a menu of drinks, to the right a brass plate with a marble bell button. I pressed it, and a taped voice croaked: “Please wait; attendez s’il vous plait; bitte warten!” Minutes later, the door opened, and a pale runt with facial hair and large eyes clung to the frame. White tennis shoes, jeans, an opalescent shirt open to the navel, a gold chain, and a quart of pomade in his hair.
“What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to speak to your boss.”
His long thin fingers beat a nervous tattoo on the doorframe.
“Sorry, but Gerhard is not available at the moment.”
“Is he here?”
“I told you, he’s not available.”
Before he could close the door again, I pushed him aside and entered the barroom. It stank of alcohol and brimming ashtrays. The chairs had been put up on the tables among many glasses that were empty except for straws and bits of fruit. In the back of the room there was a cabaret stage. On it stood the remains of a gigantic pink cake, and next to it lay an unshaven fatso dressed in sexy lingerie. Two neon tubes cast their sallow light on the scene. In addition to the entrance, there were three more doors in the room. All three had signs on them: “Pool”, “Safety First”, and “Private.”
Someone was tugging at my jacket. “What do you think you’re doing? Get out of here!”
I turned and grabbed the runt’s shirt collar. He tried to hit me, but I held him at arm’s length. I pointed at the fat guy.
