Blue Self-Portrait

don’t apply the same dose of lenience when it comes to the effects on myself. I excuse my sister everything and myself nothing, not only do I excuse without calculation but I appreciate more than anything in my sister that which I loathe more than anything in myself, I consider magnificent in my sister whatever horrifies me in myself, am unconditional with my sister and always disappointed in myself. Believed myself capable of a good hour opposite the pianist without betraying the effects of my education and succeeded only in terrorizing him with those very evident effects, to the extent that I had to leave the pianist sure that I’d put him off seeing me ever again, even by accident, instilled a lifelong revulsion in him for the kind of girl I am, the kind who talk too much and whose flaws we know well, who go on exasperating those around them down the generations, who ruin the lives of their husbands, children and lovers, never content with that understanding silence required for happiness, girls wanting so to take part in the collective happiness with their thoughtless chit-chat that they wreck every opportunity, chitting here and chatting there not stopping to count to ten, every time thinking they ought to have stopped their agile tongues and counted to ten but every time the thought comes too late. Ich habe zu viel gesprochen, I said to the pianist hoping to repair the irreparable, and for him kindly to reassure me, but no, not at all, it’s quite all right, but obviously thinking it’s quite the opposite, otherwise he’d never have taken me to the cinema in order to shut me up.

The pianist suggested we go see a film. I went along to the cinema in the Sony Center, opposite the Kaiser Café. It’s the perfect spot for an attack, the pianist commented in the middle of the Sony Center, walking towards the cinema, they planned this place in Berlin tailor-made for terrorism, before there was nothing here but a great piece of wasteland that the terrorists didn’t even know existed and now this Sony Center exhibited here as if built to draw terrorists’ attention, this symbol of capitalism replacing the wasteland where for some years hawkers of bits of wall used to scrape a living, the more wall you sell the less wall remains to sell, the trade ran out of steam and ultimately foundered due to scarcity, supply trailing demand, everyone wanted some wall to remember the wall by, there were a few big buyers, collectors who bought the best sections and framed this brand-new artistic heritage of humanity while on the wasteland market they were still scrabbling for the most insignificant pointless pebbles, nevertheless certified genuine vintage, and exposed those hawking the very tiniest pieces, hardly more than dust, until there was hardly a crumb left only flaking plaster and dust itself to sell, until the wall-hawkers had left the place, vanishing little by little, thus in a sense clearing the way for the raising of the Sony Center, symbol of capitalism, united Germany’s homage to the similarly united States, the pianist was thinking about the fluctuating value of ruins in the marketplace of history. It’s true that it’s the perfect spot to plant a bomb, I said to the pianist with no further agenda but the sudden impression of having understood something new about the composer within my pianist, something that had so far completely escaped me, understanding the composer though too late, his inability not to be pained by this Sony Center, not to endure it in all its capitalist splendor, was probably driven to compose in resistance to the pressure of the place, to compose and oppose the pressure of the place as an individual and for all those who don’t compose but keep the world turning such as it is. This is no laughing matter, really it isn’t, if this is laughter I have to stop, I decided, I was ashamed, in the great capital’s main square, objectively the place is perfect for a bomb and there’s nothing but nothing at all that’s funny about it only this laugh would creep up on me despite the objective disaster of a bombed-out Sony Center, the drama at the objective heart of this symbol of capitalism, a bomb here, I don’t see anything to split your sides about. Laughing sometimes undermines commitment, particular laughter particular commitment, I could see from the pianist’s face that he wasn’t suppressing a single giggle, couldn’t even imagine laughing but would quell mine with the anti-capitalist determination of his rapid pace. He wanted to pay for my seat, wanted to feed us, bought popcorn, ate, I listened to him crunching the kernels one by one right to the last, he was relaxed, the pianist in mufti crunching away, sat deep in his armchair, it was the moment for relaxation without a piano stool, on chairs as on stools but in the armchair he sprawled, digging about in the paper bag and raising handfuls to his mouth through the trailers, elbow on the armrest fulfilling the elementary function of a lever between bag and mouth, one foot resting on the other leg’s thigh, he held the paper bag out to me. Here wouldn’t you like some, I didn’t want any but pretended to so as not to be the type who refuses, you have to know how to receive, you can’t just give you also have to receive, it was a key part of my education teaching me to give as well as to receive as well as to say thank you, I said thank you a lot, it’s like breathing, thanks for anything and everything, thanks for the popcorn which I didn’t want but which I was happy to accept so you’d be happy, to say I stuffed myself would be overdoing it, accepted the minimum so the pianist would not lose face, took the minimum helping required for face-saving but did