Years ago Regine and I both worked as interviewers; for a while we even worked together. I remember one afternoon when she spent a whole hour asking me all about facial tissues, and afterward I quizzed her on plastic suitcases. Unfortunately the agency did away with the long interviews and replaced them with street polls. We were expected to stand outside schools, department stores, and government offices and survey people about tax policy and TV guides. Neither of us wanted to do that, and so we went our separate ways.
Are you working these days? I ask.
Im taking a course to be a death companion, says Regine.
Oh, I say, unable to suppress a laugh.
Its a serious matter, says Regine.
Id like to ask her what they teach in such a course, but dont dare.
Is it going well? I ask instead.
Recently they wanted to send me out for the first time to accompany a woman who was ninety-one years old, but she sent me away after half an hour.
Now we both laugh, avoiding each others eyes.
She probably thought you were death in person come to take her away, I say.
I didnt see it that way.
After all, someone whos dying resents everybody whos going on living, I say.
You talk, says Regine, as if youd already died once.
Of course I have, many times, havent you?
We laugh, and I dont know if Regine fully understands my last remark. She holds out her hand and says goodbye.
Give me a call, she says in parting.
I dont need a death companion, I want to call out after her, but at the last moment I hold my tongue.
A little later it occurs to me that Regine and I actually died once together. First I had interviewed her about vacations and long distance travel, then she interviewed me about canned food and ready-made dinners. After that we were completely exhausted and lay down on her carpet. We drank half a bottle of wine and goofed around until our eyelids started to droop. When we woke up we undressed and slept together. Then a strange thing happened. Regine was lying next to me, studying her naked torso. Shed turned quiet and sad, but it took me a while to catch on. She asked me to look at her breasts. Thats all Ive been doing the whole time, is what I think I replied. Well evidently you werent paying enough attention, she said. What are you getting at? I asked. Didnt you notice that my nipples arent doing what theyre supposed to? Regine was proud of her big long nipples. During erotic interludes they would grow erect, which she always considered to be a sign of her vitality. Now they were bent to the side or folded over or pressed into her areolas. I had noticed the change but didnt think it meant anything. Only gradually did it dawn on me that Regine was physically distressed. I went so far as to say she shouldnt take her nipples so seriously. And at that point we first fell silent and then died together as a couple.
Inside my apartment I open the windows, lie down on the floor and switch on the TV. I catch a film about blue-footed boobies in the Galapagos Islands. These are large, white-feathered birds with blue feet. They resemble geese and move in a similarly clumsy manner. On the Galapagos Islands they find ideal breeding grounds, says the speaker. The birds nest on the ground, the surrounding water is clean and rich in fish. The birds are called boobies because of how they have to move their luxurious bodies during the long run-up required for takeoff. The blue-footed boobies appeal to me; at the moment Id like to be one myself. I wouldnt mind being called a booby on TV, either, since as a blue-footed booby Id finally have nothing more to do with words and their meanings. Or perhaps the animals amazing white bodies make me think of Margots little white body. It could also be that running into Regine is to blame for my sudden desire for a woman. I turn off the TV. A button pops off my shirt and rolls a ways on the floor. I watch it until it flips over and stops moving. Through the walls I hear the children in the apartment next door calling each other asshole and dumb jerk. They must be more or less like the children that made Lisa sick. Id like to call Lisa and ask her how shes doing, but I wouldnt like for Renate to pick up and for me to have to talk with her. I dont move, listening to asshole, asshole shouted next door. Among the new shoes Habedank gave me is a pair of barely affordable hand-welted loafers made of genuine kidskin. They feel fantastic. Its a little after 3 p.m. Presumably Margot doesnt have any customers now and is eating a bowl of soup in the middle sink. The cat will be curled up sleeping in the sink on the left. I leave the apartment and head to Margots. Shell probably be surprised to see me again so soon. I follow a Japanese woman whos eating a peach as she walks. The peach is small, it fits the Japanese womans hands, which are also small, and it fits her mouth, which is so small that it hardly even strikes you as a mouth. After a short while the peach is eaten up; the Japanese woman is holding the pit in her small hands. Or is it called a stone? If Im not mistaken when I was little I used to call it a stone, but then I started calling it a pit more and more often. Or was it the other way around? Why did I change from stone to pit, when from todays perspective there was absolutely no need to do that? The Japanese woman wraps her peach pit in a tissue. I have to turn left, but because I want to see what the Japanese woman will do with the peach pit (stone), I act a little like Im just loafing and looking around. O wondrous awe for that which is foreign! The Japanese lady doesnt have the courage to simply toss the peach pit (stone) onto the street or into some garden. She stashes whats left in her tiny purse, which could just as well be called a peach pit pursette. Im only a few steps away from Margots. I cant hide my excitement—a silent twitch in my knees gives it away. In the display window of Margots salon, all three neon tubes are lit. I see the door open and out steps Himmelsbach. That wasnt supposed to happen. Himmelsbach walks off to the right, so he doesnt notice me. In one fell swoop its clear I cant go see Margot now, too. I probably wont ever be able to again. I cant tell whether Himmelsbach had his hair cut or not. Quietly and fruitlessly I rail against the furtiveness of life. One corner later it occurs to me that without this furtiveness I would have been dead a long time ago. This contradiction leads me to a momentary insight into the stuff of my insanity. If you go crazy someday, I think, it will mean that youve finally been cut by these constantly opening and closing shears. Himmelsbach is wearing a dark slouch hat with a wide brim. Playing the artiste—what ridiculous affectation! Unfortunately I get jealous, right here on the street. At the same time I feel sorry for Himmelsbach. He looks more down and out than in recent days. For a while I follow him aimlessly. Maybe hell off take his hat, then Id know for certain. Under no circumstances is he allowed to see me. And I have no desire to talk with him either. I cant let him see that Im brooding over him and Margot. The best thing would be if he sat down somewhere, took off his hat, and mulled and meditated for a bit. But Himmelsbach doesnt rest and doesnt mull: those are my habits, not his. His pants look as if hed borrowed them. Himmelsbach reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out a few sunflower seeds. He breaks them one by one with his incisors, using his fingernails to extract the white kernels. Regrettably, I ask myself if Margot is a woman who augments her income with occasional prostitution. But to tell the truth, I dont want to think about problems at all. Ive already done that too often in my life, I feel too old for it now. I look for some distraction. Id like to at least wander around the embankment and look up at the occasional tree and observe the light among the leaves. But the embankment isnt readily available, so I have to content myself with ordinary neighborhood streets. Under no circumstances may I let things get to the point where the only time I find my life bearable is when Im wandering around. From the way Himmelsbach is walking, I cant tell whether hes just slept with someone or not. For the time being I try to split myself into two people, into a sober rambler whos lost both his work and his woman on the same day, and an active dreamer who doesnt want to hear anything about that. The split succeeds, at least for a while. Already Im struck by the strong smell of the linden blossoms that must be around here somewhere. Shortly after that a cockeyed dog comes up between two parked cars. I didnt know that cockeyed animals even existed. The dog trots up to me; I can no more look him in the eye than I could a cockeyed human. Im very grateful to him for the distraction hes providing me. Im also grateful to a schoolteacher, for the same reason. Shes standing at a streetcar stop with a dozen children. Suddenly the teacher says to her pupils: Dont take up so much room, line up more economically! That remark immediately predisposes me against the teacher. I manage to work up an inner indignation such as I havent had in a long time. Line up more economically, I mumble to myself, words like that are the foundation of misery. The teacher is treating the children like umbrellas or folding chairs that can be stowed here or stashed there as needed. Is it any wonder that people refuse to consent to life from childhood on? Then the split in my consciousness starts to wear off. The experiences I have disowned come back bit by bit. Now my rambling about is no more than a bizarre play of melancholy and numb rigidity. I admit it would be painful if I couldnt see Margot again. I curse her, but that doesnt help. Dear Margot, did you have to hurt me with Himmelsbach of all people? I remember a saying I used to think when I was sixteen years old about nurses, secretaries and hairdressers: Dumb girls fuck good. I didnt come up with it, I was only parroting it, at that time I had no idea about nurses, secretaries, hairdressers or any other women. I try to foist the memory of this saying onto my split doppelg?nger, unfortunately without success. The saying only causes me to groan; no one else knows. What Id like most of all is to go straight to Margot and tell her what an indescribable simpleton I was when I was sixteen. And now Ive lost sight of Himmelsbach in the whole mess. I ask myself whether the moods that pass through me are part of my life or not. Im so dazed and feeble that I run into a parked car with my right knee. Im put off by two children who cross my path saying choc instead of chocolate. Could this be the beginning of insanity? All the same, I dont want to complain or admonish. Complaining and admonishing are the favorite occupations of ninety-five percent of humanity, and my conceit wants nothing to do with them. I only want to give brief expression to my daily damnation and then go on living. No, its not the damnation; its the days peculiarity I want to get rid of. Just how is it possible that Im longing for a hairdresser Ive met at most a half dozen times and whom I hardly know beyond her first name, that Im jealous of a photographer whos half on the skids, and that Im mourning for a job that didnt keep me fed anyway, and all that on a single day? It seems to me I cant go home under the influence of this peculiarity. I sit down on a wooden bench and stare at the nearby brambles, which I admire because they convey nothing except their own enduring. Id like to be like these brambles. Theyre there every day, they resist by not disappearing, they dont complain, dont speak, they dont need anything, theyre practically invincible. I feel a yearning to take off my jacket and toss it in a high arc into the brambles. Perhaps that way I might connect with some part of their enduring strength. Even the word brambles impresses me. Maybe that is the word for the collective peculiarity of all life, the word Ive been searching for all this time. The brambles express my pain without putting any strain on me. I look at the dusty tangle of their leaves, flecked with bird droppings that are either running down or have already hardened, I look at the many branches that have been knocked or torn off by children but persevere undiscouraged, and at the nerve-racking litter that collects around the roots but still doesnt diminish the shrub. When the daily peculiarity starts to get the better of me, Ill come here and toss my jacket into the brambles. Id like to see the jacket lying among the branches as a sign. A completely clear image and still no one will recognize it. Ill stroll past my jacket whenever I want and be able to marvel at how it remains as invincible as the brambles, despite the fact that it grows older and less handsome with every new pain it absorbs. And I will admire the jacket as my surviving doppelg?nger and so free myself from pain, at least for the time being. I cant fully rule out the possibility that I might be going crazy at this moment. Whats clear in any case is that if I ever really throw my jacket into the brambles I will have gone crazy for sure. I havent reached that point yet. I enjoy imagining a play-craziness designed to help me live unperturbed. Now and then the pretend craziness should pass over into a genuine one—just for a few moments—and amplify my distance from reality. Naturally Id have to be able to return to the game at any time, as soon as the genuine craziness stopped. Presumably this will prove that people can only be happy if they can choose between pretend craziness and genuine craziness whenever they want. In any case Ive frequently observed that people are naturally predisposed to mental illness. Im surprised so few people admit that their normalcy is merely feigned. Even the family walking past me right now is collectively crazy. A husband, wife, and grandma are making fun of a child. The child is still a baby; hes sitting in his carriage and cant do a thing. He cant hold his head up, cant grab things, cant really open his mouth right, cant swallow. Every time the child cant do something (right now hes drooling), the husband, wife or grandma squeals with pleasure. They dont realize that the delight they take in the child is really mocking and crude, though if they looked they might see that the childs fleeting gaze is searching for a faraway refuge. Strangely, my observation of the family lets me find my way back to reality. Only the child sinks deeper into his carriage, one millimeter at a time. I close my jacket and head home. The crazy family walks away, giggling.
My apartment is sitting there quiet and clueless. I dont feel miserable when I enter the kitchen. The telephone rings, I wont pick up. I take off my jacket and cut a slice of bread. I very much like the way the bread tastes. I take off my glasses and rub my eyes. Just as Im about to put them back on, my glasses slip out of my hand onto the stone tile of the floor. The edge of the left lens is chipped. I put on my glasses and look at myself in the mirror. Its instantly clear that I wont be getting any new glasses, and that the little chip will become a sign. I go to the telephone and pick up after all. Its Susanne.
I found a letter from you, she exclaims, that you wrote me eighteen years ago.
Eighteen years ago? I ask tonelessly.
Yes, she says, eighteen years ago in August this is how you addressed me: Dearest Susanne…
But we werent involved eighteen years ago, were we?
No, says Susanne, at least nothing happened.
So what does the letter say? Is it embarrassing?
No, says Susanne, love is embarrassing for you, but not for me.
Her answer perplexes me; I say nothing.
Shall I read it to you?
No, I say, its enough for me to read it later.
Youll soon have a chance to do that, says Susanne, because I want to invite you to a little dinner party Im having for a few friends and colleagues.
Do I know them too?
One or two of them, says Susanne, for example Himmelsbach.
Oh God, I say, that old stuffed shirt.
You cant call him that, says Susanne, laughing. Someone I used to work with will be there, too. Shes now a sales manager for an upscale retirement home, that must be a dreadful job.
Susanne lists who else is coming. As I listen to her I sink into a kind of internal numbness. I wonder whether I was with Susanne eighteen years ago or if I only wrote her letters. I cant remember.
Do you prefer red wine or white? Asks Susanne.
Red, I say.
Susanne repeats the time and date of the dinner several times. I write them both down on the edge of a newspaper. Im sure that I dont want to read the letter I wrote her eighteen years ago. Now Susanne is talking about what shes going to cook. I listen to her and chew on my bread without making any noise. The taste of the rye softens the peculiarity of the fact that I will soon be sharing a table with Himmelsbach.