Magic Hoffmann (11 page)

The flat, Coca-Cola-coloured steel building ran along the street for between one and two hundred metres. In front of it was a broad strip of lawn with bushes, benches and concrete paths. Half hospital, half factory. A striking factory, for masses of people were standing around on the lawns and paths. They were eating and drinking, gesticulating and chatting, the ground was littered with fliers and a banner hung from the roof of the building: ‘SUCCESS THROUGH INCOME!'

The sky was now somewhat brighter, and it didn't seem quite so improbable that the sun was hiding somewhere behind the grey plank.

Fred stood among a group of students on the edge of the street and waited with them until the stream of cars had passed. They were all carrying small, brightly-coloured rucksacks. Fred wondered if this was some kind of university uniform.

The road cleared and Fred followed a couple who were arguing about the derivation of the words ‘bread rolls'. That seemed to smack enough of German studies for him to dog their footsteps. They went along one of the concrete paths, past little groups laughing and debating, to the entrance and into a vast, endless hallway. A jumble of denim jackets, colourful glasses, ties and baseball caps swirled among tables laden with books and leaflets. The couple weaved their way skilfully through, a skip here, a side-step there, and Fred was struggling to keep up. Then they went up the stairs and into a side corridor, two left turns, one right and into another hallway - or was it the same one, Fred had lost his bearings - and finally at the end of the hall they came to a trestle table with a coffee machine and some plastic cups. More students sat round the table on the floor and did what they all seemed to do here: take a break. Fred's couple came upon another couple: ‘Hiya!' Embraces all round and the woman asked: ‘What are your thoughts on the bread roll question?'

Fred didn't want to disturb them. He bought a coffee which cost fifty pfennigs and tasted like it, then he asked the young man with friendly dreads and ironed T-shirt if he could tell him where the German studies people might be.

The young man put the pot back carefully, then suddenly assumed such a sunny expression that Fred looked away in irritation.

‘Of course! The German studies girls are on the ground floor, one corridor along.'

Fred looked at those gleaming white teeth. German studies girls…?

‘Aha. And is there a porter you can ask if you're looking for someone?'

‘I don't think the girls in the porter's office can help. Anyway there's a strike. And with a conspiratorial wink: ‘Freshman then?'

‘Fresh what?'

‘It was the same for me at the beginning. I didn't get it at all,' explained the young man, still looking at Fred as if they had just pulled of some stunt like swiping the blackboard wiper.

‘Hmhm,' said Fred in the belief that he had a madman in front of him. ‘Well…' he said and then ‘Good…' and he nodded and turned away.

The young man yelled after him: ‘Good luck, it's always tough at the beginning. But you'll crack it!'

Fred disappeared hurriedly into the next corridor. Did they have village idiots in universities too? At the end of the corridor Fred came into a hall again. One side was made of glass. A dozen students were standing in front of it, looking out and roaring with laughter. Fred approached curiously and found himself gazing upon a well-tended inner courtyard with benches and small trees. On one of the benches an old man in blue overalls was sleeping, a pair of secateurs on his stomach. The secateurs were rising and falling to the rhythm of his breathing. The neck of a bottle protruded from his jacket pocket.

‘Shame we don't have a camera!' shouted a girl, wiping the tears from her eyes.

‘A photo to die for.'

‘Live and let live.'

‘The bearable lightness of being!'

‘Bellissimo!'

Fred looked around the courtyard to see if he had missed anything. He hadn't, and mildly bewildered he went to the staircase.

The usual turmoil awaited him down below. He forced himself past people and rucksacks until he came across a pair of large dark eyes behind a table, piled with books. The accompanying mouth wore red lipstick and was engaged in talking to someone. Fred forced his way to the table, and while he was waiting to question this beauty about German scholars and Nickel and to exchange a few words with her, he leafed through books like
Economics Today
and
The Stock Market Made Simple
.

Suddenly an amplified voice boomed from the entrance to the hall, and everyone went silent. Heads turned in the direction of the loudspeaker, and when Fred stood on tiptoes he could see a tall thin man in a black polo neck with short hair and dark glasses standing on a rostrum. His narrow, earnest face seemed highly intelligent to Fred, his voice and his manner of speaking were so clear and insistent that each word seemed perfectly chosen. The man seemed to have invented talking. After a while Fred began to repeat certain sentences in his head like the choruses of pop songs.

What the man was saying was pretty much as follows: budding academics were the guarantee of a stable future in the most socially important professions, and therefore they were demanding a framework for undisturbed optimum conditions for learning: civil service salaries for all students from the intermediate exam onwards, and pension, health and life insurance for life.

Fred was curious, finding the demands both bold and at the same time somehow boring, but he wasn't really surprised. In the meantime he had got used to the feeling of being on some kind of strange planet. The natives talked either insanely or beautifully, laughed at sleeping gardeners, entertained each other with the naming of bread rolls and carried their gear on their backs like boy scouts or mountaineers.

The speaker raised his fist.
Against
 c
ompetition and adaptability!
For
equal financial conditions and independent learning, for an academic cadre without fear of the future and with the courage to make changes!
For
freedom in security!
For
a better next millennium! For our country, for Europe and for the whole world! Thank you friends!'

Applause broke out, the audience clapped and cheered for minutes on end, and some were shouting ‘Encore!' The faces next to Fred seemed strangely transfigured, as if they were going to war. Gradually the crowd began to calm down and disperse, and Fred turned swiftly to the beauty. She had her arms folded and was staring dubiously at the now empty podium.

‘Sorry, I'm looking for someone…'

‘Hm?'

‘Nikolas Zimmer. I'm new here, and I thought maybe you would know him. He is a… German scholar.'

The beauty frowned. This made her even more beautiful. It made Fred dumber.

‘You mean the one with the kid?'

Fred shook his head. ‘No, no. Nikolas Zimmer from Dieburg.'

‘That's it, he's from some Godforsaken place.'

‘He's fairly tall with long, dark hair.'

‘Exactly, and sideburns. I'm in the same Walser course as him.'

Fred asked: ‘Why with a kid?'

‘Probably because his girlfriend got one, or how does it work in Dieburg?'

She began to straighten the pile of books. Fred watched in a daze as her hands moved across the book jackets. Nickel with a child… Was she taking the mickey?

‘Do you know where I could find him?'

‘We'd normally have a lecture the day after tomorrow, provided the strike is over.'

‘Where?'

‘Over there…' she pointed to a passage leading away from the hall, ‘third door on the left.'

‘And are you sure it's his child?'

‘In any case it calls him Daddy, and he calls it his darling.'

Fred attempted to imagine Nickel with a child on his arm. It had to be a mistake.

‘Maybe he's working as a baby-sitter.'

The beauty paused, placed her hands on the books and cocked her head to one side. ‘Listen. I barely know your friend. The best thing would be to ask him all this yourself the day after tomorrow. And anyway I'm working here.'

Fred nodded as she disappeared behind the table, returning with a handful of books and distributing them on the piles.

After a while Fred asked: ‘Is that fun?'

‘For God's sake!'

She sold a few books, then she took a croissant out of a paper bag and bit into it. With her mouth full she asked: ‘Maybe a brief essay on interest rates for the journey home?'

‘I don't think that would speed my journey.'

‘Hardly,' she laughed.

‘The guy making the speech earlier on, was he some kind of…'

‘Idiot,' she interrupted and shoved the rest of the croissant into her mouth. ‘Good-looking though.'

‘Well,' Fred shook his head, ‘at first glance, maybe.'

‘At tenth too. Besides he's uncomplicated and knows what he wants.' She crumpled the paper bag and threw it under the table. ‘Otherwise I wouldn't be going out with him.'

 

On his way to the underground Fred thought about babies for the first time in his life. His experiences were limited to impenetrable wailing creatures that sat in nappies and could stare at a fixed point for hours on end. And he thought of the few young fathers he had met previously in Dieburg: either foolish with pride or miserable, mostly in a hurry and whatever happened with their arses stuck in a sofa for the next fifteen years.

The woman was undoubtedly wrong.

 

 

That evening Fred was seated with a new, and according to the hairdresser, sharp haircut, in a bar near Ku'damm eating liver. Two small girls sitting at the next table with their parents were giggling, and the words pop singer reached Fred's ears several times. Fred himself found the haircut not at all bad. Once he had got rid of the blow-dried effect, the face apart, he could pass for Willy de Ville's blond brother. Meantime he had decided to ask Annette for help. Swallow his pride - he didn't want to wait for Nickel till the day after tomorrow. Besides, he had to know whether Nickel really did have a child. The thought was as sobering to Fred as the notion of Canada as a one week package tour.

He left the pub and headed for Ku'damm. He called Annette's number from a phone booth, it was busy. Opposite him, a bar sign shone: Ringo's Place. A schnapps and a phone call in the warm.

Fred crossed the street and opened the door into a small wood-panelled cave. Above the counter hung carnival garlands with coloured bulbs, which cast a soft orange light over the room. Three regulars were slumped silently over their beer, each at his own table. A dog was asleep in the corner. Hit songs tootled from a transistor radio.
Anyway, anyway, we'll be happy any day…
The landlord sat on a stool by the beer tap, doing the crossword. He had a narrow yellowish face, the features sagging, as if asleep: cheeks, nose, chin, the sparse hair - even the eyes seemed ready to fall out of their sockets at any moment through exhaustion and weariness.

Fred went to the counter and asked if he might make a call. The landlord nodded, pointed at a phone in the corner, and Fred ordered a schnapps. The landlord shoved a glass towards him without a word, poured and buried himself again in his down and across, while Fred went to the phone. Still engaged. Back at the counter he downed the schnapps and leafed through an evening paper. He read the weather forecast and was about to put the paper down, when he caught sight of a computer likeness. It showed the face of a young man with a large chin and unusually protruding eyes. Underneath was written: blond, mid-twenties, brown corduroy trousers, check shirt, probably from South Germany, wanted for theft and grievous bodily harm. Yesterday evening around ten o'clock…

The print swam in front of Fred's eyes, and Fred thought he was going to be sick. After glancing at the landlord, he folded the paper and rested his elbow on it. He observed himself unobtrusively in the mirror between the rows of bottles. It was the eyes. Even if the drawing wasn't particularly accurate, those two bovine globes were unmistakable.

Again he looked across at the landlord, then he turned round carefully and watched the other guests. Had they read the paper already? Were they all just waiting for a signal to pounce on him? But nobody seemed to be paying him any attention. More than ever, he had to find Nickel fast. With studied indifference, he jammed the paper under his arm and went to the phone again. This time he got through. After many rings someone finally lifted the receiver.

‘Megastars. Carlo.'

Fred said he wanted to speak to Annette. There was a pause, then he could hear her laughter approaching.

‘With which anonymous, handsome man have I the honour of speaking?'

Confused, Fred held the receiver away from his face. Was she drunk?

‘It's me, Fred.'

‘Ah Fred, darling. My apple wine man! I've already…' She suddenly burst out laughing. Fred could hear a man's voice in the background. Then the mouthpiece was covered, until Annette announced, exhausted: ‘ 'Scuse me, we're tidying up here…anyway, I was really worried - are you celebrating already?' She spoke without pausing for breath. ‘Say hello to old miseryguts from me - only if his little darling isn't there of course. It'll be good for him to go out with you a bit, and don't let him get you down: when Nickel starts to yawn at eleven it means all kinds of things, but not that he's tired. Maybe the three of us will go out one of these days…' The man in the background said something and Annette burst out laughing again. ‘Swine!' she yelled.

Fred waited until the laughter had died down, then he said: ‘Annette, Nickel doesn't live at…'

‘Yes?' she interrupted. ‘I'm back. Terry's standing round here telling filthy jokes. What did you say?'

‘Nickel doesn't live in his old flat any more.'

‘Lucky for him. That dingy hole.'

‘I mean…'

‘Shove off!' She turned away from the phone and yelled: ‘Oh, now Marcel's coming. Sorry Fred but…'

‘Annette, please. I have to …'

‘Hey Marcel!'

Fred ground his teeth and slammed down the receiver. The other guests looked across at him. Ignoring their glances he stomped back to the counter and shoved his empty glass at the landlord.

‘The paper's yours if you want it.'

Fred looked up. The landlord was pointing with a smile at the rolled up newspaper under Fred's arm

‘Oh that…' Fred was too angry to worry any further. He threw the paper on the counter and downed the schnapps. The landlord waited, bottle in hand, and poured unbidden.

‘You look like you could use it,' he remarked. In contrast to his face, the voice was lively and clear, its tone calm and relaxed, like the voice of an expert who has an overview of what looks to the layman like impenetrable chaos.

‘Two more then home to bed,' he advised, ‘any more is unhealthy. You're still young. Those ones over there…' he made a disparaging gesture towards the tables, ‘…can drink till they fall down dead and it doesn't matter. But with you…'

‘Oh yes?' came a slow growl.

Three pairs of fierce old eyes blazed at him from the tables. Fred shifted his gaze nervously between them and the landlord.

‘Ignore that con man. “Any more is unhealthy” - don't make me laugh. Pours you two schnapps you don't even want, then acts concerned: the old shithead!' The speaker grinned evilly, and two single grey teeth came over his bottom lip.

‘Anyway. While they're scraping that stuff out of your stomach… Cancer of the intestine,' the landlord added for Fred, while he leaned his forearms on the counter and calmly awaited further onslaughts. Fred took his money out. Today he didn't need any more grief.

‘You know that doesn't bother me?' said the one with two teeth. ‘Just think. That is if you're doing something where it could bother you - and I don't mean collecting stamps.'

‘Apropos,' said another, whose small deformed face was reminiscent of a celery root, ‘is it true that your wife is going round saying these extra fat bottles with ribbed glass are the best thing since the invention of separate bedrooms?'

Fred put a twenty on the counter.

‘Hmhm,' mumbled the landlord, ‘and yours is supposed to have refused her deathbed so she could stay alone with you in the room.'

There was a pause in which the mood seemed to alter radically. Fred cleared his throat and pointed to his money. The three old boys stared at the landlord with hate-filled eyes, while they placed their hands against the edge of their tables and leaned forward, as if they wanted to leap on him at any minute. The landlord looked from one to the other and clicked his tongue provocatively. Before Fred's eyes he was feeling for a kitchen knife. This can't be true, thought Fred.

Celery face stood up and said: ‘Say that one more time!'

‘Gladly: the word is she died of vomit, because…'

‘You filthy swine!'

Furious howling, shifting of chairs, landlord with knife in hand. Fred leapt for the door and grabbed the handle, when roars of laughter started up behind him. For a few seconds he thought he'd gone mad. Slowly he turned round to see the three old men and the landlord rolling about. They were slapping each other on the shoulder, wiping tears from their cheeks, trembling again and again with renewed fits of laughter, and their bright red faces seemed about to burst. This lasted until celeryface turned to Fred and asked breathlessly: ‘Was it the “Filthy swine”?'

‘Nonsense,' shouted the landlord, ‘it was the knife.'

‘Without our yelling,' said the one with two teeth, ‘neither would have worked.'

‘Well, tell us.'

All four looked at Fred, their heads nodding expectantly.

‘I…I don't know. Is this a game?'

‘Oh God,' sighed celeryface, ‘he's really scared.'

‘I've always said that's young people for you. Know everything, can do everything, but one decent joke and they don't understand the world any more.'

‘Yes, a joke,' confirmed the landlord. ‘The first to scare a new guest so much that he runs out arse over tit, gets to drink free for a week. If I win the others invite me to …a pleasure of my choice.'

The old men winked at Fred maliciously. ‘And all he wants to do is go to the opera!'

‘You must decide,' said the landlord, ‘and don't let yourself be influenced by those mummies.'

‘Well…' Fred reflected, ‘quite honestly it was everything together, but the knife finished me off.'

‘You see.'

The old man made sullen gestures of denial.

‘Just because we had no knives and forks on the table.'

‘I'm not even sure it's allowed. Didn't we agree: words only?'

‘Listen Granddads,' said the landlord and clapped his hands, ‘you're bad losers. Young man, what would you like to drink?'

Fred looked across to the old boys, then at the shelf full of bottles.

‘Your best whiskey?'

‘That's it young fella. Drink up all his malt. May he go broke tomorrow!'

For the next hour Fred stood at the counter, surrounded by the old men, drinking Irish whiskey and answering questions about where he came from and where he was headed. To his astonishment, his Canada plans met with wild enthusiasm and admiration for the first time since his release from prison. The old men slapped his shoulder and unselfishly made him the focal point of the evening. Celeryface boasted of having been in Canada himself many years previously, and asserted that there was no more fantastic country on earth. The one with two teeth raved about a tour group of Canadian women for whom he had acted as a guide in Berlin, and the third old man, a crumpled dwarf with streaming eyes, recited the names of several ice hockey players. The landlord on the other hand had nothing to offer apart from some scanty knowledge of the life cycle of salmon, and he was treated like dirt by the others in the meantime. Proudly they courted Fred's favour, as if he had another ticket to hand out. If only Annette could have seen him!

‘Young man, if apple wine really is unknown in Canada, or not particularly well known, then I think it's an outstanding idea.'

With the encouragement of the old men, Fred began to feel more and more comfortable.
They
understood him. They might have been a little strange, but they knew their stuff where it counted.

Goaded on by the whiskey, he started cursing Annette: a girlfriend who thought she was making films, instead of which she spent the whole day on the phone, and she only stuck around here for bullshit like that.

The old men listened attentively, and eventually Fred yelled out euphorically: ‘You can't let some prophet of doom destroy your dreams. I make my dreams become reality!'

Thereupon he took a huge slug, and only when he put the glass back did he notice that the old men were suddenly eyeing him mockingly.

‘Well, well,' said the one with two teeth, ‘and what else do we have in the poetry album?'

‘I am small, my heart is pure, why can't I be a big fucker any more?' proposed celeryface.

‘Or,' the landlord solemnly raised his finger, ‘God, I'm getting aristocratic, not one woman likes my dick!'

They laughed until the one with two teeth pointed his chin in Fred's direction and declared: ‘Young man, such language is unseemly.'

Fred looked in irritation from one to another. Their searching glances bore down on him. It was dangerous to chatter in their presence.

‘I…' Fred reached out for cigarettes, ‘…well, sometimes I think up things…like pop songs.'

‘Hm,' said the dwarf, giving Fred a light, ‘have you already tried with an instrument?'

The others grinned.

Then the landlord poured a round, and celeryface started telling a story about an air hostess he had met in Toronto. In future Fred would have to guard against careless remarks.

He would have most liked to have told them about prison. He didn't know why, but he had the feeling that even if he stuck to the truth - four years of clinging on mindlessly -he wouldn't be treated like a pitiful failure round here. But at the same moment the wanted notice occurred to him, and when the old boys had read the paper and learned that he had previous convictions, they might hit upon an idea.

The evening drew on. When Fred swayed towards the door at about midnight after fond farewells and promises to return, the landlord called after him: ‘your paper!'

Fred turned round, and the landlord handed him the roll of paper with a wink.

‘But don't carry it under your arm as if there were a body in it. And you'd better buy…some sunglasses tomorrow.'

Fred sobered up at a stroke. He looked into the landlord's grinning face, then he grabbed the paper and stumbled out.

Once on the street, he pressed himself against the wall and peered through the steamed up glass into the interior of the pub. The landlord was laughing and pointing at his eyes. At some time during the course of the evening he must have had a look in the paper. Or did he know from the beginning? Fred broke into a sweat after the event. Why hadn't he noticed anything? How could he have forgotten the danger so quickly? Nevertheless, the landlord didn't seem to want to betray him to the police.

Furious with himself, Fred headed for the hotel. From now on he'd have to tread very carefully. The haircut obviously didn't provide much camouflage. In any case he couldn't go looking for Nickel tomorrow - he would just have to stay in the hotel and wait for the lecture. They would hardly print the picture more than once - after all he hadn't murdered anyone - and most people would hopefully have forgotten by the day after tomorrow…Fred shook his head as he walked along: he had only come to Berlin to collect his friends and his money; why did he have to get caught up in all this?