Wonderful, Wonderful Times (12 page)

Don't leave me standing around stark naked so long, it's cold because of saving on the heating, says Margarethe Witkowski. First I've got to think about how to shoot it, there has to be some violence in it. Double up in pain, imagine you've been hit. That's fine, even you get the message, little by little. If only I knew what angle to choose so as to get everything in. The panties have to be at your feet. And now step out of them. Slowly! That's the discarded skin of an animal you're leaving behind, say a snake, and up you rise, as snakelike as possible, to your reluctant but compelling desire.

Frau Witkowski does this as she imagines a snake would do it, and up she rises, but not to her desire, a stench is filling her nostrils and she has to race to the kitchen, where the rice pudding has burnt. Thus she destroys her husband's delicate artistic mood. The genius was inspired and his prosaic spouse has destroyed it all, totally. I have to see to the cooking, it's high time, too late, in fact. Meanwhile her husband abandons himself to his own thoughts, which are somewhere far down, in the Polish lowland plains, Russian plains too, where Communism is constantly coming from these days. Back there he was still somebody. Who is he now? Nobody. A porter. Herr Witkowski is pleased that the putsch was foiled back in 1950. He too was one of the little wheels (though not a very handy one, given that he lacked one foot) in the ranks of those who did the foiling. Because he tirelessly drew attention to places infected with the bacillus of Communism. You couldn't be too careful. This is how it was: Communist

raiding parties received 200 schillings per man per raid from the Russians, it said so in the paper. The Western occupying powers intervened and prevented the putsch. Restrictions had to be imposed on the circulation of newspapers (not the same newspapers that reported the 200-schilling payments) on the grounds that they had spread unfounded rumours. No one troubled to call in the public prosecutor. In this way, a socialist home secretary by the name of Helmer circumvented the freedom of the press, quite effortlessly. This was good, since no one grows heated over things they know nothing about, and staying cool was the order of the day, to avoid clashes. Once a paper starts peddling untruths it has to be disposed of. The Socialists aren't exactly number one party in the Witkowski book, after all, he's not a worker, but this time they kept in line, there's no denying that. Perhaps they will learn something from history at last. Perhaps they will lend their support to the right powers from the word go, that is to say: the powers of high finance, they are the only powers that count anyway because money rules the world (thinks the invalid, who has none himself and so, consistently enough, rules nothing), money can rule all by itself, everyone knows that. In consequence, those who have nothing are left with their nothing, more is given to them that have, and a modern monopoly system is set to begin. Capital reaches out its helping hands from foreign countries in the West, swamping our
Heimat
with foreign money and influences and linking hands with our people to form a chain as strong as the caterpillar track on a tank. Herr Witkowski espouses the cause of Capital, which he does not possess, and this enables him to gaze with confidence from the Past into the Future. With confidence, because in days gone by he gave Capital his personal protection, and now it is again in full control, personally showing its gratitude to him. By allowing him not only his full invalidity pension but also a job as a night porter in a hotel, where he gets

to see important representatives of the middle class, travelling in the course of their work as industrial sales representatives. So it goes, with the one representing the other, even if he doesn't know who exactly it is he's representing. It goes without saying that Herr Witkowski still represents the National Socialist Party, as he always did, he knows exactly who's in it and what the people in question stand for. After all, it was that very party that made him so big that he surpassed himself. No one else would have enlarged him in that way. Nowadays he enlarges his nice photos. He looks not only to the well-being of the individual but also of the group he oversees. Since he always bears in mind that he represents a whole group and not merely himself in his spare time, he always behaves accordingly. He sets an example. To teach the youngsters. Just as others also represent their companies with dignity in their spare time.

When he considers his children, he has his doubts about the fruits of his upbringing. Strangers are well brought up but his children are not. At the time of their conception he was still an officer. But what was the result? Two children who give him the shivers. In the old days you never used to see children like that, but nowadays there are a lot like them. The wife makes a pig's ear of everything, including the milk pudding, which she stirs; this doesn't make it any better.

He goes to get his pistol, to clean and grease it, you have to do this even if it happens not to be needed just now. Be prepared. The steel is a cold weight in his hand. In the case are his favourite photos of Gretl, the gynaecology photo (which will soon have to be taken anew, the photographer is more experienced now), the brothel photo, the schoolgirl photo with the apron and cane. The pistol case is kept in a secret drawer no one knows about in the kitchen cupboard. It wouldn't interest anybody anyway, his son is unfortunately only interested in literature.

Taking an abrupt decision, the ex-officer (the things an officer has to be capable of, such as decisiveness!) goes into the kitchen to rape his wife, since he suddenly feels like it, but the cow makes an awkward movement, as usual, and he slips on the tiles and falls to the floor with a crash. Where he flounders to and fro, his remaining leg twitching. However badly he wants to, he can't get up. Getting it up is usually a problem of another kind, in fact, but this time he'd have been sure of a hard-on because he was so full of desire. So much for that. It's his belief that the cause of the trouble is that the powerful stimuli he was flooded with as a young man in the occupied eastern territories have been far weaker in recent years. Once you have seen mountains of naked corpses, women among them, the charms of your housewife back home offer no more than a paltry temptation. Once your finger's squeezed the trigger of power, you slacken off rapidly if squeezing strangers' hands at the hotel is all the force you can exert. Regulars greet him with a shake of hands and a slap on the shoulder. Along with popular salesman jokes and anecdotes. He tells them at home to turn Margarethe on if his prick isn't enough, which is often the case. Damn the thing, there are times when it simply won't get up.

Times are growing weaker and softer and so are the youngsters of today. He does not know where it all will end. In half-hearted mediocrity, plainly, if not in something worse. His son is afraid of that mediocrity too.

Papa is still floundering, revolving helplessly, because he keeps paddling on one side only and not on the other one as well, which is a mistake. Recently, to crown it all, he's been tormented to extremes by sciatica and rheumatism too, as if having a leg missing weren't enough of a problem. He revolves on his axis and tries to get up on his foot. Which he can only manage with the assistance of Margarethe's patented lifting-up grip, heave-ho, that it? Now he's standing again, crutches

jammed under his armpits, there we are, he'd imagined that he'd be able to do without crutches when ravishing Gretl, at one time he didn't need propping up like that.

Poor little mouse, why don't we go to bed, it's more comfortable. But the bed gives and I'd really like to drill you into the hard unyielding ground. Well, but still, it'll be snug and warm and cosy there, dear, and I've got a drop of rum left, come on, duckie.

Various parts of Otto's body hurt badly when he props himself up on his crutches and swings his remaining leg, to and fro, to and fro, but he doesn't betray the fact. The charismatic authority he once had drags his wife along behind him yet again. I'm always so tired nowadays, I'll have to get a check-up. Poor dear, yes, why don't you do that. And instead of giving it to Gretl good and proper, seeing that she's right next to him, he buries his greyed head at her breast and can't help crying. She is very moved by this. Because she does not know the reason and mistakenly supposes it's because of her. Poor little fellow, it'll be all right, she says softly, comforting him. It does not comfort him. The lumbering man sobs, he's coped with so much, he's killed so many, and now there's so much he can't handle himself. What bad luck.

I can't help crying just now, I hope the children don't see me in this state. They won't be home so early, they've been out the whole time recently, I don't know where. What they need is a firm hand, which I have, I even have two, though only one leg.

My poor poor Otti. Stroke stroke pat smack.

It's all right, there there.

We'll have a drop to drink, then we'll have a nice cup of coffee, and this evening we'll listen to the Maxi Bohm quiz show. There are valuable prizes to be won by listeners at home, sometime or other we're sure to win. If I don't know the answer we'll just ask Rainer or Anni, children learn so much these days. But we're sure to know the answer, because we're the parents. There

we are, now my Otti's laughing again, there's a good boy.

He tells her to pour it out, but not to be so stingy as the last time, after all, he gets quite decent tips. Even if it's fundamentally humiliating. But things have changed, and incompetence is making the running. Drinking brings the gift of forgetting and is good for the gastric juices. Seeing how rarely there's meat on the table. Herr Witkowski gives a comforted snuffle, looking forward to his good coffee, which he will take with a massive amount of sugar. There are good things in life, there really are, as long as your expectations aren't too high. Of course he could demand a good deal if he cared to. Since he's entitled to it all.

Today he even gets more than usual. Because he cried so much.

CAFE
SPORT IS another scene. A scene, because that is where the artists and intellectuals go to be seen. Taking part is what matters, not winning. It is like sport, which is where the cafe got its name. Many have already lost their faith in Art, in spite of the fact that it was they alone and no one else who were predestined for it. They practise Art because it earns them nothing and they are therefore unsullied by filthy lucre. If they did earn anything from Art they'd gladly be sullied. But they would never have recourse to an ordinary middle-class profession, not because they can't master one but because the ordinary would master
them
and there would be no time left over for Art. You can't express yourself aesthetically, man, if some boss is expressing himself by means of sports cars and villas at the expense of the afore-mentioned artist. Anyone whose cigarette is only a single notch above the cheapest is immediately a target for cadgers.

At the table where the Holy Foursome are passing their time today, two other people are busy trying to prove Pythagoras's theorem by purely graphic means and failing in the attempt. As far as Rainer is concerned, mathematics belongs in the realism sector and is therefore uninteresting to him. If they were discussing literature he would long since have butted in and annihilated somebody, which he has a right to do.

Elsewhere some Greeks are sitting round, practically pushing their dark heads into each other as they joke about women and occasionally chat one up. All this happens close by the Ladies, just where the women have to pass by.

Whenever something is said that isn't to Rainer's taste, and at other times too, irrespective, he will stand up abruptly and stride thoughtfully off into a corner,

where he stares about blackly till Sophie or Anna solemnly fetches him back. What's up? Tell me, please, please. You get on my nerves, stupid cows. I have other concerns, at a different level, the level I live at. You bore me rigid. Please, please come and sit down again, Rainer. You lot don't understand anything at all, how can anyone take action together with people like that, they'll run away from everything because they're cowardly mediocrities. Rainer wants the others to get their hands dirty on his behalf so that his can stay clean. Let the others take action for him. He'll keep clear. But he'll egg the others on. And he'll take his share of the money, he needs it to buy books. He sees himself as a spider in the background of their net. But he's going to go about things without the safety net of petty middle-class security. He will pull that net away from under the others' backsides so that they have to rely completely on each other and on him.

Rainer gapes at the cigarette butts, scraps of paper, red wine stains and crumpled paper handkerchiefs (and other, worse things) on the floor and waits for the inevitable nausea. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't. Right now, this very moment, nausea has seized hold of him at last, so that he drops the pen with which he was about to jot a line of a poem in his notebook, the ink squirts out, wasted. Now, was that nausea or wasn't it? No, on the whole it probably wasn't. The place looks as philistine as it always has done. You could hardly say that space looked even slightly heavier, thicker or more compact. But (like Sartre) he has realised that the past does not exist. And the bones of those who have died or been killed, even those who passed away in their beds, have an altogether independent existence of their own and are nothing but a little phosphate, calcium, salts, and water. Their faces are merely images in Rainer himself, fiction. At this moment he has a very strong sense of this. It is a loss. But he doesn't tell anyone that Jean-Paul Sartre had already sensed that loss in exactly

the same way before him, he pretends the loss is his own.

Hans, who lost his father, is not thinking of phosphate, calcium, salts and suchlike, which is what his father is now, instead he is humming an Elvis hit, without the lyrics because they are in English, which Hans never got to grips with. Generally speaking, there are few things he has got to grips with. Though he'd be happy enough getting to grips with Sophie.