by Simon Strauß
Rain falls onto the awning. No sun in sight. Pieces of Beethoven’s Eroica drift on the gusty wind.
The other guests have long sought refuge inside, but I remain out here, eating my meat with defiant satisfaction to show the world that I am yearning. I have deliberately opened my shirt widely, let the napkin fall to the ground so that a few splashes of fat make it onto my pants.
I eat meat to become that which I’m not. Someone who does not imitate what others do. Who finds his own tone. Who has convictions and defends them against others. Who dares opening his mouth, even when in the minority. And who sometimes stays awake until the early morning, sits at his desk at the open window until the birds start singing. Someone who throws over chairs and runs into walls when he’s angry. Who is seeking adventure, is brisk and honest. But because I am none of those things, least of them honest, I eat meat.
In truth I’m someone who goes doorbell ditching with a running motor. Who pushes the “Information” button at the train station and runs away. Who loves the winter and dreads the summer because that’s when the sun will shine and he’ll have to go outside. I’m someone who puts his socks on the kitchen table the night before to save time on the way to work the next morning. Who locks both wheels of his scooter, who takes earplugs to the concert. Who goes for a short run in the morning, only to later brag about that to himself over breakfast. That is who I am.
Someone who pretends to join the battle, but in reality would run off at the first distant cannon roll. Who praises free love only in theory and crawls back into his mother’s bed at every breakup. Who whimpers when he can’t sleep or misses his train. Or his writing software hasn’t saved his text.
Someone who talks a lot about feeling, about better sex and fantastical alternate realities. But then just ends up watching three porn videos a day and can’t even open his girlfriend’s bra with his left hand. Who bolts the window at the slightest breeze and whose head sinks onto his desk at 12:30 a.m. at the latest. Who pretends to pray without ever truly believing.
Someone who throws big parties just to be at the center of things again, to be able to give speeches that he’ll be congratulated on later. Who arranges poetry books on the coffee table before his friends come over for dinner. Who enjoys being generous and being admired for it. Who gains strength from the misfortune of others whom he consoles only to appear as the hero.
I am someone who even in the most caustic self-criticism remains complacent, narcissistic and self-contained. I like myself in the role of the castigated, taking myself to task without ever really questioning myself. And most importantly: without ever really changing anything. I use big words, speak of revolution, freedom, passion and quarrel. But I always keep my distance, handling the terms with caution so I can drop them if they become too heated.
I am the clandestine free rider of current events. Without a risk, without my own impetus. I let myself be taken along, I’m a part of everything, but never the first, never in charge. I arrive when all is said and done, everything is understood and everything has been decided. Again and again I lower my head and accept the facts. Like a beggar, expelled onto the street from the fancy restaurant. I will never lead an attack, a storming of the Bastille.
That is why I eat meat. To forget all of this and dream that things could be different. That there is a remaining hope for happiness, that a moment of strength, of decisiveness is possible. I eat meat to disagree with myself and my time. Every bite of raw sinew is a bite back to nature. Back to the myth, whose narrative is more enticing than that of psychology. Today, here, in this restaurant under lightning and thunder, among this gluttony, my time has come.
I eat meat. “Flesh of my flesh.” When God freed mankind of solitude, he took a rib and created a counterpart. A companion from “His flesh.” To find this flesh again, man will later leave his father and mother. Will turn away from his house, his youth and everything that offered him a home and protection. He will stray and search until he finds it again—his lost flesh. And then he will mature, will stand upright, will be ashamed and put a coat on his naked body. He will “cleave onto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” The old recombine anew. Reunited until further notice. The day draws closer. I have to practice—cannot fail my test. That’s why I sit here and eat meat. And for this moment am a different, more courageous human being.
A man, maybe.
III
ACEDIA
Today I stay home.
Whenever I’m alone I imagine someone watching me in my solitude. For example, when I crawl out of bed in the morning—my face still sticky from sleep—and step into the cold shower for ten seconds. I imagine this as the first scene of a movie. The opening sequence maybe. Some song playing in the background. The events on screen aren’t really important yet. At least not so important that you can’t simultaneously roll the opening credits in the foreground. I imagine hundreds of people in a movie theater, dry popcorn on their knees, sweaty palms shyly interwoven. They see me run through my exercise program, wheezing and lacking all discipline. Of the ten reps I usually drop at least three. Because it’s either the beginning of the week or the end. Or the weekend. Because the sun is shining, it’s Greta Garbo’s birthday or because last night I refrained from ordering baked banana. Even though I would’ve loved nothing more: a soft- golden brown baked banana, still warm from the oven and dotted with honey, next to a scoop of bourbon vanilla ice cream, softly melting.
At the core of it, I despise morning calisthenics. The whole principle of self-punishment. Senselessly straining my limbs. And for what? It doesn’t make me feel more prepared for the day. That’ll take its own course regardless of whether I did a few clumsy dry runs or not. And yet I do them every day, again and again, because I imagine them to be the start of a long story: it begins with a young man lying on the floor, breathing heavily as a small edge of sweat forms around the V-neck of his white t-shirt. He will admire it a little later in the mirror. Virile. There is a little mole on the left side of his neck. He has prominent features, nicely flowing lips. That’s how it could start. And then: fresh orange juice, stock market gains, sunshine on the freshly ironed tie. A video message to the girlfriend in Tokyo, the messenger bag over the shoulder, beatboxing down the stairs, onto the bike and into the day.
That’s how it could go. Could. Instead: Rain-drops staccato onto the rusty window sill. No milk in the fridge, the tablecloth full of stains. On the forehead, a red pimple.
Instead of going outside, filling in the daily life like a crossword puzzle, today I’ll stay at home. In this apartment that no one enters with any special expectations anymore. The apartment that is filled to the brim with habitualness.
It’s also been a long time since I’ve been in any other apartments. What a great feeling to climb the creaking stairs with a girl for the first time. Not knowing her name, just following her footsteps. I’ve always enjoyed that the most. More than everything that comes after—this moment in which you know nothing about each other, could imagine anything. How the dish towel is hung, if there are matches or a lighter on the kitchen table, what is next to the bed, how many shoes are in the hallway, which pictures above the sofa, which brand of toilet paper on the shelf…
When I come to a new apartment after a successful night out, there’s always a moment when I step up to the window. Doesn’t matter if it’s 3:30 a.m. and my head is swimming, if I ruined some kind of mood or missed my chance. I step to the window and look out onto the street or into the courtyard. Sometimes I even light a cigarette. Just in case someone happens to look up to the window.
But now alone with my four walls. Without any milk. From the outside, voices waft in. The evening is gray as are so many. Of course everyone is dreaming of parties. But I, sitting here on my old Italian sofa with my back to the windows, am trying to find a position in which I can sit for longer than four minutes. A position in which my foot or arm doesn’t keep falling asleep, in whi
ch my leg doesn’t tickle and my nose doesn’t run. I’m fervently waiting for laziness to arrive, to wrap me in her thick blankets, as I’m perched here, staring into the empty room that lies pale in front of me—and I see dancing couples. I see laughing faces and hear wine glasses clinking, and I see all the exuberant life that would fit in here.
I am afraid of empty rooms. Am not good at tolerating silence. I am constantly afraid that the quiet mass of unread books on the shelves will suddenly erupt in resounding laughter. Could convict me as an impostor, as a connoisseur of back covers.
The phone rings. Finally. A survey concerning new electric cars, just five minutes, please, a lot depends on it. The future of the environment, for example. And the future of the automotive industry. And last but not least, the caller’s contract getting extended, he adds imploringly. So I let him ask. And why not. The first voice of the day and it already demands so many answers. If I drive fewer than 100 kilometers per day. If I would pay more than 40,000 euros for a car. The location of the nearest charging station. What I do for a living and how many people are in my household. And finally, whether I 1) live in a rural area and work in an urban one, 2) live in an urban area and work in a rural one, 3) live and work rurally or 4) live and work in an urban area. Or both or something. Short pause. I ask him to repeat the options. I still don’t find an answer. Panicked, I hang up. To calm down I walk into the closet. When it comes to my living situation, I think I mostly live incorrectly. That would have been the right answer. But that wasn’t an option.
I’m not home alone very often. Most evenings I have visitors, and during the day I tend to avoid my apartment. At night I lie in bed behind locked doors. Otherwise I’m out a lot, filling my days with appointments that make me seem busy and suppress the wanderlust. And the fear of an early death.
Even the feeling of sitting here during the day, when everyone else is gone and at work, makes me nervous. In the past, the house was the epitome of the workplace—at its root, the word “economy” means household management. Business was conducted not in the city but at home. At home, money was earned and important decisions were made. Outside, in the squares, there was only talk and quarrel. Under these circumstances I would have liked to stay at home.
But today on the sofa, time runs through my fingers. My thoughts are stuck in loops. I hear barking dogs and shouting owners. Car radios, screeching tires, fire trucks. I lie on the sofa, wishing it was the beach. “The most cruel thing about dreams is that everybody has them,” Pessoa once wrote. I can’t get this sentence out of my head.
I switch from the sofa to the armchair. Turn on the cranky old TV. It’s bitter about its status as a has-been. In the old days, people gathered around it. Regarded it as a window to the wonders of the world. The entire living room was designed around it. Tables and chairs were relocated. Shelves pulled off the wall. Carpets installed. Today, everyone carries the wonders around in their pocket. They watch the most gripping movies, the most important finals on teeny-tiny screens. I buck the trend. Push the dusty button and once more blow into the embers of the dying campfire. Somewhere someone important is giving a speech concerning the state of the nation. He addresses me with a clear voice, as if I, here on this armchair next to the foggy window, am his only listener. He is talking with a lot of energy and doesn’t use air quotes around his sentences:
Foreigners are dangerous. A danger to everyone who thinks that their life could go on endlessly like it has up to this point. Those who cannot imagine that things can fundamentally change. Who still hope that what’s in the paper has nothing to do with their cereal bowls and tennis classes.
The foreigners are our business. They will challenge us, limit us, scare us and change our minds. Many of them are sick from what they went through, got infected with the dangerous virus of memory. They, who now live among us, in our communities and cities, who shower here, eat here and cry here. They, who make mistakes and are angry, have a true fate, not simply the wrong life. They are jetsam. If we each confine ourselves to our homes, draw the curtains, keeping to ourselves, without a counterpart, things will not work out.
For a short moment the light bulb above my head flickers. As if trying to pipe up angrily. It wants to chime in that the home in and of itself is not to blame. A person without four walls is a person without hope. Those who don’t want to stay at home, who don’t occasionally crave solitude and quiet, are out of their mind. Says the lightbulb to the guy on TV. Says the lightbulb to me. And the guy keeps talking at me, and at the lightbulb.
A community only stands together if its members feel responsibility for each other. In ancient Rome, patronage was not just a means for the powerful to win elections. It also secured the existence of the poor and helpless. They subject themselves to the protection of their patrons and trust that they’ll be defended by them. Even in the oldest sources of Roman law, this alliance of the unequal is sealed with an oath: Patronus, si clienti fraudem fecerit, sacer esto. If a patron deceives their client they will be forever denounced. Banished. The mechanism of Patronage, which in our ears sounds like exploitation and humiliation, integrates newcomers and foreigners into a community. The relationship between the patron and the client is reciprocal: it includes freedom, security, rights and duties.
How did the speaker land on ancient Rome? What brings these big ideas to my small apartment? And how do they concern me? All I’m doing is lying around staring at the wall. And I’m hungry. In the fridge there’s an open yoghurt and half a bottle of eggnog. The tube of tomato paste has sat open for too long. In the cupboard there’s a bag of salted pretzels. They’re no longer crunchy, but at least the salt is still salty.
One could also say that community breeds dishonesty. If there are more than two people in a room, at least one of them is lying. Or at a minimum, not speaking as freely. Keeping quiet in the decisive moment, playing down their insecurity with a joke, trying to talk themselves out of responsibility, rather than into it. Groups are dangerous, I think, then shuffle back to my armchair. Meanwhile, the man on TV has been talking in the background all this time. As if he didn’t care whether someone was listening to him or not.
What we need is a modern system of Patronage. The Roman empire was only able to grow as fast as it did because it understood how to tie in its new citizens and control them through these ties. The territory was not managed through surveillance and punishment, but through the feeling of mutual dependency. We, too, must relearn the value of the personal relationship. It would be sufficient if every foreigner coming into our country was allocated an established resident patron. The state itself is hard to befriend. Its character is too stony. The constitution and the famed values cannot be touched, cannot be hugged. But the relationship, the promise between two people, creates trust across the borders of culture and morals.
I, for one, trust nobody. I don’t even know my neighbors. When I moved in they didn’t introduce themselves to me. And I don’t knock on other people’s doors out of principle. You can see that people want to be left alone. To their own devices and their delivery people. The secret motto of us all: “I would prefer not to.” The pretzels are gone. On the windowsill a bottle of red wine. A gift from happier days. From a woman I don’t know. On her shoulder she had a tattoo of a fern. She was accompanied by a friend from school, talked little, knew a lot. Where does she live now? Whom does she love now? City or countryside, dog or cat? Sickness, kids, frozen eggs?
Strange how the thoughts come and go. How they emerge from dust bunnies, briefly take shape and then turn into shadows again and disappear. The talkers on TV of course have to pretend that they are the masters of their thoughts. But that’s not true. In reality our thoughts are the ones ruling us. Completely.
To be a patron or a client would be a duty, not a choice. One side would be incentivized with an improved chance of acceptance and material support. The other with an alleviation from certain obligations. Such as the solidarity tax or
the motor vehicle tax. A lot would be gained from citizens being given the choice: pay or form bonds and once again find a reason to organize community themselves.
The bulb flickers again, illuminating the dandruff on my pullover. Cashmere always shrinks in the wash, which is why I just let it air out in the wind on the balcony. If I use the wrong shampoo, my head sheds like a blackthorn bush. Gently I brush the dandruff off my shoulders. First the left, then the right. But just moving my head causes new flakes to fall. I should wear pullovers in lighter colors. Should always make sure to stock up on the right shampoo. Dandruff is a sign of decay and neglect. I know that. But then I think, here at home nobody can see me anyway. Here at home the flakes are just stars on a dark blue backdrop. And most of all, they are mine, so I can’t be angry at them.
The bulb twitches and burns out. Power outage. The TV screen goes black. On the walls I see unfamiliar shadows. Patterns form like a cryptograph, coming from the apartment across the street, where a young woman in an apron keeps passing from the kitchen to the dining room, repeatedly obstructing and revealing the light from the floor lamp. She’s probably serving the main course of a dinner party. The guests are still all chipper and she’s in the best mood. But not for long. In a few hours everyone will be gone and all that will remain will be the dirty oyster cutlery. Then she will be lonely as well, left with the sadness known by everyone whom time has wounded.