by Irmgard Keun
The justification for such lethal barging, at least for any rational being, could only be paradise. Inasmuch as one can imagine any sort of paradise on earth. I think of it differently every day. Today my vision is of a mild bed of clouds in smiling light, in blue sky. Somewhere there are orange balls and velvety silver leaves and dark green. A pink flamingo flies with the pinions an old eagle has developed in wise solitude, singing with the gentleness of a newly opened cowslip on the forest edge. Like a nightingale.
It occurs to me I have never heard a nightingale. The nightingale is the most important bird in literature. No mediocre poem without its nightingale, no good poem either. The nightingale sobs, the nightingale cries, the nightingale toots and whistles. For hundreds of years, poets have been dining off nightingales. I have read and heard so much about nightingales, I really believed I knew nightingales. And I have never heard a nightingale. That shows you how well publicity works, and I always thought I would never fall for publicity. Do nightingales even exist?
You never know if you’ll live to see another day. If I’m spared till next summer, then I’ll go and listen to a nightingale. I hope I don’t forget. There’s so much you forget to do or neglect to do. I wonder if any of the poets who wrote and sang about nightingales ever with their own ears heard a nightingale?
But nightingales here or there, I don’t want to write my piece about them, even though the daily press likes it when authors write about a thing of which they have no knowledge. Profound ignorance persuades great circles of readers; others find it sympathetic. Never mind the critical remnant, they feel strengthened in their self-confidence, confirmed in their superiority, and empowered in their protests, which keep their intellectual muscle from dwindling away. I assume too that the subject of nightingales has been green-lighted and would not be censored by the greater part of our current German dictatorships. For reasons of morality, a lot of things are censored today. Dictatorships are always very strict about what they understand as morals and public ethics. Our former unlamented German dictatorship has, in the way of lower life-forms, procreated by simple fission, and is now called democracy.
At the tram stop, I refrain from barging. I have oodles of time, and what one has, one ought to enjoy mindfully. As I stood there, mindfully, I suddenly felt a hand scrabbling about in my pocket. I reached for the hand and gripped it firmly by the wrist. A man in his middle years had been attempting to rob me. Poor fellow. All I had was a multiple ticket with one ride left on it, and that was in my other pocket. “Walk slowly, don’t run, in your calling it’s best to avoid drawing attention to oneself,” I said to the man, and let go of his wrist. He ran like the clappers across Rudolfplatz. A beginner, I daresay, an amateur.
I felt flattered that the man had thought me worth robbing. You see, I wear neither hat nor coat, just a rather curious jerkin, with small natty skirts. It’s sort of New Look, I tailored it myself from a lady’s coat with history, back when I was released from the POW camp. My cousin Johanna likes to say I look like a hurdy-gurdy man’s monkey when I’m wearing it. Hurdy-gurdy men’s monkeys are sweet creatures, no doubt about it. I wouldn’t mind looking a little more imposing, though.
While I was still enjoying the afterglow of the pickpocket, the tram departed, and I was thwacked on the back in a powerful and populist manner. It was my cousin Magnesius, who is a notorious thwacker of backs. “Come and have a beer with me,” he said, and we disappeared into the nearest hostelry.
I was surprised at his generosity. He is accommodating, but usually only to himself. He is a man in pomp and pink. People who endure a meatless diet must be tempted to bite him in the cheek. I’m not quite sure how I came to be related to him. I’m related to so many people, I have relatives all over the world. All my various parents and grandparents scattered offspring all over the world, the way the Crown Prince scatters confetti. I even have some relatives who have money, but they tend to avoid me like the plague. Poverty is not just a disgrace, it’s the only disgrace. If I were a millionaire, I could quite happily have done time without losing an iota of my social standing.
“You shouldn’t have let him run off like that,” said Magnesius. He had observed the incident with the pickpocket.
Dear Lord, why wouldn’t I let the man run off? Ever since I could think, there have been people all over the world busily trying to destroy me. They come up with wars for me, and financial and political disasters. Small bombs, big bombs, atom bombs, super-atom bombs, death rays, poison gas, and all sorts of other vilenesses. All for me. And I’m to find a self-respecting pickpocket dangerous and noxious? At most, I might feel guilty about disappointing him.
Magnesius finds this to be a dubious morality.
“You must think about the generality, Ferdinand, the well-being of the generality.” He raises a pudgy finger. “Where would we be if everyone thought like you!”
Where would Magnesius be? is what he means. When he talks about the generality, he means himself. He’s a nice man and all things to himself. He goes around, and he comes around. When I got out of prisoner-of-war camp, I went looking for him. Maybe he could have got me a job as a driver or an office worker. I’m not ambitious, and well suited to inferior work. But Magnesius would have nothing to do with me. He sees impoverished relatives as an acute danger to himself. He gives nothing to charity, on principle. I’m sure he’s right. If rich people were openhanded, they wouldn’t be rich.
I think Magnesius is currently something in non-ferrous metals. “Well, cheers, Magnesius, your health.”
He wasn’t in the forces, and thinks of himself as a pacifist, anti-militarist, and martyr—just right for now. He is proud of the cunning he showed during the war to avoid being called up. Magnesius is one of those heavy-hipped individuals who lead a charmed life. No bombs fall where they happen to be. The ships they sail on don’t sink. The trains in which they travel aren’t derailed—or at least their personal carriage stays intact. Popular opinion conforms to them and their requirements. They always have money, and they always have enough to eat.
Magnesius is not smart. My cousin Johanna even thinks he is stupid. “Oh, Ferdinand,” she says, “I don’t understand it. He’s no more clever than a politician or a bunny rabbit, but in five wars’ time he will be synthesizing vegetable oil and ham out of bomb craters. He won’t be drinking potato vodka but French liqueurs, even when Europe has ceased to exist. After the hundred thousandth currency reform, he’ll still find himself with freshly minted money. He will do deals with ghosts when there are no more people, he will…”
Sure he will. Just because of not being smart. Rabbits aren’t smart either, but they can find what they need by way of fodder. Better than any Kant, Copernicus, Mozart, or Rembrandt.
Cheers, Magnesius! One day he’ll have a stroke, a mild, gentle one, and then he’ll talk God or the Devil into some material spun from nothing but hanging beautifully, especially good for hard-wearing, flowing robes, or he’ll sell Sirius a bale of antiqued blackout paper. He will live, and live well, even when he’s dead.
Shall I write my story about Magnesius? Better not. Germany is supposed to be being refashioned into a democracy. When did any amount of fashioning bring about the wished-for result? The world is ajangle with weaponry, the core of the planet is a gleaming uniform button, laboratories are now super-arsenals, but the order of the day is of course anti-militarism. Why and what for? Any general is like a sweet and harmless Parma violet by comparison to an industrial chemist. And Magnesius? The implacably opposed to war? The unrequitably in love with war? Who harvests where life has scattered no seeds, and death has reaped? I know soldiers, both old and young, who hated the war as much as the voice of their sergeant majors and loved peace like the lips of their bride. Who had more familiarity with lockup than stonk. By his existence or the mere account of it, Magnesius could make militarists of them all.
Magnesius ordered a second bottle of wine and talked to me
as though to an equal. About financial crises, bank credits, bankruptcies, crooked deals, lowered business ethics. I listened to him shakenly and respectfully. What on earth was the matter with him? He had never been like that before. Not long ago, I read about brain operations that were supposed to change a person’s entire personality. Or had Magnesius perhaps come within reach of some radioactive rays? Or had a magic quack treated his blood pressure and attained these unexpected results?
“Cheers, Ferdinand. You know, you really ought to invest your money in something, my boy, I could help you do it.” I failed to understand Magnesius. “You ought to get yourself a new suit.” Did he want to buy me one, then? “Yes, and those hundred marks I lent you, no hurry about paying them back, Ferdinand.”
I guessed there was some misunderstanding. Before I made an attempt to clear it up, I let Magnesius order a round of deviled eggs. Cautiously, I tried to wrap my head around whatever might concern me.
I heard some ugly things about Johanna. My cousin Johanna is ravishing but unscrupulous. Not long ago, she bet that she could get a hundred marks out of Magnesius. I bet her five marks she couldn’t. Johanna told Magnesius I had won thirteen hundred marks on the pools and was looking to invest the money with him. Would he let her have a hundred marks for me. Johanna is a convincing liar. I wonder when I’ll lay my hands on the five marks I owe her.
I was too cowardly to make a clean breast of things to Magnesius. He is one of those people who go blue when they’re furious. I don’t like to see that.
I acted distrait, shamefaced, nervous. I made an appointment to see Magnesius sometime next week, and said I needed to be alone. I wanted to think about financial matters.
Magnesius went, and in came Heinrich. He stood in front of my table, whose fair wood I wanted to go on enjoying a little, quietly, by myself. There was something warmer and kindlier than the dank November streets, and my coffin room at the Widow Stabhorn’s.
“Oh, Ferdinand,” said Heinrich, and “you don’t mind if I call you by your first name, do you? Can I join you?” Of course he could. He was nice and neat, as though bespoke. He had a wily face and trusty border collie’s eyes. I barely knew him, but why shouldn’t he call me by my first name?
“So you’re still alive!” I exclaimed delightedly. It’s impossible for me to say to a person who greets me thus, “Terribly sorry, I haven’t the foggiest idea who you are.”
Heinrich sat down and ordered a bottle of wine. “Do you remember?” he asked, “that wild night in Berlin in wartime, when we drank brotherhood? You liked it that my name was Heinrich.” I didn’t, but I was happy at least to learn the name of my brand-new friend.
“A votre santé,” said Heinrich, cultured and well-bred, and raised his glass. “You know, I have always admired you, Ferdinand.”
I was stunned. I never guessed there was a living being that had always admired me. What a day! The pickpocket, Magnesius, and now Heinrich. Three people, showing me their high opinion of me. And the day not over yet.
Heinrich is the editor of Red Dawn. It started coming out a week ago, or is due to appear next week, I’m a little shaky about that. I think for the moment they have no paper, no license, and no contributions, apart from an anecdote about Caruso. Heinrich said it was difficult to suit all readers, you were bound to antagonize someone. We agree to meet later that evening. In the meantime, I am to write an unexceptionable story.
What actually does appear in our popular postwar periodicals? I can’t formulate a single impression, because thus far my reading has been confined to the little squares of newsprint that are hung out in lieu of toilet paper in the WC on the landing. These fragments have occasional charm, but in the long run they are a little superficial.
I sometimes got the impression that Germany was part of the British monarchy. Wall-to-wall court reports. Too bad Princess Elizabeth can’t get married again. Then I would have a subject with which to delight great swaths of readers for months on end. I also came upon many reports and photographs of Princess Margaret. Could I write about her? I don’t think she has much to offer. I had the sense of a nice girl from a good family. If reports are to be trusted, she spends her time dancing the boogie-woogie, buying clothes, traveling abroad, and climbing in and out of automobiles. Which is all about the least one can expect. Couldn’t the little lady steal the crown jewels for me, or hide the Loch Ness monster in the House of Lords, elope with an archbishop, and remain gone at least until I’ve made a thousand marks with my series of quietly nerve-tingling articles?
Or is there some film actress I could develop? I’ve read various interviews. The hack goes to meet the star. The star is photographed lying on a summer lawn, chewing on a blade of grass. It looks terribly natural. The star receives her visitor, makes coffee, hangs up her underthings—“See, I do this all myself”—stirs something in a saucepan, knits socks, prefers Schopenhauer and lighter reading, repairs a carpet sweeper, is a believer in the economic miracle. The piece closes, “I left Anna Fischer with the sense that I had met an utterly natural person. ‘Ma’am,’ I said, ‘you don’t behave like a star.’ ‘Here comes my star,’ she smiled, lifting her three-year-old into her arms. And now I must break it to the reader: Anna Fischer, whom we hopefully may admire many more times on the screen, is a happily married young mother, the wife of the noted architect Walter Leibund, who is known for his work in concrete and brick. Anna Fischer is no prima donna.”
I should like, for a change, to write about prima donnas. But just at the moment the fashion is for the “natural” star with solid family background, and the dictatorship of the readership will permit no exceptions.
I think perhaps the least offense is caused by animal stories. I am fond of animals, though I don’t enjoy being played off against them. Acquaintances of mine had a Doberman, a vicious creature that couldn’t get its inner life in harmony with its surroundings. His master became a megalomaniac, because he was the only person the animal didn’t growl at and bite. He bit me in the ear, and the fellow told me I had failed the test. A dog like that had an infallible sense of good and bad. It contradicts my sense of human dignity to be subjected to the judgment of a dog. There was one occasion when I denied myself further dealings with a well-disposed lady with mild eyes and a splendid bosom merely because her terrier was allergic to quiet conversations and set itself up to judge my spiritual qualities. I am prepared to lavish any amount of ingenious flattery on the lady of the house, but I don’t like to feel obliged to come with orchids and volumes of verse for her dog.
So what is the animal I could write about? Hens? All I know about hens is that they lay eggs, their inner life is an enigma to me. I like giraffes, they have spots. But there’s no story in that.
The animals I know best are probably cockroaches. I am well acquainted with their habits and preferences. I know that they don’t bark, have a strong sense of community, don’t talk about politics, and lead a respectable family life in the sense of calm and busy proliferation. Unfortunately, Heinrich is bound to think a gentleman should not display such knowledge of cockroaches.
How about a love story then? I will assume a man and a girl are in love, and will begin with a snatch of realistic dialogue.
“Do you love me, Darling?”
“Yes, I love you, Darling.”
“Do you love me very much, Darling?”
“Yes, I love you very much, Darling—do you love me too, Darling?”
“But you know I do, Darling.”
“Do you pine for me sometimes, Darling?”
“Would I be here other wise, Darling?”
“Are you my darling?”
“Yes, I am your darling, Darling.”
They say that a writer should constantly strive for the truth. This lovey-dovey dialogue is the complete truth, but from the literary point of view, it seems somewhat wanting. It’s my sense that the more people are in love, the simpler and
more unevolved their speech. Love will cause the most extensive vocabulary to melt away like snow under burning lava. I can remember myself having babbled like an idiot on occasion. I have no desire to document this and commit it to print for all time.
It’s not so easy to write a love story in today’s Germany. There are strict laws.
Extramarital love may only take place under certain defined conditions. Erotic displays are permitted only in conjunction with nature. For instance: the blonde Erdmute and her soulful swain Horst Dieter are riding through woods and fields. They are surprised by a thunderstorm. It starts hailing, lightning, snowing. The formula goes, “The elements were unchained.” Erdmute and Horst Dieter take refuge in a barn that happens to be in the vicinity. The barn contains hay. It’s dark as well. Horst Dieter presses Erdmute to himself. Everything collapses. The reader will forgive them, because storm, barn, and hay all constitute mitigating circumstances.
I know a thing or two about barns. They are unromantic and not at all exciting places. Rusty watering cans and pickaxes are liable to fall on top of you. Hay is a prickly and dusty substance that will make you sneeze. For a normal person, a love scene in a barn is not a pleasure. That is probably the reason why storm-barn-love scenes are literarily sanctioned. If it’s no fun, it’s less sinful. Also, the strong connection to nature will make the reader more inclined to forgive the odd faux pas. He may very well turn a blind eye when the tormented pair falls victim to a pine-needle-scented forest floor. A forest floor isn’t exactly fun either. Ants crawl into your ears, pine needles prick at you, midges bite you. There is a bird singing in a tree and it happens to drop something. You must expect to be interrupted at any moment by forest wardens, hunters, tramps, lyric poets, and berry-seeking children. You can’t shut the door in a forest. If a twig happens to crack somewhere, you jump. Maybe it’s just a deer. But then I wouldn’t want to have a deer listening as I’m pouring out my secret heart to the lady of my dreams. Call me overly modest. Perhaps my subconscious takes a deer for the reincarnation of an old nanny I once had. On top of everything, the light summer dress of the errant lady would suffer—thorns and dirt and the like. One would suppose that for a broad public a fall from grace is just that, a fall from grace, no matter where it happens to take place. Myself, I would accord any amorous couple a nice room with a couch or a paradise bed. But I don’t think one is allowed to say that without it robbing the couple of all sympathies from the readership. In poems you are allowed to be more generous, and still more in poems that are set to music. My most straitlaced and prudish aunts got a misty look in their eyes and hummed along when a velvet tenor sang in the wireless, “Be mine tonight…” or “There’s a small hotel I know / in the Wieden…” or “It’s now or never…” All those things may be sung with impunity, but not said, and least of all printed. Why? I’ll think about it sometime. At any rate, I don’t trust myself to write a love story. I would have to punish my lovers terribly for their sins, which I’d sooner not do.