Gohlisch continued to examine the page. One short piece: “The Warmest Day in February” and an article with the headline “Child Born from Own Father.” Bernhard bold twelve point again. “Maybe,” he said to Miermann, “Renata would have been even better.”
The next day, the “Montmartre in Berlin” article appeared in the Berliner Rundschau. That same evening, Gohlisch received a letter from Georg Käsebier.
“Dear sir, I am indebted to you for your praise. I am sending you a passe-partout for all my shows, my wife thanks you as well. In expressing my highest regards and deepest thanks, I remain your Käsebier, who will never forget you.”
5
A long chapter, at the end of which Käsebier is written up in the Berliner Tageszeitung
THE OFFICE of Dr. Waldschmidt, the publisher, was entirely paneled in wood. The desk stood in the middle; light came in from the left. A portrait of the founder of the house, painted by Anton von Werner, hung above the desk. Across from it stood a round sofa set made of black carved wood. Dr. Waldschmidt was on the telephone when a knock on the door came.
“Mr. Otto Lambeck,” the valet announced.
“Send him in.”
“Welcome, dear Lambeck, welcome,” Dr. Waldschmidt said. He leapt to his feet and shook Lambeck’s hand. “Please, just a moment, take a seat, I’m on the phone.” Otto Lambeck sat down.
“The Chamber of Commerce is in session today, I hadn’t thought of that. And the paper manufacturers’ meeting is also at noon. A man can’t get to work with all these meetings. By the way, Honig from the German wood paper manufacturers’ council wrote me a very anxious letter about our tariff policies. —You may say newspapers are child’s play and farming’s the real issue. But I can tell you that if I have a son, I won’t let him go into the newspaper business. Long ago, I could have lived off the odd news section alone. But in these times, with expenses eating me up; you call this a government? —Very well, goodbye.
“My dear Mr. Lambeck, you’ve caught me at the busiest time of the day. What can I do? I barely have time for myself. I’m thrilled to see you. How’s business? You look good. Fresh, flourishing.”
There was a knock. A folder was brought in, full of letters to sign.
“Put it there. So you’re looking to make some money? Yes?” The phone rang. “You see. Excuse me a moment.” He shrugged at Lambeck and picked up the receiver. “Get me Privy Councilor Trölein. —You see, dear Mr. Lambeck, it’s like this all day long. —Yes, hello, dear councilor, we can’t make it. We’ve been out every evening since January, except on the days we have visitors ourselves. Sometimes we have three to four invitations a day. On Sunday, when the new exhibit at the Academy opened, we went first to the opening, then to dinner at Consul Weissmann’s, then to a reception at the Lettes’ that evening. We’re barely human anymore. I come home, put on my tuxedo, and drive off again. It’s been this way since October, but I can’t go to two events in one night so late in the season, besides, my wife won’t be back yet. —Cannes, yes, Cannes, she writes that the Englishmen are very stiff and barely any Germans. She brought far too many clothes. Well, you know our women. It’s been two weeks that I’ve wanted to visit her, but right now I simply can’t get away. There’s been discussion as to whether we should proceed with paper orders collectively. If that doesn’t work out, we’ll be at each other’s throats. I can tell you that with this drop in advertisements, newspapers can pack up and go home. I bumped into my friend Klauske recently. He’s a manufacturer of Turkish hypericum oil, has a small business on the Rhine, muddles along with ten employees, and it pays off. That or the fly - paper factory in Gera pays ten percent. Everyone’s thought of radio, but what about flypaper? Now there’s a product! We should start a sports paper or a tabloid. But it’s not that easy to shift your operations. Well, we’ll see each other at the meeting for the National Council of Economic Advisors. What do you think of Cochius, by the way? I worked for the better part of the year to get him on board, and the day I finally get him through, the Berliner Rundschau publishes an article opposing the board. You shouldn’t get caught with your pants down like that! Unbelievable. Well, bye now! —All right, Mr. Lambeck, I’m yours.”
“It’s lively here, Mr. Waldschmidt,” said Lambeck. “I feel—”
The phone rang. “You see how it is. Please. Just a moment. —Get me the privy councilor, please. —Good day, councilor. You’re traveling south? —Yes, it’s been a bit much, and markets are going down steadily, although I do think it’s justified. The boom was dangerous. Manufacturing is abysmal. The whole world’s gone in for manufacturing now; they’ve shaken themselves free of old Europe. Industry is certainly no godsend for man, but now we’re stuck with it. And we have no sales. —You’re right. Too many people, far too many people! When people talk about luxury in Berlin, I feel sick. The handful of restaurants on the Kurfürstendamm is just the tip of the iceberg. Who’s moving in behind Alexanderplatz? We won’t be able to change that. Circumstances are more powerful than we are. —Yes, yes. —We’re all being squeezed. Please give my best to your wife. —In Cannes as well. —Yes, too expensive and too British. —She says it’s no fun at all? —Mine too. Actually, I wanted to go there for two weeks. But there’s no sleeping car to be had. —Train to Basel? —Oh, no. I don’t like having a whole day free to think. I’ll find a sleeping car yet. Rest up! —Going to Karlsbad this summer—I must! —Yes, yes—these blowouts are nonsense! Give my best to your wife.”
He hung up. “That’s how it always is, Mr. Lambeck, this is how I spend my short days; a big operation, the National Council of Economic Advisors, and there’s something fishy going on at city hall but my dear reporters can’t crack it. On top of that, social commitments, gossip, and politics. Well, over to you, Mr. Lambeck. You’re feeling good about the opening? Berlin’s better than Vienna. You wanted Vienna first, right? Vienna’s dead and tradition isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Berlin is far better, and the actors! Come on; Bergner and Dorsch, Goethe and Schiller; you can’t tell who’s greater. I’d give up both for Sorma, but I’m still part of the old guard. And now to you, Mr. Lambeck.”
“This city,” Lambeck slowly began, “is doubtlessly enchanting.” He fell silent again. “You have a very good man on your staff. I met him yesterday.”
Dr. Waldschmidt was slightly taken aback. “Who?”
“Doctor Lohse, such a good, well-meaning man.”
“You know, what about writing about this enchanting city? Even Goethe didn’t mind trying his hand at newsworthy topics from time to time.”
Lambeck considered it. The offer enticed him. He would enjoy not saving up his observations, for once, but bringing them to his publisher straightaway in nice, neat prose.
“Naturally, we would permit ourselves to offer you a special fee.”
Lambeck mulled it over.
“I’d have to discuss it with Mulert,” said Dr. Waldschmidt. “But I’m sure he’d be very enthusiastic.” Both men fell silent.
Lambeck said, “Please allow me to give thorough consideration to your offer. I’m not yet sure whether the short prose form will suit me.” He fell silent again. The phone rang. A young girl brought in a signature folder with papers. Lambeck took his leave. God, what a dullard Lambeck is, Waldschmidt thought.
Otto Lambeck walked away. He was very tall, very thin, and very gray. He spoke little, preferably with workers and children. The new job tempted him. But where to begin? He walked slowly through the bustling city on a glorious day in early spring.
The lower part of Friedrichstrasse is a curious neighborhood. Films, films, lousy stores, cheap silk lingerie with even cheaper lace, seven-fifty for an outfit, blouses, and garish silk dresses. Across the way, at the corner to Schützenstrasse, was the good tailor. Maybe it would be smart to bring one’s things there. They wear blue, they put together nice window displays. Newspaper hawkers stand by Leipziger Strasse, primroses on offer, a little girl says, “Look, Mama, dresses are getting long
er again.” It’s one o’clock. The women have lovely, slender legs. The women of Berlin have grown beautiful; they are industrious and swift. They discuss shoes, hats, and coats. “Blue or beige,” says one next to him. They have light, bright spring cares. On the corner of Leipziger Strasse the bourgeoisie mixes with a shadier class. Two corner cafés: a gathering spot for the darkest underworld; a rendezvous spot for genteel townswomen. People sniff around for opportunities. They hock loot. The newcomer sits and drinks a cheap cup of coffee. Ladies rest after shopping. Lambeck loved Gendarmenmarkt. He went through Mohrenstrasse and turned into the garment district. He ended up by the wool and silk shops, where people were weaving and stitching. “Dear God, in these times.” Courtyards full of typewriters, ink, and books beginning with God and ending with a deficit. About money in ages past. On the right, a Catholic church and an old chestnut tree, recognizable even without its buds; otherwise a tree is a tree in Berlin, except for the lindens in June, which can be recognized by their smell. Generals whose names are held aloft by angels of peace. Because of the great artist? The victory? The era? The arsenal. Heads of dying warriors. Schlüter.4 What a German fate! His equestrian monument—the greatest of its time—was unknown to the rest of the world, and he was treated shamefully and died penniless in exile. His widow, lacking a pension or any means, was rebuffed when she entreated the king. In that same era, an era that glorified the artist, Bernini was ennobled, heaped with honors and riches; a great man, a rich man who left behind millions. Mansard was made a count by Louis XIV. “From mighty Frederick’s throne she went forth, inglorious, spurned.”5 Who wrote that again? “Come along, Cohn!” Fontane said, because Köckeritz and Itzenplitz hadn’t turned up.6 Artists in Germany! What a topic! There: Otto Gebühr, von Rauch, Helmholtz, Treitschke, Mommsen, and the two Humboldts = Germany. “Victi,” said the nationalists, “will always stand; sound to the core, a healthy land,” Heinrich Heine rhymed.7 Universities and libraries. Youth in the budding garden, enamored of discussion, beginning with a search for links between Goethe’s color theory, Egyptian architecture, and Marxism, and culminating in a thesis on the Gothic letter E. One sported white-blonde hair with a middle part, braids over her ears, and a white peasant blouse. She got on her bike; next to her stood young people in hemp shirts. Two gentlemen walked ahead of him. “The Lunapark is opening on the first,” one of them said. I’ll write about the Lunapark, Otto Lambeck thought, and walked slowly over the street to Ewest’s wine bar on Behrenstrasse. He sat down in a beautifully shaped room paneled with dark wood. The walls, on which large paintings hung, were covered with red velvet. On the left, the old emperor, on the right, Emperor Frederick. Old Holstein ate here, Otto Lambeck thought; it’s a museum that’s preserved the atmosphere of another time. It was a different world. We were devout and proud, servants who worshipped uniforms. We respected authority. The Congress of the Three Emperors at Sosnowiec.8 It was a good idea to take the job, and I can just write from life. I don’t know if I can give an interpretation. But where to begin?
•
Meise had prepared his expense report for investigating a murder. One murder investigated = 9 marks. Car to corpse = 3 marks. Car back from corpse = 3 marks. Several glasses of schnapps, due to nausea upon viewing corpse = 3 marks.
The boss received the bill. He pushed his glasses down and peered over them.
“I can’t sign this,” he said.
Gohlisch came in. Young Gross, a new reporter, said that a terrible romantic tragedy had taken place. The corpse in the lake, which had been sought for days, had been thrown into the water by her jealous husband.
“Well,” said Gohlisch. “Copulation is a highly overrated business, but I predict it will continue to have a bright future.”
“I’ll go to the counter with my bill,” said Meise.
“I’m curious as to whether they’ll reimburse you for that,” said Gohlisch, going over to Miermann’s desk, where Miss Kohler was also sitting. Miermann was about to put on his coat.
“I have to go,” he said.
Gohlisch contemplated Miermann with a fatherly mien. Dear Lord, he thought, he isn’t just going to throw himself into an adventure, is he? What will become of that? He’s not ready for it. He used to sit here all the time, now he’s always prowling around. I want to write an epic about Miermann, I want to be his biographer, the biographer of a humanist and a square who acts as if nothing human were unknown to him. What will happen to this clever man who blossomed around 1900? Girls will laugh at him. Girls think feelings are silly.
“Kids, you’re making me fret,” he said to Miss Kohler. “Miermann is throwing himself into affairs that don’t become him, and you’re hung up on that stupid Meyer, that crooked-mouthed, bleary-eyed nancy.”
“I’m not hung up in the slightest. Don’t throw in the towel with the bathwater. He loves me too.”
“Perhaps. Does he write you?”
“No. But he doesn’t write anybody.”
“Then I’d chuck out the baby too. But I’m more worried about Miermann.”
“Why? Isn’t it nice that he’s waiting for a phone call and has a bright, light spring dream?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Come on, just let it be.”
Miermann was sitting in the room he had acquired through great effort. A desk with carvings and twirling columns. Red wool curtains hung in front of the doors; red cloth with velvet trim covered the windows. A bed in the corner; a chaise longue covered with a velvet blanket with a Turkish pattern; a sideboard with German Renaissance-style carvings and a small bookshelf, black oak, with green glass and pink sea lilies. Miermann sat on the chaise longue and waited. It had taken him just eight days to get the room. He lifted the blanket on the chaise longue; underneath were old boxes with a mattress on top. The landlady smiled.
“Yes, of course, sir,” she said. “No one else lives here.”
And now he wanted to go and meet Käte. That evening, he would take her to the theater, to dinner, and then . . . ! If she could, she’d said. She was getting divorced. One had to see. The whole affair had been going on for three weeks now. And still no kiss. Miermann walked slowly back to the office. Käte was from the year 1919. She was a garçonne. She had married a pedant when she was young. She was generous, prone to extravagance. He was a bureaucrat and pestered her more than was necessary. She was the opposite of a Prussian. She considered order, parsimony, self-control, and obedience the root of all evil. She flirted in protest, spent money in protest. She overvalued everything she couldn’t have: nice clothes, entertainment, and education. Her marriage was without erotic delights. And so, when she met Miermann, she was seeking intellectual formation and professional advancement; she wanted her ambitions satisfied, her femininity acknowledged; and, of course, she was seeking social status. She was seeking.
She was a gymnastics teacher with a large, willowy figure. She had red hair, the piglet-like complexion of redheads, and an exceedingly intelligent face with a large nose.
Miermann had never met a completely independent woman of this type. She moved fast, got to know everybody, attended lectures, worked intently, and was incredibly intelligent, amusing, and witty, though completely unartistic. She found everything in this world phony: marriage, family, the state, the economy. She saw the downsides; she was against contentment. She was against most things. Happiness? Happiness was something that people convinced themselves of. She was a ferment. She was an armchair revolutionary. She liked communism, but would have felt very unhappy in a farmer’s jacket.
Needless to say, Miermann was enchanted by this new animated spirit. He felt understood. And beyond being delighted by his new companion, there was the significant matter of epidermal love. He longed to be conjoined with her as he had never longed before.
But that evening, the beautiful Käte Herzfeld had gone to the theater with another man. The play was tiresome. Her gymnastics lessons weren’t catching on. She was out of sorts. The man in the tuxedo with whom sh
e went was an old acquaintance. He had once loved her sister, who was older than Käte by six years. Even then, he had been a gentleman. Twelve-year-old Käte was sometimes allowed to say hello or ask him for something. Once, he had tied the bow of her sailor’s blouse on her breast, not without letting her notice that he’d felt it.
He was pleasant and took her out; he had good manners and a stream of money that flowed to him without having to struggle for it. He sent her flowers, an Easter egg, a Christmas present with poetry. He knew the world, had been as far as Africa, Asia, and America, the Excelsior on the Lido, the Savoy in London, and the Crillon in Paris. He didn’t live there anymore. He far preferred the white, classicist Hôtel des Bains to the Excelsior’s romantic, chintzy, faux-Moorish castle. In Paris, he took rooms in a small hotel on the Left Bank where the French nobility loved to stay. In Berlin, he stayed in a rented apartment on Matthäikirchstrasse with his mother. If you asked him why he didn’t move into a house, a house truly furnished to his taste, he would reply that what he needed, a truly representative house from the eighteenth century, even one from as late as 1830, was simply no longer to be found in Berlin. And everything else was trash.
Fritz Oppenheimer called up Miss Käte Herzfeld roughly every six months. He then took her out, replete with every extravagance that delights a woman. She was out of sorts. He didn’t notice.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“Shall we dine somewhere?”
“In the Bristol, or would you prefer Lutherstrasse?”
“Lutherstrasse’s fine.”
The maître d’hôtel at Lutherstrasse knew him. He was an elegant gentleman with white sideburns. Taken just as he was, from another era, the fact that he did not wear pumps was a grave error in style. The maître d’hôtel knew Mr. Oppenheimer. He called him Attorney Oppenheimer, though that was fifteen years ago and Oppenheimer had served on just one bench, a long time ago. Oppenheimer always ordered the right thing. He always knew what should be eaten where, and, more importantly, what one should drink where.
Käsebier Takes Berlin Page 5