Käsebier Takes Berlin

by Gabriele Tergit

  “Well, I’d agree that murder seems justified in this case. But murderers are rarely inventive. Recently, a worker near Berlin murdered his landlord. The landlord stood over his bed at six in the morning every day and said, ‘Wake up!’ every morning, without fail. He finally throttled him.”

  “Really, Gohlisch, you say the most terrible things sometimes.”

  “Well, aren’t I right? Every morning, can you imagine that, six o’clock every morning? You should sooner be allowed to murder an editor who cuts your punchlines.”

  “A new job hazard: murdering editors who cut punchlines,” Miermann said. “It’s quite all right. If an engineer comes up with an improvement for a machine and the company in question alters the model so much that his invention doesn’t work anymore, he can sue for damages. Can I sue Mahlke for damages for cutting my punch-lines? Imagine a lawsuit: Michelangelo versus Bernini, St. Peter’s dome!”

  Gohlisch and Miss Kohler laughed.

  “What’re you laughing at, young’uns? Do you consider art so elevated that you think it can’t be protected by the law? Or so base that you think a few centimeters on a building or cutting punchlines on finely filed prose makes no difference?”

  “Why’d you never punch Mahlke in the kisser?” asked Gohlisch.

  “You’ve heard it, Gohlisch is even for murder in cases like these!” said Kohler.

  “Gohlisch may enjoy resorting to rough-and-tumble methods such as murder or knocking people’s teeth in, but I’m now wondering whether Michelangelo could have sued Bernini for the nave in front of the dome, since it made the dome less effective. Would he have sued for specific performance or for damages? From what I know of Michelangelo, he’d have sued for specific performance, if he hadn’t already died. But a journalist can’t sue for damages. When I was young, I wanted to turn Catholic and join a baroque monastery. I would have made a wonderful priest with my aristocratic features. I would have held great, long sermons on Augustine, Nicholas of Cusa, and Hugo von Hoffmansthal. I would have preached about the need to shun films and radio and cars, which are the devil’s work, and no one could have prevented these beautiful words from escaping my mouth. But I had to go and become a journalist instead, and was stuck with limping Mahlke as my boss instead of the pope, or Saint Peter himself. What could I have done, Gohlisch, my son, Kohler, my daughter? Could I have threatened Mahlke with excommunication and menaced him with heavenly justice, in which his nose would have been pinched off his face again and again, with pincers, for all eternity—the punishment for editors on this earth who cut their journalists’ punchlines? At most, I could have threatened him with Löwenstein the lawyer, who would have demanded a retainer and wouldn’t have been able to find any law that could force Mahlke to let my Miermanns be real Miermanns. The journalist suffers greatly, my children. On top of that, Mahlke called me a fool, because I fought for every word. I could have sued him for insulting me, or told him that Faust had his most profound thoughts because of a word, the word logos. Is it Power? Is it Sense? Is it Deed? But Mahlke would have thought that Faust was a busybody.”

  “How nice, we’ve finally gotten to Faust,” Miss Kohler said.

  “A dear friend recently told me that I should go to a psychoanalyst to work through Mahlke, that it wouldn’t do to walk around full of half-repressed hang-ups. She said that today, a modern individual should go to a psychoanalyst if they’re mad at someone. They can talk about their first words as a toddler and be cured of their rage.”

  “Come on, Miermann!”

  “Yes; hate, anger, and love will all vanish one day. Each person will have their psychoanalyst at their side. The legal system will largely be dismantled. Emotions will disappear. Yes, with the help of psychoanalysis, even wars will no longer be waged. Those who have been psychoanalyzed the longest and best will form the court of cassation. And the courts of all countries will form the League of Nations. Yes! And now, let’s descend to the fleshpots of Egypt.”

  Augur came in, nodded grimly, and shook everyone’s hand without saying a word.

  “Well, conspirator, what’s going on?”

  “The public procurement office is a great swamp.”

  “Shall we print that?”

  “Yes. Don’t you want to print what the sparrows on the Hausvogteiplatz are chirping about?”

  “I think that’s dangerous.”

  “Oh, you’re all cowards. That’s why nothing will ever become of you, Gohlisch.”

  “Nothing will become of me because I’m nice, dear sir, I’m polite, which is why people often think I’m drunk. You don’t believe me? It’s true. I was recently sitting on the trolley, and two people kept chatting over my head. The man was sitting on the foldaway seat. Go ahead, I can switch with you, I said. Oh, no thanks, said the man. Well, why don’t you sit down? said the woman. Oh, no thanks, said the man. I get up anyways, and I hear him quietly say to the woman, ‘Can’tcha tell, he’s drunk.’ If you offer someone your seat, they think you’re drunk. Only loudmouthed brutes or snotty suck-ups make it to the top. You definitely can’t be nice, otherwise people think you’re dumb. Take it from the top down and you’ll be sitting pretty.”

  “In this city,” said Miermann, “In this country of cyclists, you have to buckle up and kick down.”19

  “Do you know that Käsebier’s coming to the Wintergarten?”

  “I have a date with Käsebier tonight. We’re going to drink a glass of mead together. That’s how it goes, you see, I may have discovered the guy, but who am I? A small-time journalist. For Käsebier to become famous, Otto Lambeck had to come to Berlin, Otto Lambeck, the great poet, and be offered one thousand marks for an article on Berlin, and meet that slimeball Frächter, who told him, ‘There was something on Käsebier recently, Käsebier’s a hot tip.’ Do you know who Käsebier is? He’s the man Otto Lambeck discussed on the radio. By the way, Frächter’s publishing a book on Käsebier. It’ll be ready for the Wintergarten premiere. He graciously asked me to collaborate, that is to say, write an article for it.”

  “Contemporaries on Käsebier,” Miermann said with a smirk.

  “Mr. Miermann, perhaps you can interview Käsebier for our Easter issue, ask him what he thinks about the battleship,” Gohlisch said.

  “Why not? It’s just common sense, after all! You’re just jealous because Frächter works harder than you.”

  “Or because he’s more tasteless. I’m going to Aschinger’s with Augur after this. A sumptuous repast awaits us there. I’ll leave the gazettes to our beloved Dalai Lama.”

  “Farewell, farewell!”

  “Heil and Sieg and catch a fat one.”

  “Kohler, my child,” said Miermann once the two men had left, “you can’t go on like this. You called up the Allgemeine Zeitung four times in a row the day before yesterday. They’re starting to make fun of you.”

  “Who told you?”

  “No matter. Don’t embarrass yourself.”

  “You’re quite right, but it wasn’t the way you think. He promised to take me to see the Impressionists. He said eleven at first, so I waited. I called at twelve, he said that something had come up and he’d be there at one. I waited until one; he didn’t show, so I waited until two. I called at two, and he apologized in the sweetest, most loving way, said he’d be there just after lunch at four. He didn’t come at four, I called again at five and he’d already left, and I tried him again at seven. But then I was done too.”

  “You can’t chase after a man.”

  “But Mr. Miermann, if I love him and he loves me, it’s not chasing, is it?”

  “He doesn’t love you. Or perhaps—don’t be mad at me, child—he wants a woman who’s wealthy.”

  “He loves me. I’m not an idiot, I have at least an ounce of sense.”

  “You have sense?!?”

  “I’d never run after a man who didn’t care for me. But believe me, he loves me.”

  “Hm. I don’t know about that.”

  “There are people who are lik
e that in other respects. I know a very important man who was invited to dinner by a business acquaintance. We waited for him, and he didn’t show. Couldn’t be reached at home. Afterward, we found out that he hadn’t come out of sheer mischief, simple madness. The last time M. was in Berlin, we took a taxi together; it’s disgusting, really, our courtship only takes place in cars and cafés, never a day in Potsdam, never a boat trip. We never spend any time together apart from hectic car rides between the newsroom, the publisher’s, and the sound studio. Oh yes, I wanted to say that the last time M. was in Berlin, we were in the car together when he suddenly asked me whether marriage would solve everything. I said perhaps, because I was too dumb to say yes.”

  “That’s just a manner of speaking. Any man who desires or loves a woman like you would marry her.”

  “You’re speaking like a man, Miermann, no offense. He wrote me this letter after he left me hanging yesterday. Isn’t it a love letter? You have to hear me out. I’m not just a silly goose.”

  “Well now! Hand it over.”

  Miermann read the letter:

  Dearest!

  There’s always something, as Tucholsky says. And he’s right. I haven’t called you this whole afternoon—and not even this evening. I hope not—I kept you waiting, but I certainly didn’t gamble away any trust I’d earned. I’m angry—at you! Here’s what happened: I was racking my brains in the newsroom until six, got home at half past seven, was called away immediately, and was dragged into other people’s business until late at night. Why was I angry with you? Usually, I bear my heavy workload, the yoke of public affairs, with composure, but as my thoughts turned to everything this evening could have been, I was vexed and troubled by the thoughts darting through my brain—and thus, vexed by you, the source of this conflict between reality and desire. But on a serious note: I must beg your pardon, for if I could know great delights in an evening spent in my company . . . you must pardon me for this loss. Egotist that I am, I ask for patience! Let me get through the next few days, with their mad array of commitments. Can I be in touch then? I ask for probation. Will you grant it? Regards!

  Your

  O. M.-P.

  “Yes, it’s a love letter.”

  “There you go.”

  “But I think that man’s a talented, vain careerist. Not for you.”

  “Maybe I’m unlucky in my choice of men.”

  “Girls like you easily make mistakes, but the worst is that you can never get away from it. Miss Timmer’s in the same mess.”

  “But I’m very happy with my love. I can be glad by myself, I can suffer by myself; I’m not all that unhappy, I’m fulfilled. I’ll work well in the coming days.”

  “That’s fine, but get that man out of your head. He’s rotten, believe me. Recently, he attacked our valiant Behm-Rabke and wrote that all travel writers write like Heine: ‘The waiters in Göttingen have red hair.’ He also said that Mr. Behm-Rabke might well travel around the world and dine with lords and marquis, but that he had no clue about the working class. Of course, he knows Primo de Rivera and Briand.”20

  “Well, it was rather gauche of Behm-Rabke to describe his encounter with Briand, and how Miss So-and-So, the minister’s daughter, smiled, and how Sir Exandwye bowed to the lovely Madame Zed.”

  “Certainly. But Behm-Rabke’s still no snob, he’s a knowledgeable man. Perhaps a bit too serious. But to pick out a few faults and nail them to good old Behm, that’s low.”

  “Picking out faults to nail someone down is a nice touch. I’m not going to defend him halfheartedly. But I can’t stand it when you insult ‘him.’ I can insult him; you can’t. After all, what’s he done? How’s he disgraced himself? So far, he’s only made fun of Behm.”

  “Certainly. But Behm-Rabke sent in a correction.”

  “Mr. Miermann, you’re funny today. You can’t correct satire. This sounds like the mess I got into with Miss Ostau last winter. I’ve known Grete Ostau for years. She was pretty as a picture before she began wearing a monocle and became a flabby garçonne. A fat garçonne is such a terrible thing. Last winter, I went to the Phillippses’, and there was Grete Ostau in the hallway. I said—very quietly—to Gohlisch, who’d come with me, ‘Oh, she’s gotten ugly.’ The next day, Karl Philipp rang me up and said, ‘Listen, Grete Ostau left immediately last night because she was so upset by what you said. She says you should call her and apologize for the remark and take it back.’ I said that I was very sorry that she’d heard me, but that I couldn’t take it back. Should I have called and said, Dear Grete Ostau, I may have said that I think you’ve gotten ugly, but I take it back, I’m wrong, I think you’re very pretty? Meyer might just as well write, ‘I may have written that I think Mr. Behm’s an ape, but I don’t think so anymore.’ You can’t correct something like that.”

  “Right. But it was completely different. Meyer falsely accused Behm of making huge mistakes. That’s all Behm wanted corrected. But Meyer didn’t allow the correction to be published. Instead, he wrote a very polite letter to Behm, and published his own letter. He’s always that cowardly. You just won’t admit it!”

  “Certainly, Miermann, certainly. But I love him. I can’t help myself. He’s just a poor soul. I want to call him up so badly.”

  “Don’t do it, my girl, don’t do it.”

  “You think he’s a funny fellow. But he’s completely different. I happen to be reading Buddhist texts right now. He recently quoted a sentence from something I was reading. Is that just a coincidence?”

  “Of course it is. Don’t put too much stock in that, and don’t get so hung up on him!”

  “And how are you doing, Mr. Miermann?”

  “She’s an unusual woman. She’s moving up in the world fast, is perhaps a bit overeager, knows everyone already, goes out everywhere, has an opinion on everything. A completely new type. She cut her hair in 1918 already. You’re quite old-fashioned by comparison.”

  “Fine, fine, I’ll walk through the streets for a bit.”

  She took the train to the Tiergarten. Crocuses, strollers, and buds on the bushes, colorful woolen dwarves with scooters and teddy bears under their arms.

  They were unloading barges at the northeast corner of the Tiergarten. The herring had arrived. Tons of it—young, delectable, fatty, soused spring herring. Oilskin jackets, blubber, sea wind and salt spray, from the coast to the Alexanderufer at the Lehrter train station. There this democratic animal was unloaded, along with the bricks for new homes that they carried out of the barge’s store hold on their backs.

  Invalidenstrasse: museums for boys, rocks, telegraph machines, whale skeletons. Heidestrasse, August. The Prussian Building and Finance Administration. The District Committee for the City of Berlin. And then you got a summons to pick up your civvies, while the gunner . . . Four years later.

  The seventeen-year-old was unforgettable. A strong Berlin boy. August 1918, Heidestrasse. Swung his suitcase toward the gate, “Well, guess it’s off to the slammer now.”

  Now a tattered poster hung there:

  “Hunger”

  “unemployment, mass poverty. . .”

  “save the proles”

  “the banking system”

  “international”

  “dictatorship.”

  The District Committee building was painted in soft hues of pink and rose, war’s storms hush and subside.21 A window was open: it revealed a room with a white tiled stove, a red sofa, a walnut closet, a giant African linden.

  The old city. Clinics, students, commerce, cramming for class, establishments run by the Christian Community next to small hotels. Women straight out of Zille stood there.22 “Not an easy life either,” thought Miss Kohler. And there were the workers who earned forty-two or forty-eight or fifty-two pfennigs an hour—provided they had work. ‘Good fatty ham shanks’ cost one mark ten. You could get a pound of pig’s heads for thirty pennies. It was six o’clock. Fried liver and soup for seventy-five pfennigs. Bright underwear in shopwindows. Wishful dreams of silk
undershirts, pink with yellow lace. Powder and makeup, secondhand stores and furniture on installment, pawnshops. Medicine and law met their ends here as “Natural Healing Clinics” and “Legal Offices”: divorces to the left, criminal cases to the right. The Berolina was already gone from Alexanderplatz.23

  The state had erected its bastions here, albeit with a few holes; ideas were being fought over with sharpened lances. Here was also the bastion of the law, which had no holes, because it was protected by state-sanctioned violence. And here was the bastion of gastric sustenance. Piles of slop. Mountains of pale red lungs, blackened kidneys, bloody cadavers, boxes of oranges, greenish cheese from France and reddish cheese from England, green salad and cauliflower from Holland. Trainloads of flowers, sacks of beans, peas, and rice, night after night, partly by the grace of God and partly by freight bill, partly miracle and partly science, partly earthly blessing and partly organization.

  The day began at six o’clock beyond the heart of the city. Narrow courtyards, houses stuffed with people, sewing machines, wood planes and hammers and stampers. Shabby houses covered from top to bottom with gaudy signs. SHOE STORE, STOCKINGS FOR SALE, TROUSERS HERE, GARMENT DISTRICT. The unemployed went to get stamped, stood around, hocked suspenders, combs, glue, chocolate. “Three bars for a mark!” Old clothes hung for sale in the rag shop with a big sign that said, WE PAY TOP PRICE. Young lads stretched their limbs, wanting to go tramping, leave the big city and walk the country roads. It was March.

  Schönhauser Tor. Here was Berlin, stretching out far to the north and east and west. The life of millions; when it was good, it was one hundred and fifteen marks a month because you couldn’t always get a full-time gig, and you got ten marks for your old mother’s pension, but then rent cost thirty. Or one hundred and fifty marks with riffraff and creepy-crawlies, up and down the stairs, twenty-five marks in spending money, husband, wife, and child working as door-to-door salesmen.

  Next to the pawnshops was the Impound Distillery, garments “for strong women,” stores for work clothes. The Blessing, a watch store. Old factories. In front, villas with staircases descending to the front yard. Soon came new, splendidly vertical buildings: red brick, sober, modern, severe. The balconies were there for soulfulness and longing. The flower boxes were painted, newly attached, wires drawn for scarlet runners and wild vines, dovecotes put up. Between Fatty Max’s distillery and The Wet Triangle were shops with canaries and tree frogs—even live goldfish—and shops for ribboned lutes. Children played with tops and marbles, drew with chalk on the asphalt and played hopscotch. The older ones went about festively: little girls in black dresses, clutching songbooks and yellow roses wrapped in white paper; little boys in black suits with sprigs of myrtle in their buttonholes. They had been blessed for the life they now waited to begin: first, for the apprenticeship that couldn’t be had; then, for the rest. Old folks sat in doorways, tending to the littlest ones. One lost his balloon, it flew off. He cried. First spring pains. Oh, what in life doesn’t fly away!