Käsebier Takes Berlin

by Gabriele Tergit

  “How nice to see you, I’ve meant to ring you for ages, I’ve felt so guilty,” said Margot. “I’ve had so much on my mind lately, I’ve barely had any time to myself. My cook is sick.”

  “How dreadful,” said Mrs. Muschler, looking at Mr. Schrade, the lawyer.

  “Good evening,” he said as he passed by. He grazed Mrs. Muschler with his hand, although it had been over for fourteen days now. Schrade had been a company lawyer. He had his notice slip in his pocket. On top of that, he was in debt. He was walking around with another young man.

  He said, “Just keep your chin up. The moment you wear a stained suit, it’s over.”

  “Perhaps,” the other man said, “but I have unpaid bills. Can’t we have dinner with Muschler tonight?”

  “I think Muschler lost a fortune on the stock market today, one hundred thousand marks. He was being bearish, and all of a sudden, everything shot up.”

  “Goodbye,” said Muschler the banker. “We’re anxious to see Käsebier. Au revoir, Monsieur.”

  “Au revoir!” his better half cried.

  “I’ll ring you sometime,” said Margot Weissmann.

  “I’ll give you a call,” said Käte.

  “Let’s give each other a call sometime,” said Mrs. Muschler.

  “Margot Weissmann has the most incredible luck,” said Thedy, walking back to her seat with Muschler. “She invited a hundred guests and not a single person turned her down, imagine that! When I invite a hundred guests, I have to count on twenty cancellations. And she’s vice-president of the motor club as well. You know, the dress she’s wearing is probably by Marbach, and cost six hundred marks. Well, aren’t I a fool, mine had exactly the same little wings, and I just gave it to Gerstel so she could remove them.”

  The lights were dimmed. They were no longer in Hasenheide, no—they were in the great world of the varieté. Childish delight no longer reigned. There were no more fluttering doves, no more silly plays; gone was the happy-go-lucky, well-meaning atmosphere. The chips were down. This wasn’t just about the gig; this was about international fame. They had moved up from the green wagon and the meadow fenced off with rope, left the green wagon, wretched circus folk.

  Spotlights swept over a framework of ladders, swings, rings, and taut nets. Three beautiful specimens in leotards grasped swings that were thirty meters above the ground, somersaulted in the air once, twice, thrice, grasped their swings again, returned, traded rings. They led hard lives in order to somersault three times in the air, without drink or love, with gritted teeth, working from dawn till dusk, without detours or adventures. Their performance was the only thing that mattered. They kept their eyes on the goal: to somersault three times in the air and grab the right rope. Since this was quite dangerous, a sturdy net had been strung up ten meters above the ground. Lambeck thought of Miss Kohler’s words. “Ridiculous. It denies all humanity and, because of that, it’s unbearably sad. Dexterity for dexterity’s sake, as a way of filling your days, is embarrassing—it’s not for fun, recréation, which implies rebirth, renewal. We slide back into the Middle Ages when we take someone else’s mortal peril for an amusing diversion. It’s the same as burning people at the stake in the village square.” And Lambeck thought that it was instructive to see how nothing else, truly nothing else mattered apart from grabbing the right rope.

  The next act was delightfully absurd. Several individuals attempted to toss four balls up in the air and catch them using candlesticks balanced on their noses. They also played ball with thoroughly unsuitable objects.

  Then came seven people all disguised as children. The girls were in red silk dresses, the boys wore yellow silk suits. They upended tables with a huge, American-style racket, broke the legs off of chairs, rode bicycles on crooked surfaces, fell over each other, jumped over tables and benches, causing a wild, youthful ruckus until they left the stage, skipping and whooping.

  The harsh varieté music, loud and brassy, subsided. The curtain went up again. A wonderfully gentle background, softest pink silk with silver and palest green; a foreign, completely quiet world. In front of it stood seven southern Chinese women, smiling, dressed in soft hues of blue and yellow. They were as beautiful as the night, as great flowers on ponds unruffled by any passing breeze, as ivy on crumbling walls. They began to dissolve, turning into strands of rubber. They coiled themselves like panthers, they stood on one another, they jumped down; oh, you couldn’t call it jumping, they flew up and down, and a little boy spun himself head over heels twelve times, then quietly went to the side. A silver dragon softly glowed overhead, pale green lotus flowers on pink silk.

  The East set.

  And Georg Käsebier appeared, Georg Käsebier, blood of the blood of this city. Thousands of wrinkles danced around his eyes and mouth, wrinkles of derision, mockery, audacity, facetiousness, and that most delicate shame: the shame of emotion.—“Boy, Isn’t Love Swell?”—“In Tent Two, by the Spree, Over a Cup of Coffee, That’s Where I Kissed Lieschen for the First Time.”—“Why Don’cha Wanna Go to the Fair with Him?” Wasn’t this Berlin? Courtyard to courtyard? Man to man?—“How Can He Sleep with That Thin Wall?”

  Wasn’t this Berlin, from the west to the east?—“I’m dancing the Charleston and he’s dancing the Charleston and she’s dancing the Charleston—what about you?”—“I need dough and he needs dough and she needs dough—what about you?” But he didn’t sing about getting stamped.

  Käsebier was a kind man. He didn’t like saying unpleasant things to people. He didn’t want to think about the revolution being carried out in the west.

  Everyone was delighted. It was a smashing success. Miermann thought he was terrific. His crudeness, his ugliness, no schmaltz, no kitsch. Delightful.

  Ixo said, “Did I promise too much?”

  Müller shouted over to Öchsli, “Capital affair. What? Pallenberg and Guilbert, right? My sugar rabbit, my little golden pig, my fivefold dearest life, I’m waiting for your call. Oh, you don’t believe me? It’s true. All seriousness aside. What’s more serious than love? Shall we go out again, or don’t you love me anymore? Me, the little forest fairy? And why not.”

  Öchsli shook his head.

  “Ghastly woman,” said Miermann.

  “Dreadfully noisy,” said Käte.

  Frächter found his way over to them. Charming, thought Käte. She thought him good-looking. Cochius, the publisher of the Berliner Rundschau, very blond, very feudal, walked by. He greeted Miermann. Frächter joined them. Miermann introduced him.

  “Ah, a pleasure,” said Mr. Cochius. “You put this book together, a pleasure.”

  “Yes,” said Frächter. “I wrote the preface.”

  “The preface, yes, of course, the preface. Putting the book together was just a manner of speaking. I read the preface, excellent, extremely interesting. One reads too little of your work, Mr. Frächter.”

  “I’m working on larger projects, and I’m currently preoccupied with organizational issues in the newspaper industry.”

  “Well, well. Isn’t that interesting. Goodbye, Mr. Frächter.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Cochius, very honored to meet you.”

  Frächter beamed. Miermann was grumpy. They walked away together. Frächter said that Käsebier was petit-bourgeois.

  “What can you expect of capitalist art?” Käte asked.

  “Quite right,” said Frächter.

  “I don’t understand how a ballad singer can produce capitalist art,” said Miermann.

  “Our dear Miermann is a romantic,” said Käte.

  “Yes, unfortunately,” said Frächter. “Käsebier is a private citizen. Bed and a few little sorrows.”

  “He has no élan, no revolutionary fervor. He has the chops to put on a stinging political satire, but he’s stuck in the same old rut,” said Käte.

  Miermann told them that Augur had only received thirty marks for his dramatic revelations.

  “What can you expect from capitalism?” Käte and Frächter said in unison, and looked at
each other, enraptured.

  Miermann said, “That was a particularly unconscientious company.”

  “You always see things from such a narrow perspective. I’d prefer an unsentimental capitalism to a sentimental one,” said Käte.

  “Quite right,” said Frächter.

  “But I can’t walk anymore,” said Käte.

  Frächter hailed a taxi. “I’m also taking a taxi. Can I bring you home?”

  He hailed the taxi, Käte got in, Frächter followed.

  “Goodbye, dearest,” Käte said, and waved at Miermann, who was left alone in the dark on Dorotheenstrasse. Miermann walked on, farther along Dorotheenstrasse, almost until the Brandenburg Gate.

  She’s driven away with Frächter. That armchair communist, Miermann suddenly thought with venom, how he scorns everything human. It’s those folks who hustle hard, strive for the best jobs, have no creativity. And as if that weren’t enough, they make us out to be dumb and laugh at us. Personal bluster as revolutionary élan.

  Miermann laughed.

  “Who laughs there?” said Gohlisch, in the voice of an old ham. He came down Dorotheenstrasse with Öchsli. “Do we still want to go to Siechen?”

  “Fine,” said Miermann. “Everything’s fine by me.”

  “Huth’s better,” said Öchsli. “They have a wonderful wine from ’21.”

  “Fine,” said Gohlisch. “We’ll knock back a few. But the master must command us.”

  Miermann said, “I’m not particularly in the mood for drinking, but whatever you say, Gohlisch, my son.”

  Gohlisch said, “I thought Käsebier was marvelous.”

  “A great artist,” said Öchsli. “He’s got wistfulness and longing; he’s mischievous and mocking; he can do mirth, happiness, pain. Everything that’s timeless and out of date. Of course, his voice is nothing special.”

  “He comes straight out of Glasbrenner and Kalisch.25 But suddenly, he’s not radical enough for Mr. Frächter,” said Miermann.

  “Who’s Frächter?” asked Öchsli.

  “The man of the hour,” said Gohlisch.

  “That may well be,” Miermann said bitterly.

  “But once everyone’s forgotten about Frächter, they’ll still be reading Miermann,” said Gohlisch.

  “Or perhaps only Miermann’s name will live on,” said Miermann.

  They went to Huth, and drank a ’21 Nierstein first, then Liebfrauenmilch.26 It was three in the morning when Miermann came home, drank a cup of the coffee that he always kept at the ready, and wrote his review.

  11

  Margot Weissmann’s party

  ON APRIL 15, Margot Weissman threw a party. The invitation said eight o’clock. In Berlin, seven thirty means seven thirty, but eight o’clock means eight thirty. The cloakroom was very crowded. Maids relieved guests of their furs and handed out numbers. The gentlemen all wore coats with beaver fur collars, lined with herds of mink and muskrats. Some of the women wore brocade coats. They hesitated for a moment, but then left them in the cloakroom. Only one older singer brought hers in. But the great disappointment had already begun in the cloakroom.

  Thedy Muschler had been on the phone with Glauker for days.

  “I’m beside myself! I don’t have that pink georgette yet, though it’s almost summer and I’ve been invited to Mrs. Adolf Weissmann’s this evening. Am I to walk around in black tulle forever? What are you thinking? When I’m such a good customer! I was featured in Fashion wearing your black lace dress. I even sent you the photograph, and you’re still making me wait? . . . Today after all, then? Let me think. Déjeuner at two thirty, bridge at five. So come around one thirty. But we have to be finished with the fitting in half an hour! And you’ll have to deliver the dress by seven.”

  Thus Mrs. Muschler had telephoned, but the great disappointment had already begun in the cloakroom. And not just for Mrs. Muschler. A woman is always beautiful on her own. But many—well, that’s where the problems begin. Everything looks entrancing in front of the mirror at home. Wearing pink and pearls, powdered at her own dressing table, every Eve can nod at her reflection and say, “Very good.” But at the party, Mrs. Muschler was greatly surpassed by Käte in black taffeta, who looked like Messalina, not to mention Hannelore, a vision in pale blue ruched tulle! Even worse: half of the women present were wearing pink. Thirty women thought: Pink—what a mistake. I’ll never use Glauker again! Mrs. Muschler thought.

  Cards indicating dinner table pairings lay on a small table. “Dr. So-and-So is asked . . .” Her, of all people? But why? Completely off the mark. Oh, fine, it’s all right. The seating chart hung on the wall.

  I’m a second-tier guest, Dr. Krone thought. But Mrs. Muschler is sitting at my table. Her husband is sitting at the former minister’s table. She’ll ask me about her nerves, and then she’ll go over to the professor.

  Several very young women walked by, dressed in black, painted like devils. They were looking for some fun, with their husbands in the background. Like their grandmothers, they were good bourgeois citizens, and knew that this was the most pleasant way to live. After all, great love only leads to bohemianism.

  Father stood next to Mother. “They could have put someone else at our Susie’s table instead of Otto Peter. He doesn’t have anything and can’t do anything.”

  Mother said to Father, “I will certainly extend an invitation to Klaus Waldschmidt. He’ll be inheriting the Berliner Tageszeitung one day. You have to make things appealing for young people these days.”

  The tables were decorated with pink carnations and silver ribbons. A large porcelain figure stood at the center of each table. The tableware had wide matte gold rims. This had been the fashion when Margot had married, in 1912.

  Mrs. Muschler noticed that Margot had new silverware. Until now, she had owned Chippendale, just like the Muschlers. Now the silver was smooth and modern; odd, since Margot otherwise only liked decorative things.

  To begin, there was salmon from the Rhine, with sauce périgord.

  After the cream of chicken soup had been served, the hired waiter continually inquired, “Red or white?” Mrs. Muschler talked to the doctor about Käsebier and his effect on her nerves.

  There was music after dinner. The young girls made sure to get close to the gentlemen. The struggle for survival is brutal. Margot Weissmann sang, “Lift up the sparkling cup of wine,” while gazing at the marquis, who looked dashing—tall, dark, and slender. He was Catholic and married. His wife had remained in Spain with their many children.

  A well-known art dealer stood in the corner, talking to Oppenheimer.

  Oppenheimer said, “I’m kicking myself for waiting so long on the little Pissarro. Cassirer just sold it for twice the price to Mr. von der Mandt. I wound up giving my two kakemonos away to the museum, since I’m now only interested in China before the Song dynasty. But I’ve hung the Géricault, a nice piece of work, very inexpensive, from Paris. It’s unfortunate that one really can’t put up any German paintings. By the way, do you know what dear Georg is auctioning off? Paintings from the French quattrocento. Terrible, isn’t it? He’s also said to be auctioning off a Chippendale chair. The backrest is authentic. However, the front legs are questionable. At least, the left one is. I’d still put it next to mine. We’ve had to make more concessions in the past few years.”

  Mrs. Muschler joined them and said, “I recently snapped up an ancient stone bowl, truly first-rate. It’s done in white and blue. I simply don’t understand dear Margot with her Tang horses.”

  “Yes,” Oppenheimer said. “I wouldn’t put up whole regiments of them. She does have some beautiful pieces, though.”

  Otto Peter was eavesdropping on a conversation between two older women.

  “Women are born to suffer,” said one. “First our men leave us, then our sons.”

  “Yes, and we stay behind, all alone.”

  Otto Peter said, “But we don’t have it easy either; all we want is someone to talk to, and we can never find anyone. It’s hard to st
udy all the time without someone to converse with. And it’s difficult in general with women! We feel responsible. We can’t trust ourselves.”

  Sweet Hannelore went unnoticed in her pale blue dress.

  “These young fops are a disgrace,” said her father.

  Dr. Schrade’s friend had at last paid off his debts, but after four months was still looking for work. He wanted to establish connections, but he seemed cowed.

  “He looks lazy,” Waldschmidt said to Cochius.

  “Yes, utterly,” said Cochius.

  Really, all that was left was to end it.

  The beautiful, rich Miss Camilla was in love with Dr. Krone, who limped heavily as the result of a shrapnel wound. But he didn’t make anything of it, despite being very fond of her. Out of pride, he went over instead to poor, ugly, Gerda, the gymnastics teacher of Margot Weissmann’s young daughter.

  “Käsebier,” he said to Gerda, “is a comic genius. Most people consider only tragedy an art. But I believe that comedy is a higher art.”

  “Camilla’s having a rough go of things,” said old Mrs. Frechheim, Thedy Muschler’s mother.

  Miss Kohler stood by herself. Yet again, Meyer hadn’t called to say he couldn’t make it, and she had bought a new dress for two hundred marks, even though Mr. Powitzer might still give his notice because of the dog.

  The man of the evening, the forty-year-old industrial titan, G., a fine violinist with a famous East Asian collection, approached her.

  “Is the evening a bit too chaotic for your taste?” he asked.

  “Oh, no,” she said, delighted.

  “You seem nervous,” he said. “I’m sorry that I can’t spend as much time with you as I would like.”

  He led her into the sunroom. “It’s cool here, and there’s a daybed,” he said.

  Funny, she thought. Why doesn’t he call it a sofa?

  She lay down. He sat down next to her and placed his hands under her head. There was a womanly tenderness to this gesture. It was particularly charming coming from this calm, important man with an East Asian art collection.

  She stretched out, making no sound. Music drifted in from outside. They were an island. His fingers quietly stroked her arm. After a few minutes, she stood up.