"A what?"
"You know, Walta/i. The English call it a hombrekker, don't they? A woman that breaks up marriages. A guy like that belongs with his family over the weekend, don't he? Instead of which, I've had to dish up one trick after the other. He's not a man, he's hung like a bull! To say nothing of Hanschen."
"Hanschen?"
"Yeah. My canary. He's stopped singing because I haven't had a minute to go out and get him some greens. And then he has to stay covered so long in the morning because Leichenmiilla/i's screwed me half dead and I don't have the strength to get up."
"Couldn't Max get the greens and uncover Hanschen?" Max was Tutti's pimp, a great fellow.
"He's jealous of the canary," said Tutti, with the accent on the t/."
"Jealous? Of a bird? For God's sake!"
"Well, you see, I got this kinda spiritual relationship with the little creature," said Tutti. "My little bird never beats me up." I could hear a man's voice protesting. Tutti went on. "So that's the way it is. I don't care if you listen, Max, it's gotta be said. So Walta/i, whaddawedo? Want me to call the police?"
"No," I said, "please don't. I know a better way. Tell
Leichenmiiller youVe spoken to me and I told you that Lester swore on Friday—"
"Who swore on Friday?"
"Lester. Our editor-in-chief."
"Oh."
"He swore he'd fire Leichenmiiller if it happened again and he didn't turn up at the office at ten."
"Is that true?" Tutti sounded horrified.
"Of course it's not true. He wouldn't do anything like that. Leichenmiiller is tops in his profession. But I can't think of any other way to get him back into circulation without a scene. Fortunately, he's a very weak, reserved person." .
"Not here, he ain't!"
"No, not in your bed, but everywhere else."
"And you think that'll do it?"
"I'm sure it will. But you've got to be very dramatic about this firing business. Tell him I'm terribly worried about him and have practically written him off. He'll come."
"You'd better be right, lover boy! Anyway, 111 pass the good word on to Leichenmiilla/i so that it raises his hair, not just his pecker. If somebody's had it—and God knows he's had enough—and he doesn't want to get out when he sees how pooped I am, that's something I jest can't stand. Adsch&n, Waltafe/ If I can't get him to quit, 111 call right back. Stay where you are!"
"I'll stay right here. But you'll manage all right. Wiedersehen, Tutti. My best to Max."
"Ill tell him. So long, WaltaW"
Tutti hung up, so did I, and with a sigh went back to my table. Lucie had brought my third whiskey double. I took a big slug. "That guy makes me want to throw up."
"Leichenmiiller?" Lucie asked curiously. "Who is he? What a name!" Leiche meaning "corpse." But he wasn't really a LeichenmuHer, he was a Leidenmiiller, leiden meaning "suffering"—"no great improvement, but I felt I should clear up Lucie on the point. "His name's really Leidenmiiller. Heinrich. But we call him Leichenmiiller because that's what he looks like. Thin, pale, hollow cheeks, feverish eyes, and—because the devil wants it that way—the best layout man we've ever had. Another whiskey, please."
"Yes, Herr Roland," said Lucie, looking absolutely miserable.
She spilled some Chivas while filling my glass; her hand was trembling as if she was the one who was drunk. But it was only unhappiness.
"An impotent man," I said.
"Who?"
"This Leichenmiiller, our top layout man. And a typical good citizen. Backbone of the nation. Married. Two children. But at irregular intervals he's overcome by a dark hunger for whores, and disappears ... for two days, three. Always when he's needed most. He's evidently been out since Friday afternoon and our editor-in-chief is having a fit. Fortunately he prefers Tutti to any of the other girls. I mean Leichenmiiller now, not Lester. A long time ago I promised Frau Leidenmiiller—when I was drunk, of course—that I'd keep an eye on her husband. That's why I asked the girls or their pimps to call me when he goes crazy. Then I keep having to find new ways to threaten him, and he always comes back. In all other respects he's the nicest fellow in the world. Thank God, he's with Tutti, who knows me."
Lucie put a fresh whiskey and soda in front of me. "Don't look so mad," I said.
"I'm not mad, Herr Roland."
The jackal was going away, fading like the noise in the street. I began to feel better.
"And Leichenmiiller is paid well," I continued. "There are very few of them around—exceptionally gifted graphics artists and layout men like him—and all of them are a little crazy one way or another. But Leichenmiiller's really top-drawer. And now, just to make things easier for you, FrSulein Lucie, why don't you bring me my bottle?" and I gave the girl who was so much in love with me my most charming smile. "And some ice and soda, and I won't have to bother you again."
"The—the whole bottle?" she stammered.
"Yes. I won't drink it all."
"If that's what you want," said Lucie, and hurried off.
Lucie came back and put my precious bottle of Chivas down on the table in front of me with a bang. Now she voas mad. So what! I had my bottle; I drank and looked into the mirror and grimaced with revulsion as it occurred to me that I'd been writing the crappy sex series for three and a half years. At first it had actually been fun. Then the circulation began to go up like crazy because of it, and then it wasn't fun anymore. Then it was
suddenly a deadly serious thing, praised to the skies by everybody, astonishing everybody, and there was no end to it in sight!
Once, when I said I didn't want to write such shit anymore, Lester had offered me more money. Lester knew his man. I took the money and went on writing. But in the long run there was no profit in it for me. Since Lester had become the boss, I had to knock myself out all the time, with girls or whiskey or roulette. Until now I seemed able to take it, but I couldn't go on like this forever. I'd been living the last seven years in a state of constant partial anesthesia. Only two people knew why: myself and Paul Kramer, because once I had told him, "I shudder to think of the moment when I'm-totally out of whiskey and girls. Can you understand that?"
"Yes, my boy. Perfectly," he had said. Fantastic man, pick of the crop.
This drinking in the morning had more than one reason. Editor-in-chief Lester had installed a so-called "research department." Here they were supposed to find out what was popular, less popular, not popular. They had wound up with a computer.
You may laugh, you may say I'm lying, but I'm not lying. It's the truth! Everything you read in Blitz, the pictures you look at, the style, the content, the subject matter, the color—all decoded by computer!
This computer was fed with the results of the research of a Public Opinion Institute. A certain Erhard Stahlhut was head of our research department, a friend of Lester's, a student of mathematics who hadn't made the grade. Incidentally, this Public Opinion Institute belonged to Lester's brother-in-law. In this way everything stayed in the family.
The computer reports—which, strangely enough, always seemed to coincide with what publisher Herford had in mind—had meanwhile become a Holy Bible for him. Dark green 134
and the index number one hundred stood for the ne plus ultra in positive reaction that the computer could compute. This ideal evaluation had never been reached. My series, with ninety-two, was the top rating so far. The worst color was red, index number one. In between there were all sorts of shades from red to green, and in accordance with them, the numbers one to a hundred. Who dared to say anything against the computer? No one. But everybody cursed the damned thing.
When Stahlhut had started, he told Herford, "Anyone publishing a successful magazine must have his finger on the pulse of the masses. Polls aren't enough. Nothing should be printed unless we know as nearly as possible and in advance that the masses are going to accept it."
And Herford had asked, "But how are we going to find that out in advance?" And Herr Stahlhut had replied, "No probl
em! We have enough representatives of the masses right here in the house. The ideal audience. I suggest we have them read what we intend to print—every installment, novel, articles, everything. Let them voice their opinion. Their opinion is the voice of the people. To hell with the intellectuals. They don't have any use for our magazine anyway. Our workers, our employees—they're the ones! Let them tell us how they like it and what they don't like, before we print it! And let the writers write accordingly."
This pearl of an idea bowled over publisher and editor-in-chief. They were speechless with admiration. The first reading of this kind took place the following week. The audience was men because it was a male-oriented' story. The next reading, a romantic novel, included women. When the material wasn't exclusively male-oriented, women were always present because it was mainly women who bought and read the illustrated magazines. And for seven years now, the house had stuck to this method. Everything was read aloud; no writer escaped, not even a foreign writer who had written a best seller for which Blitz had paid through the nose.
And when it was my turn?
I had always had a gift for writing for women, and this sex series was directed at women. Of course my articles were read aloud. And that was why I came over here to the Kniefall Market bar whenever I'd handed in an article. Here was where I waited while my latest production was passing through the "voice of the people" mill.
"That business about oral sex, that's got to be clearer," said cleaning-woman Wassler. "There's too much beating about the bush. Trenching* doesn't tell me a thing. I think Herr Roland should describe it more precisely. No Latin and foreign words I"
"I think he's plenty precise!" cried a young woman from the bookkeeping department.
General protest.
Frau Wassler: "He doesn't write clearly enough. He didn't in the last number. I let my husband read it, and he didn't know what Herr Roland was talking about!"
Her colleague, Reincke, who was also ill-humored, said angrily, "You're dumb, Bertha. That's what's wrong with you. Your old man understands every word; he just pretends he doesn't. He doesn't want to understand."
This shook Frau Wassler. "Do you think so? But we have four children."
"So there you are—that's why!"
The air in the conference room was blue with cigarette smoke. My judges were seated around a long conference table— cleaning woman, typists, bookkeepers, cooks, waitresses: twenty-seven girls and women in all, and a twenty-eighth at the head of the table, one of the few women editors with Blitz —Angela Flanders.
Angela Flanders was fifty-four, always beautifully groomed and elegantly dressed. She had been a journalist for a quarter of a century, first with a daily paper, then with an illustrated paper, for ten years now with Blitz. She told me all about the conference later.
The women had their coffee in front of them; many were smoking. Packs of cigarettes lay around. Every woman had a pad and pencil. They were seated according to their profession— telephone operators with telephone operators, typists with typists, and so on. Angela Flanders had tried several times to break things up, in vain. The ones who knew each other wanted to sit together.
Now Angela Flanders rapped on the table with her pencil. "Ladies, has anyone anything more to say?"
A gray, mousy little creature from the canteen kitchen raised a hesitant hand.
"Frau Eggert?"
Frau Eggert could scarcely be heard. "Well—well—" she stammered, "there's a reference... but it doesn't really come clear in this article—and after all, for us women everything depends on—"
"What are you driving at, Frau Eggert? Don't be embarrassed. We're just women among ourselves, and I don't tell a soul who said what."
Frau Eggert started again. "Well, you see—I think it should be stated clearly just once that men—that the men should stick it but—I mean, should go on until—until—"
General agreement. Angela Flanders took everything down in shorthand. Frau Eggert, encouraged by her success, went on, "Especially because in the last article we were advised to take estrogen."
Applause.
"And now a lot of us do, and you know what that does to >» us—
Frau Reincke, wearing a bandanna: "Makes us give in easier, but it don't do nothing for an orgasm. Don't come no faster."
A certain liveliness now swept through the group, and Angela Flanders had trouble keeping up with the women.
A fat cook: "Haven't they found anything yet, Frau Flanders, that'll make the man last longer?"
"Of course there are ways "
"Then the article should tell about them, give the names—"
"Yes, yes... give us the names."
"What the things are called!"
"I've made a note of it, ladies. Please go on."
A painfully thin secretary of about forty: "I've made a note here... titi—titillate the vulva ... In this case he's talking about the Empress Maria Theresa. But that bit's much too short."
"That's right!" cried one of the bookkeepers.
"You see, even an Empress needed it. So women like us should have it explained properly, how this titillation's supposed to take place."
'That's right!"
tMore coffee poured, more cigarettes lit. Frau Reincke took 137
Dc
over energetically. "Speaking basically, now, Frau Flanders— yes? Not a word against Herr Roland. It's terrific that we're at last getting some real information. There can't be too much of it. But when you take a good look at this series, it's written for the men. Don't misunderstand me, please. The thing is—I'm all for the j men getting a load of this kinda stuff, so's they get the general idea of what their duties to us are."
Cries of bravo.
"But!" Reincke raised a silencing hand. "Were the ones who Ro read it! Our men—they may take a look at the photos when thee girl don't have any clothes on, but none of them take anything, Herr Roland writes to heart. I know all about that from my own lousy experiences." Applause. She raised her voice above it. "Nine years ago, when we got married, I was a virgin. Not the foggiest idea about the whole thing. Didn't get anything out of it I either. And today? Nothing's changed— In, out, dissatisfied.
"I beg your pardon?" Angela Flanders was confused. "What I did you say?"
"You know what she means," said one of the bookkeepers. "Herr Reincke has his fun without any preliminaries, and Frau Reincke gets all excited but no satisfaction." I see.
"That's it!" (Frau Reincke.)
"And that's the way it is with me," cried one of the mailroom^^ employees who had fled from the Warthegau district as a child, in 1946. "My guy keeps telling me it's my fault. The boob tells me, 'You're getting nervous, Minka, but in your case it's a delayed orgasm.'" Nervousness in the audience. "Says he knows all about it: A medical student explained it to him. Now I'm asking you, what's a 'delayed orgasm'? Either I come or I don't. And Herr Roland should explain this to us."
"That's how I feel about it," said one of the mailroom clerks. "My husband just makes things easy for himself with that sort of attitude. All he cares about is getting his. He doesn't give a damn about me. But I'm not as quick as he is. I'm no rabbit. I need time, like all the rest of us. Am I right, ladies?"
"You bet!"
"And that's why," Reincke concluded, "the whole series— you'll pardon my saying so—ain't right in its approach. It tells all " the time what the man should do to make his wife happy. But does he do it? No! He don't even bother to read it, and if he does read it, he don't do it. Much too conceited for anything like that. 138
en
And that's why," Reincke went on, louder now above the applause of her colleagues, "and that's why Herr Roland should write on what we women should'do to get our Heinis going!"
"That's right!"
"That's the way I feel about it!"
"And," Reincke went on, "then we women would know what to do to get our guys stirred up. I mean, in this series we should be told what we have to do, so that the men do the
things Hen-Roland is telling them to do. Because we've got to be the ones to get the ball rolling—titters—or nuthin's ever going to happen! Herr Roland should write about the men and how to titi—how to titillate him! A lot more about that. So that he can do the right thing by us when we've finally got him going. And that's j* especially important for women who've been married a long time, because it's all old stuff for them. I'm telling you, Frau Flanders, it's the older ones that read the stuff."
"You have a point there," said Angela Flanders.
A pale videotape employee said, "You're mistaken, Frau Reincke. We young married women have our problems, too. Don't think for a moment that things are so all right with us."
"You see, Frau Flanders," said Reincke, "what I said is good for all marriages, old and young."
A jolly little twenty-one-year-old, gorgeously built girl from the news department piped up. "I don't know what's the matter with all of you. Except for a few times, I've always gotten what I A wanted out of it. I—"
Your
"We know all about that. You tell us every time." , "I'm good and sick of it," cried Reincke.
A secretary from the science editorial department said, "The young lady is evidently a biological miracle!"
"Ladies! Ladies!" cried Angela Flanders energetically. "Let's move on."
But Reincke was too indignant to move on. She leaned across the table and barked at the biological miracle. "So let us in on your secret!"
"It's absolutely no secret," said she coolly. "My Uwe goes on as long as I want him to, then he asks if I've had enough, and I say, 'Yes, Uwe, you can stop now,' and he does."
Reincke's jaw fell open, for a moment she was struck dumb, then she recovered and said, "How about switching for a while, Frau Schonbein?"
139
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"That would suit you, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, the fuck with it!" cried Reincke. Tve just about had it with your miracle penis!"
The Traitor Blitz Page 15