My Year of Love

by Nizon, Paul.

  I don’t know why I’m writing all this, I’m here in Paris, not only hundreds of kilometers but also a lifetime away from that gentleman and far removed from the living conditions of that time, but now the man with the five o’clock shadow is here in this boxroom and I’m getting worked up about him, just as the old dove man sits across from me and puts on his exhibition, there have always been people who annoyed me and angered me. They got too close to me, no, they upset me too much. The doves in our courtyard don’t coo, the sound they make is more like a moan, an insistent, indecent moaning. But the turtledove sounds even worse, it makes a sort of truncated cock-a-doodle-doo or cuckoo call, a scream that is shortened and modified to three notes, it cries out a little scale, repeating it in exactly the same way without any variation more than ten, sometimes twenty times at a go, so that I automatically start to count as with the chiming of a clock, it’s as if I absolutely have to count, as if it were a matter of great importance. Then the roaring of the old man again, the shrill voice of his wife, is that life? not to mention the joy of freedom. Joy is a yellow banana, someone once wrote to me, I think he wrote me that from South America.

  In the building with the two teachers who both pretended to be writers, our Fräulein Murz lived on the second floor in a tiny room, but spent more of her time in the tiny kitchen right next to it. When I say room, that’s not correct, she actually lived in the stairwell. She had at one time been the cleaning woman for the lady who owned the building, and now that she was over seventy, she had the right to stay on here, like an old horse put out to pasture.

  Fräulein Murz was a hunchback, she walked bent over at a right angle, besides that she had a goiter, and since she was also a very small person, these two deformities made her seem like someone from a fairy tale, she looked like a little witch or like a goblin, in any case not like a modern human being. She sat on one of the creaking, squeaking wooden steps and thumbed through papers, newspapers, and advertising supplements, the latter were thrown down in piles below the mailboxes. Her relationship to newspapers and wastepaper in general was a mania, insofar as it appealed to her desire to collect things, and since she could barely read, she pretended she was reading on the stairs, like a child. In addition, this activity also served another purpose: she placed herself as a living obstacle on the stairs so that she could keep an eye on everything, the stairwell was her sovereign territory, and if a stranger came into the building, then she wanted to know to whom he was paying a visit, she saw herself as a sentinel.

  She smelled bad, and her kitchen stank so badly that it made me retch, the kitchen didn’t just stink of cooking odors, but also of something that made me think of feces; when she bought her groceries she preferred to buy meat scraps and that sort of thing, although she wasn’t poor, we knew that, she was miserly. She also made soups, if you went past her, she might blurt out without a greeting or introductory remark: made potato soup, fine, is good for gout.

  She said it apodictically, without directly addressing anyone, so that one was faced with the alternative of either saying nothing, of ignoring the remark and going past her without saying a word, or of taking up the topic, and it made me angry every time. Because when I did condescend to make a remark, it could well happen that she immediately gave me a real earful. She had thick lips, and these lips slobbered too, because she had long since lost her teeth. When she spoke, I always had to stare at that thick growth, then my gaze wandered to her drooping goiter, I couldn’t help it, and as I did so, she looked right back at me with a downright lascivious gleam in her little eyes that continually flickered back and forth, alternating between a shy approach, almost servile flirtation, and curt dismissal. Just as she lured you unasked into a conversation by commenting on her dinner, and then, if you replied, acted as if you were being pushy—she also enjoyed speaking about her former beauty or physique. She would say: I had much more beautiful legs than her there, that one! pointing at your female companion who is perhaps entering the building for the first time and knows nothing of Fräulein Murz, and as she says it her thick growth of a mouth makes smacking sounds, and to lend emphasis to her statement she points yet again with her crooked fingers at the lady’s legs, and the lady stands there dismayed or embarrassed or amused, as the case may be, and then Fräulein Murz turns away and makes her characteristic gesture of dismissal that’s supposed to indicate that she has had enough, she lowers her head with its straggly hair tied up at the back and twisted into a tiny bun, then she sighs and gives us to understand that the conversation is over. Or she looks up at me with that expectant stare. But, but, Fräulein Murz, I might say, and if I say it in as deep a bass voice as I can manage, in the voice of a good-natured amateur equestrian, a school principal, or even just a teacher, then it can happen that she gives in to me with her groveling smile. Or if I don’t react, because I’m lost in thought about something else, she merely repeats her assertion with greater emphasis. She can also break off the conversation abruptly. There’s always something of a power struggle at work with our Fräulein Murz, who claims to be a German, the child of farmers in Baden, and as she once told me, she took a job in Marseille when she was thirteen, that was the beginning of her career, she had Japanese ancestors on her mother’s side of the family, she once maintained.

  When I had just moved into the building and still knew nothing of its internal relationships, in particular nothing of the balance of power, Fräulein Murz used to come into my room unasked. I’d be sitting at my big table, the ironing table, my back to the windows as always, when the door opened and Fräulein Murz came in with a broom and dustpan in her hands, her head and nose directed at the floor, she literally came rolling in, without knocking or even saying hello, then she was inside and started approaching my table, dusting and knocking things about. She’s not right in the head, I thought, and told her emphatically to leave. No, no, she crowed, she had to do it, she had to do the cleaning throughout the building, she squawked and carped and stubbornly fended off all objections. I said, let’s get this straight once and for all, I said, I did not wish to have my room cleaned and would not tolerate it, she should get it through her head once and for all, I said, and from then on she only came now and then, as if for a visit, or she approached me in such a way as to test my response, announcing her presence from afar, banging her broom against the wooden stairs as she approached from below, that was her way of doing things, her broom and dustpan were the insignia of her power, but also her magic wands, with which she gained access everywhere. She often stayed a while outside my double door, stayed there banging and dusting outside the threshold of my room. If I opened the door, then she came in, if I didn’t move, she withdrew again.

  She loved rubbish, all kinds of rubbish, her room, people said, was not furnished with a bed and that sort of thing, but filled up with nothing but crumpled paper, it was a real mouse-hole where Fräulein Murz slept or spent the night. This room was always carefully locked because its contents were valuable to her and were her very own, but also because she kept money hidden under the rags and newspapers, people said she hoarded small change and silver coins in big paper bags. When she left the room to go out and do her shopping or errands, she first locked her door with a big key, then she walked a few steps away from the door, then she turned around very fast, snuck back to the door, and began shaking the latch as if to make sure that it and the lock had not deceived her while she’d had her back turned. Deceived, betrayed, I don’t know what she expected, but she anticipated all kinds of pranks and nasty tricks on the part of the door. She went away and snuck back, rattled at it to catch the evil door or latch red-handed. When she went out, which she announced to everyone long in advance, she wore a black coat that reached down to the ground, it went over the hump of her back and down to the ground, and at the front it likewise fell loosely down over her feet, she must have been given this coat by some gracious lady, and now, when she went out, she had also combed her unwashed hair, which was twisted into that little bun. In addit
ion to wearing the black coat, she also took the cane, a fine cane equipped with a silver handle—or was it an umbrella?—supported by this cane or umbrella, she went along, casting her lecherous little eyes to the left and right, standing still every few steps, turning and looking in all directions, until she chose her course, and if there happened to be a couple standing down by the water, the building was located close to a river, stairs led down to it, stairs that Florian, for example, used to take, hopping and full of wonder; so if two lovers were standing there, which was not uncommon, and the two of them were embracing, or had thrown their arms around each other’s necks, if they were kissing each other just then, Fräulein Murz liked to position herself beside them to address the two of them unexpectedly, but not with a question, a greeting, or that sort of thing, no, she would say abruptly, presumably giving the people thus torn out of their kiss the fright of their lives: made potato soup today, fine, is good for gout, and so on

  She went out to go shopping, but more to accost people, these crazies always have an exhibitionist streak, I find, just as I have the impression that the dove man comes out from behind his window more frequently and more loudly than usual to hit at the doves when I happen to have company over.

  Fräulein Murz said, as I was walking past her, something like: The Hungarianers have shot three dogs onto the sun again. Now, as an answer, I can either say: But, but Fräulein Murz, the Hungarians have nothing to shoot, you mean the Russians, or do you mean the Americans? But even they don’t shoot at the sun, and why three dogs at once, what makes you think that; but hardly have I thought of saying all that than I see the ridiculousness of it, there is no answer to such a remark. But if I were to give her a jovial answer to that effect, then she would insist on it: it’s what I’ve heard, it’s true, this and that person said it. If I say nothing, then she makes this dismissive gesture. Her favorite topic is murder. Someone’s done someone else in, she says, did him in, she loves the expression, I did in the rat, she maintained—

  One time, it was on a Sunday, I was pounding at the typewriter with the door open, because on this day not even the Latin teacher had put in an appearance, when I heard Fräulein Murz rummaging around and singing in the stairwell, I forgot to mention that she liked to sing when she was in a good mood, and had a frail, breaking voice that sometimes seemed to hang by a very thin thread. Her favorite songs were children’s songs like “Alle Vögel sind schon da,” All the birds are here already, or “O du fröhliche o du selige . . .” O you merry, O you blessed, she sang that Christmas carol even in summer, and she sang “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” Silent night, holy night in all seasons, but now she was singing “O geh nicht fort o bleib bei mir, mein Herz ist ja dein Heimatort” Don’t go away, o stay with me, my heart is your true home. I heard it, forgot about it, heard it getting louder, closer and closer, and then, I opened my eyes wide, she appeared in the doorway, she literally crept across my field of vision toward me, and she was half naked, under her hanging goiter were two old woman’s breasts, and she was holding her likewise naked, withered arms over her breasts as if she were doing gymnastics exercises and was swinging them to the side, she entered my room with a grin. I was paralyzed with horror, but then I called out, I forced myself to say: but, but Fräulein Murz, practicing nudism, are you, you’ll catch your death of cold, quickly, get some clothes on, go away, but make it fast, you don’t want to get sick. I screamed all sorts of such sayings at her from behind my table, behind my barricade.

  Is it just that I’m incapable of keeping the proper distance from people? Do I let everyone get too close, take them too personally? That’s how it is with the Arabs here in this part of town, first you feel sorry for them, no, first I found it exotic to live in a quarter populated to a great degree, if not predominantly, by immigrants, or the children of immigrants, Arabs, Africans; the latter standing at street corners as if on watch, as if standing on one leg and keeping a lookout, as if with a spear at their sides, no, I was ashamed of the image as it came to me, but there it was, I stood revealed as the parochial Züricher I thought I’d escaped, seeing the beautiful Parisian street with its system of sewers transforming itself into an endless steppe. How many such thoughts, prejudices, racist clichés of that sort were present in me without my being aware, poisoning my mind? In this quarter, the Africans and Arabs stand around, it seems, all day long; unemployed and without proper accommodations, I know, they’ll be living in some dump of a room in one of the most dilapidated residential hotels, that’s why they stand on the street, or down below in their bars, what else is there for them to do. Say I’ve lined up for a wicket at the post office, and a black man is standing in front of me or beside me, probably fantastically dressed, the colors, the combination of colors, utterly individual in style, against his dark or black skin the colors naturally look entirely different than against white skin, white skin soon looks dirty and worn-out and becomes utterly submerged in too much color; there are also people who go around in their national costume, with these wide, often white coats or coat-shaped capes, with or without a hood, that reach down to the ground, magnificent gowns that make me think of the King from the East, the fellows who wear that sort of thing are usually gigantic, they must be two meters tall; so let’s say I’m standing waiting in line, and then I’m startled because I find I’m the only Caucasian in the building, and I feel both threatened and somehow inconsequential, I take everyone and everything as a personal critique, and that man over there is filling out a piece of paper, a form, but with a golden or gold-plated fountain pen that looks particularly precious in his dark hand, which is light, though, and pale on the inside; is that what I’m here to do too? Why is that somehow surprising to me, that we do the same things, that we have the same errands to run, and now I wonder was I really so far gone as all that, had I really led such a sheltered life to that point? Their presence alone was exciting, their appearances so excitingly different, they astonished me over and again, their voices so much more physical, so to speak, or physical in a different way, than the voices I was used to hearing, their voices gutturally good-natured with an inherent roll or an inherent rumble of thunder to them—sexy, as people say. And then, they love to laugh, they laugh about nothing at all and slap their thighs, bent over with laughter. Their laughter often rolls and thunders for hours in my courtyard; once or twice recently a family gave a party that lasted until three in the morning or later, always the leading voice and then the laugh chorus, good-natured and infectious; what are they laughing about like that, I wondered, and, another impertinence, I began to say to myself that they had nothing to laugh about, really, so how, in spite of it all, can they still be enjoying themselves so much?

  And sometimes, for example when I’m dozing in the Metro and then suddenly become aware of and take in the man or woman across from me, become aware of them thanks to the forced, indecent proximity of sitting across from one another, and maybe our knees are touching . . . I lose myself in the dark, foreign face, I feed on the dark skin that may be really jet-black or ebony and glistening as with dew, the splendidly sparkling irises swimming in the alabaster setting of the whites of their eyes, their mouths with the shimmering pink inner flesh of their lips; I stare in wonder at the extremely bold peaked or Mao caps, the hats, the derbies, or simply the hair that’s been twisted into those little antennae or decorated with a thousand little buns; their fantastic clothing, their disguises—but wait, where did I come up with the idea of their being in disguise? there are, incidentally, jackets of a particular cut that you never see on white people, these jackets are like tailcoats that reach down to the knees, tightly fitted at the waist, they have such high shoulders that they look like incipient wings. They strike me as sort of friendly, gentle. Of course, there are also the militant, confrontational kind of black men who get onto the train in riveted leather, in boots with pointed, steel-reinforced toes, open aggression on their faces. And the street sweepers, leaning on their brooms.

  They’re not like us, main
tains the concierge, and they always come with so many children. Once, actually even a short time ago, the street was entirely white, he says, whereas now it’s getting increasingly dark. Soon, on Place Vendôme, instead of Rolls-Royces and Maseratis parked outside the Ritz, we’ll see kneeling camels chewing their cud, he says, and I tense up at this echo of my own ugliness. Soon there’ll be a camel market there, if things keep on like this, says the concierge, and I find myself thinking two things at once, suits me fine and what a shame.

  By contrast, the Arabs are taciturn and gloomy, careworn, tired. The difference is evident in their bistros and bars, the quarter is full of them; if someone asks me where I live in Paris, I answer that I live in the couscous quarter, this staple of the Arab diet is as indigenous here as choucroute in Alsace.

  The Arab bistros are plain and somehow the color of sand, it seems to me as if even the air is sandy, a desert atmosphere, clichés are a disease, and the people who stand there at the bar, often for hours on end, without consuming anything, who linger in these subterranean rooms, have this mixture of false subservience, mistrust, and hatred in their faces, the expression of a poor relation. And they are always just bars for men, in contrast to the African bars, where men turn up with their wives and sisters and mistresses and children and entire families, and they laugh and palaver and the narrow room is charged with their physical charisma, one is seized by their physicality or sex as if by a whirlpool, even their voices.

  The Arabs aren’t only a minority, if a very large minority, they’re the poor relations of the nation, they’re foreign workers, and it seems to me they aren’t welcome here. Most of them are here without their wives or families, so they’re more than doubly alone. When I was first in Paris, I liked to frequent a bar called Said’s, Said himself maintained he was a Kabyle or a Berber and not “merely” an Algerian, thereby wanting to give himself a higher racial rank, so to speak, although, stocky and chubby as he was, at least in outward appearance he did not seem to belong to this elite at all. I liked it at Said’s because the cylindrical iron stove gave off a pleasant warmth, but perhaps I was there because I too felt the need to keep a low profile, I certainly didn’t want anything to do with any cultural cliques, and I didn’t want to associate with the artists and intellectuals in the Latin Quarter or in Saint-Germain, that was the last thing I wanted. It’s likely that I also had this dark, proud sense of shame, I don’t really know where it came from, but I too felt like a sort of pariah, I sat in my boxroom and was ashamed of my blockade, of my unused freedom and free time, of my longing for protection and direction, of my fear, and so I quickly went across the street to Said, who always received me with this embarrassed laughter, he was embarrassed because he thought I was “better,” I was usually the only non-Arab, and he was also embarrassed by his brothers. I took cover at Said’s, and I also liked his cooking, done in an unspeakable hole of a back room, this cooking was, God knows, monotonous, either couscous (mouton, boeuf merguez) or lamb chops with potatoes, once he also had pasta, I liked it all. Said called out the order to someone he called CHEF in the back room, where someone really was doing the cooking, it was a tired old man. I appreciated the considerate treatment, the friendliness, the respect, as time went on, I actually had rights at Said’s, I was his best customer. And so I sometimes went over in the mornings for a glass of wine or beer, and in the afternoons just to read, and in doing so I was basically not much different from my poor flighty Florian, I fled from the captivity of my boxroom, where I expected myself to get some work done, something significant if possible, and yet I only felt fear, and there was a gaping hole in my soul like the fly of my pants, as someone wrote. Said looked at me with a mixture of amusement and genuine joy. As time went on, I could go there even after Said had closed for the day, he had nothing to do other than run his business, he slept in a partitioned area above the bistro, and he always wanted to have his family come soon, they’ll be here next month, he was always saying, my family will follow me here. But they never came, maybe he didn’t have a family at all. And one day, after I’d been away for a week, when I came back I wanted to go right over to Said’s as usual, which was my way of going undercover again, but instead of Said, a tall, sinister, squint-eyed man was standing behind the bar. He was Said’s successor, during my absence Said had sold the bistro or the affaire, as they call it here, I never saw him again, and that was the end of my shelter.