Funeral for a Dog: A Novel

by Thomas Pletzinger

  You’re weird, Manteli,

  she says with a loud laugh (she’s quoting Svensson’s New York escape attempt). I raise the glass, we take turns draining the vodka, the ice clinks. With the cold vodka in my mouth I kiss Tuuli, but her thin lips remain closed. She smiles, Wordsworth on the table draws his wings very slowly to his body (he has ceased his defense). Tuuli points with the blade at the bird, I press it down on the table again. The knife slowly pierces his soft breast, first carefully, the second time already more forcefully. Again and again Tuuli stabs into the bird (she will have given Lua the heart).

  Elisabeth’s Musical Streak

  By the fountain near the gate

  There stands a linden tree

  I dreamed in its shade

  Many a sweet dream.

  I carved in its bark

  Many a dear word,

  In joy and in sorrow

  I was drawn to it always

  Brazilian garlic chicken

  On the table there’s a list of things to cook. The rooster we stuff with pimento, coriander, and half a clove of garlic in each knife cut. Tuuli ties the legs together with poultry string, I chop onions and shallots, we add pepper and salt and oil, then Tuuli puts Wordsworth back in the fridge. We’ve stopped talking. She takes flour and sugar out of the cabinets, we peel apples and soak raisins in rum, we melt butter, I clean radicchio and Tuuli dices tomatoes, she removes the seeds from red peppers, I from yellow ones (Daisy Duck laid two eggs). I wonder why we’re preparing such massive amounts of food. We wash strawberries, we roast pine nuts, we rinse fava beans. Tuuli and I circle each other, since the kiss we haven’t touched. We chop flat-leaf parsley, sage, basil, green olives, black olives, garlic, capers, we squeeze lemons and oranges, we scrape out vanilla pods, we beat aioli, I with the whisk, she pours in olive oil from a small canister. Out of flour and oil we knead pizza dough. Potatoes and tomato sauce are cooking on the stove, apple pie is baking in the oven. We drink another vodka, and Tuuli smokes a cigarette (I say no thanks).

  Interview (main informant)

  MANDELKERN: Why are we actually cooking all this stuff?

  TUULI: Lua’s dying, Manteli, he hasn’t eaten anything for days.

  M: And now all this at once? But that’s not healthy.

  T: The food is for the guests.

  M: I had no idea that guests were coming.

  T: Well, you were rummaging around in Svensson’s things instead of asking questions.

  M: I was sick.

  T: Cigarette?

  M: Did Svensson really collect cigarettes?

  T: I’m only one of the characters from Astroland.

  M: Maybe even the most important one.

  T: So no cigarettes today?

  M: I don’t actually smoke.

  T: The stories are one-third truth, one-third fiction and one-third the attempt to glue the other two together with words.

  M: You were really together in New York?

  T: In New York, in Seraverde, in Oulu.

  M: Is the boy an American?

  T: He has several passports.

  M: And who’s the father, if I may ask? Svensson writes at least ten times that you were not alone but were three.

  T: Are you familiar with the Borromean rings, Manteli?

  M: No. But that Kiki mentioned them.

  T: Then look it up and ask me about Lua instead.

  M: What?

  T: Ask me: was Lua really once named Lula?

  M: What about Blaumeiser’s death?

  T: Felix was too careless. He was waiting for us, he drank more than you and Svensson together. He lived himself to death. But one thing at a time. Ask me about Lua and Svensson about the rest.

  M: Okay.—So was Lua really once named Lula?

  T: Yes. Lula da Silva was the watchdog of a policeman named Santos.

  M: Did Felix really shoot off Lula’s leg?

  T: Yes. And then I sawed off Lua’s leg with a saw from the carpenter’s workshop, and sewed together the flaps of skin with sewing thread.

  M: Svensson writes of a bolt cutter.

  T: He writes like a bolt cutter. Or do you think Wordsworth and Naish really existed? It sounds good, but it’s not the truth.

  M: How long do chickens live?

  T: Here chickens don’t live to be one year old, Manteli, Svensson always gives his animals the same names. He keeps his eyes fixed on the past with sentimental tricks. And he collects the dead, because the living are too much in motion for him. Things pass away, but Svensson imagines that his stories remain.

  M: Isn’t that why we tell stories? Writers glue fiction and truth together, they preserve the world otherwise than it is. That’s why that Kiki paints pictures and photographs animals and garbage. Isn’t it?

  T: Is it? I’m not a psychologist, Manteli, I amputate. It would be best for you to ask Kiki herself.

  M: Are we cooking for Kiki?

  T: I’m here only because of Samy. I face forward.

  M: Svensson is Samuli’s father?

  T: I face forward, and you’re standing in front of me. Even if you are strange, Manteli.

  Drink with me!

  says Tuuli, juo minun janssani! What I say: Cheers! What she replies: kippis! What I think: that I’m going to kiss her again, once we’ve emptied this glass, in her green bikini, her thin body will be lighter than Elisabeth’s, her breasts smaller. I will compare, as Svensson compared, I will touch the possibility of another life, this kiss will be the attempt to take two paths (where does that bring me?). We drink. Tuuli takes the Polaroid off the fridge and holds it next to the red-wine-stained picture on the kitchen wall. Shitty City, she reads, and tells me about Oulu and the Hotel Turisti. We drink. Tuuli talks about the cold of the Finnish winter, about her father in the Arctic Circle and about the Borromean rings. The rings were just like them, Blaumeiser, Svensson, and Tuuli herself. We keep an eye on the pie in the oven. When I finally do put my hand on Tuuli’s back so as to bend down again toward her mouth, so as not to let this opportunity pass, she says that I touch her as if I never touched a woman before, as if she were made of cotton candy.

  Nice to see you

  Now I’m sitting at Svensson’s desk again in front of my notebook, out of breath and ambushed for the second time this afternoon by the arrival of a woman. I kissed Tuuli, she bathed my mouth in coriander and icy cold, the hair on the back of her neck still damp from the lake water (suutele minua!). I could observe us as we kissed, her fingers, my hands between her shoulder blades. After a few seconds, the squeak of the sliding door stabbed Tuuli’s and my ears, in my head the thought of Svensson and the death of the dog, in Tuuli’s eyes the fright at her fatherless son in the doorway of the kitchen, my thought of Elisabeth in Hamburg, in Tuuli’s face maybe the possibility of a first self-caught fish in Samy’s small hands (in me Elisabeth’s red hair, her red dress, her green eyes). But then a woman’s voice from below, speaking English: Where the fuck are you, Svensson? Tuuli and I jumped apart like two teenagers, we fell away from each other, we looked at each other, she put her index finger to my mouth and her other hand on my chest, I brushed a wet strand of hair behind her ear (her smile, my smile). I took a hairpin out of her hair, and when the sound of women’s heels on the stone steps approached, I pushed myself off Tuuli as I had off buoy 1477, and disappeared into Svensson’s study (I swam ashore). Where is everybody? the woman’s voice asked on the steps, what’s going on here? A few seconds later I heard the English-speaking voice in the kitchen say “look at that!” and finally, after a brief pause and a few footsteps through Svensson’s kitchen, the name I’ve often read in the past few days and have been finding everywhere in Svensson’s house: Tuuli Kovero, this voice declares, nice to see you again! Tuuli’s reply: Kiki!

  August 9, 2005

  (Lua leaves)

  Suddenly wide awake: I’m standing barefoot in front of Svensson’s desk, the fresh imprint of Tuuli’s lips on mine, the warmth of the vodka in my belly. As it does every da
y at this time, the smell of something burning hangs in the air, over the lake lies the stone smoke (Claasen is torching again). I can hear the two women’s voices in the kitchen, then footsteps on the stairs. Tuuli Kovero, I think, because Tuuli’s last name has eluded me until now. Kiki Kaufman knocks on the door of Svensson’s study, comes in, a cardboard box in her hand and a small child on her hip: Hi, I’m Kiki. Daniel Mandelkern, I say. The two of them seem not the least bit surprised. And this is Bella, says Kiki Kaufman, say hello to Daniel, but the child only looks at me motionlessly and sucks on an orange pacifier (younger than Samy, maybe one and a half, dark curls and eyes). Kiki Kaufman is a tall woman with huge eyes, which beam despite their darkness. She’s wearing a red dress and yellow flip-flops, I notice her freckles and the gray strands in her hair, the paint on her strong fingers. Switching to German, she says that it’s nice to meet me, Svensson already told her about me on the phone yesterday (Bar del Porto). It’s good to have visitors, Bella should see other people now and then besides just father and mother and dog (he told me you’re feeling better, she says in English, are you?). Bella has the same large eyes as her mother, she has her warmhearted mouth, she has Svensson’s broad nose. I’m taken aback as I stand opposite her and the girl, I imagined her differently while reading Astroland, thinner and more reserved. Downstairs in the kitchen Tuuli is busy with kitchen things (the taste of her lips). Kiki hands me the box and puts the girl down on the floor of the study. Bella strolls through the room, she rattles the airplane mobile still hanging from the ceiling (Mandelkern can’t tell children’s toys from dog toys, incredible!). She and Bella have just returned from Rome, her first exhibition in Italy, a group show, but still (quattro, she says, then in English: all pictures of the dog, how fitting, he’s so sick). Bella has come to the bookshelves, she laughs, her little teeth shine. Kiki follows her daughter, she briefly runs her finger over the boards, she straightens one of the pictures (gut, gut, she says). She’s sorry that I have to stay in this empty and dreary room, Svensson and she are currently renovating this house. I must have already noticed the preparations for renovation. This room first, the books in the shed, the junk out of here, the chairs and loungers, the things left by Blaumeiser’s family. Did I need anything, something to drink maybe, I should make myself completely at home. Yes, I say. Kiki jumps between her languages, she falls from one into the other (und so weiter and so forth). Without books, she says, the room immediately looks much drearier and bigger, but now it can be turned into something completely new. Apparently someone has already begun beautifying the room. Have you been drawing here, Daniel? Kiki laughs (I thought of Svensson as lonely). Would I agree with her that the view from this window is gorgeous, she loves sitting here in the morning (the American ease with which she uses the word Liebe). The lizards, the wasps, the swallows. She talks and laughs, I nod. Finally she takes the box and removes the tape, she pulls out a PowerBook, styrofoam and plastic she throws back in the box. The old computer was so old, she says, after a while you couldn’t read a word, and when it came to photoshopping, it froze every time I started to work, so I threw it out. I’m glad to be back for the party, she then says, looking at me. You’re not much of a talker, Daniel, she says, switching back to English, are you? I’m just somewhat surprised, I say, sorry. She asks why exactly I’m here. I’m a journalist. My superior sent me, I say, but Kiki doesn’t understand the German word, so I speak English: My wife is my boss, I explain to her and myself, and as I hear myself speaking, I think that that’s precisely what could change. I blundered into this situation, I say, I was supposed to conduct an interview in a café in Lugano, but then I suddenly found myself on the boat, and now I’m still sitting here. My wife wants a profile for the newspaper, I say, but only a tiny bit of what I’ve learned so far is usable, a lot of it isn’t suited to a newspaper article, which can only feel its way along the surface. Kiki lifts up Bella again, the child squeals, the two of them laugh. We’re barely gone for a few days, she says, and Svensson invites over his listeners. Kiki is standing by the door holding the box and the child, Bella throws her pacifier on the floor. I pick it up. Do you have kids, Daniel? asks Kiki, looking at me. Not yet, I say.

  the ethnological phenomenon of the informant switch

  I’ve misjudged the weather conditions. As Tuuli’s imprint on me slowly disappears and the smoke disperses, I sit down at the desk, my feet on Svensson’s suitcase. My wedding ring is still lying on the two black folders. I’ve gotten into a situation that I wasn’t expecting. I didn’t resist (vodka and the possibility of another life). Nonetheless, everything remains as always: the pigeon droppings, and the swallows are flying again, higher than they were earlier this morning. I hear the rubberized closing of the refrigerator door, Bella’s squealing, the two women’s English. Svensson has gone to the village with the boy and the dog. I’m an ethnologist and literary scholar, I’ve learned to distinguish between text and life (I’ve forgotten what I learned). I should write that I don’t know these people, but I’ve stumbled into Svensson’s manuscript, I’ve kissed one of his characters and have just shook another one’s hand. From the kitchen Bella’s noise and the smell of onions in butter (ethnology increasingly differentiates itself from neighboring disciplines through the method of participant observation rather than through its focus on the so-called “culturally alien” as its object of investigation, Spittler 2001, if I remember correctly). I wonder:

  —Have I lost scientific distance toward the object of the investigation?

  —What does all this have to do with me?

  the limits of the text

  What is not in Svensson’s manuscript: whether Svensson and Kiki ever reached Montauk. What drove them back to Europe. When they decided to step out of time. How old Lua is. Whether Svensson has stepped out of time at all. Felix Blaumeiser is dead, I’ve been able to find that out, but not where he’s buried. Why Tuuli works in Berlin but was sitting, of all places, in my airport bus at the Hamburg Airport, why our journeys then led to the same destination (her lips on mine, my lips on hers).

  onions in butter

  Elisabeth’s and my honeymoon ended in a Polish hotel in the Kolberg (Kołobrzeg) Old City, the rooms in the back facing the courtyard, below the bedroom window a single sheep. The town house that had belonged to Elisabeth’s grandparents was on the other side of the street, in the garden hung a Polish flag on a rickety pole. The plaster was flaking off the walls, the old windows had been replaced by thermal panes in plastic frames, behind a curtain in a small bay window stood a child, observing us. This is where they lived, said Elisabeth, number 17, in the back of the house was my grandfather’s practice. Elisabeth and I walked up and down the bank of the Persante (Parseta), we ate dinner at an inn, herring in oil, potatoes and beer. We could have lived here, I said, if it hadn’t been for the war, for example, if not for this and if not for that, and Elisabeth smiled and kissed me. That, she declared, is nonsense, though charming. You couldn’t escape the past, that was obvious, but we shouldn’t forget the future on account of that. Crossroads were crossroads, and decisions were decisions, Elisabeth took my hand: she had decided on me and on now. After the third beer she kissed me again and longer (the taste of onions in butter). The Poles at the bar saw in us nostalgia tourists of the third generation, not honeymooners, the food was mediocre, and the men’s eyes were hostile, they hadn’t reckoned with Elisabeth’s beauty. The next morning she rolled up the red wedding dress, we brushed our teeth, the water tasted like metal. Heading back westward, we drove over cobblestones, across the border of the voivodeship, later through the tree-lined streets of Mecklenburg, we picked apples and bought cider in plastic bottles on the roadside. As we rolled onto the Priwall ferry, Elisabeth took her phone out of the glove compartment, turned it on and declared our future open (that’s how she expressed herself). Now I’m sitting in Svensson’s house at Svensson’s desk, but nonetheless hear Elisabeth bustling about in the kitchen, the sound of uncorked red wine bottles in our possib
le kitchens in Hamburg, Kolberg or Saint-Malo, in Venasque or Sausset-les-Pins, in New York as far as I’m concerned, maybe Lugano, in one of our possible lives. I hear the sound of my name from her mouth (Daniel Daniel), her precise, earnest laughter, I see her hair and her scars, the light skin of her body, easy to imagine as the body of a mother, her thin and nonetheless strong arms, her hair pulled back, Elisabeth always ties and pins her hair off her neck, the vein on her forehead, now her lips on mine (our bodies did fit after all), and from the kitchen a woman calls my name,

  Manteli, Manteli,

  but I don’t move, I don’t allow myself to be interrupted. Shh, replies Kiki’s voice in English, let him sleep (even though I’m not sleeping), and Bella’s sounds mingle with the hiss of the gas stove and the sizzling fat, with the clacking of the knife and the stirring of the spoons, with the onion and butter vapors, with Wordsworth in the oven and Naish in the soup, with the outboards on the lake and the pigeons on the roof, with the soft and ever softer voices of the two women in Svensson’s house, in Svensson’s book, in Svensson’s life.