by Simon Strauß
I
SUPERBIA
How much the world needs me. How much it depends on me. Now. Today. Here. Not tomorrow. Not later, but now.
I kick away the cups of the beggars. Pull the woolen caps from the heads of music students. Outside beer tents, I spit into the glasses of drunks. I tear the balloons from the hands of stupid kids, watch them rise into the clear night sky. Let the kids cry, let them scream and spit with anger. It only broadens my stride, swells my chest. I laugh at the fare dodgers that get busted, the man in the sausage stand caught in a cloud of smoke and the lost tourists. All the young fathers with their bikes, their child seats, their BabyBjörns, just waiting to show off how quickly they can change diapers. How very happy they are in their new role. Finally, they don’t have to be a man anymore. Only a dad. I laugh at the well-behaved people on the escalators, always standing on the right, showing off how thoughtful and socially competent they are. They probably mention that in their job applications under “Community Contributions”: “I always stand on the right side of the escalator (and only there).” And I laugh about all the young ones who are as old as I am. Who talk of nothing but family celebrations, keep their hands warm in their jacket pockets, but would never use their fists. Who are even afraid of tight boxer shorts and never wanted to be like Serge Gainsbourg. I laugh about them all. Long and loudly. Because I jumped, 150 meters down. Along the smooth skyscraper facade. No umbrella, no net. I didn’t scream. Didn’t make a noise. I kept my eyes wide open, stared firmly into the void when they pushed me over the edge. Under the bright full moon. I felt what it is like, to fall. To plunge into nothingness. Without anything to hold onto. No floor beneath me, no helping hand. What it must be like to really jump. When everything is over and despair has won out. When all group therapy, cognitive enhancement and chat rooms have failed, when the last text has been sent. As I fell, the wind slashed at my face, taking away my vision and my consciousness.
But I landed. Safe and sound. And yet, I was shaking. I threw away the certificate immediately: official acknowledgment of my victory over gravity. What a way to demystify the whole experience. I’ve looked death in the eye. Nothing less. His pupil was white, like a shark’s just before the fatal bite. With pale and empty eyes, he stared at me and didn’t blink, like a pro at that old game that children play. He briefly whispered: “Not now, but soon.” With this sentence in my ear, my feet touched the ground. I put my hands on the boney shoulders of the girl who was there to catch and unlatch me. And then I ran, fast and without looking back. Off into the night. Laughing, full of mockery. Because pride comes after the fall.
At an intersection I see a few traffic cop pedestals. With their red and white paint they stand there like the last witnesses of a time in which authority was still a matter of formality. It wasn’t only for the sake of visibility that traffic cops once wore white gloves and white coats. People called them “white mice.” Their uniforms were more regalia of honor than functional equipment.
I step onto one of the pedestals and look around. The headlights of cars flicker through the night. When the traffic light switches to red a few vehicles gather and wait next to each other, motors running, like a panting herd. The traffic light produces a strange sensation of familiarity. For a few moments a community is formed, linked by common destiny, complete strangers falling in line. Then on command they jointly charge forward, remain shoulder to shoulder for a brief instant longer, until one breaks away and the group is forever dispersed.
My right hand touches my forehead in a salute. “One day, my son, all of this will be yours.” No, wrong tone, wrong mood. Leave the father aside for today and just start with the son. Because he still foams at the mouth, like you in your dreams.
I know I could do it better. For example, I would be a better speaker than them. Not simply come up with better phrasings—many can do that—no, I could bring life to the sentences, make them sharp, so that they land and stick. Could string the words together without any space for “like” and “um”. People would listen to me until the last word. I would talk like others conduct Bruckner’s Ninth or commentate in a soccer stadium. Language creates reality, that is indisputable. What we need is more exclamation points again—otherwise we end up talking with no one but ourselves. The fear of set phrases and clichés keeps us silent. And the dread of the unfinished expression destroys our hearts. In our attempt to pick just the right address, an “equitable” and “easy” language, we don’t notice ourselves shying away from the real thing. A few decades ago a reference to “class” could win any discourse, now a reference to “gender issues” is all you need to get everyone on your side. We’re always identifying with those discriminated against. Out of solidarity, we too feel discriminated against and wait for lawmakers to step in on our behalf. But a society can’t survive if no one owns up to the larger whole. It surrenders to the divisive attacks of ideologues and cynics. Our lives are ruled by apathy and retreat. We have to do something about it.
Once I gain power, I’ll build public squares where people can gather and talk. Squares that inspire courage, that don’t suppress. With fountains and stringed lights, last-minute accommodation and speakers’ corners. Spaces that don’t get appropriated by any one group, but rather remain open, agile, ready for attack. I will grow grapes and rosemary there and install small buckets in the floor where you can cool your beer in the summer and warm your feet in the winter. And there will be enough stone benches. Nothing is worse than a square without benches. Yet, it won’t just be a place for relaxation, but one that challenges you to speak your mind, take a position. It will be paradise for those that trust each other to engage face to face. Those who seek human interaction, real questions, authentic listening.
I’ll dictatorially allot houses in a way that doesn’t allow anyone to get comfortable in their double standards. All residents will be foreign to each other. I’ll ensure that no one can make trite statements during the day, knowing full well that they’ll return to the safety of their suburban villa in the evening. Forced resettlement, division of large families, fights at the tenants’ assembly—bring it on if that means that everyone will get to experience foreignness firsthand.
I’ll enforce that a poem must be read before every committee meeting, opening bell or editorial conference. Not a prayer, not a national anthem—a poem. Doesn’t matter from which country, in which language—but it has to be poetry. That would help. For example, in preparing people’s spirits for the big questions, the broad horizons. A life without coffee breaks and striking airline pilots. A poem every now and then could change a lot.
I’ll appoint animals to maintain order. For demonstrations and riots, May Days and search warrants. Preferably pandas and zebras, but sometimes, when things get really heated and dangerous, giant tortoises and dromedaries. The mere presence of exotic animals would reign in even the worst offender. Their mysterious aura would intimidate him. Much more effective than any water hose. Humans are more ashamed in front of animals than their own kind. They’re even shy about peeing on a tree in front of their dogs. Under my leadership there would be a close cooperation between the police and the zoo. And prison cells would get relocated to the giraffe enclosure.
I’ll start academies that research emotions, not theories. Where you don’t leave your heart on the cafeteria tray, where you’ll feel pride in the old secret way that combines reason with emotion. Just this once, feeling would assert itself, wouldn’t have to slouch off to extra tutoring, ridiculed by the rationalists, just because once again it didn’t understand what the great theorists wrote about love. This would be an academy that emphasizes sensuality. Where you can drink red wine in class and write a manifesto as a final thesis. A place where you learn how to make a fire, not just how to fold the fire blanket.
On top of that—and first and foremost—I would forbid certain things. Ruthlessly and without mercy. Senior citizen travel groups, for example, who inconsiderately barge o
ver anything in their way. Who block the most stunning views and ruin every spectacular painting with their walkers and crumpled faces. Also on the list of things to abolish: rolling suitcases being dragged down the street at 3:30 a.m., early morning chain-smokers, car alarms that go off for longer than three seconds, cryptic announcements concerning the ordering of train cars, cheerful melodies when on hold with a telecommunication service provider, cash-only restaurants, energy-saver light bulbs, adjusted opening hours, the “Classic Bell” ringtone. And much more: exorbitant prices for razor blades, printer cartridges and grapefruit juice. Oktoberfest imitations playing sing along classics, bad breath at the breakfast buffet, hair removal in the sauna and coffee stains on newspapers. There is so much to do. The world needs me, urgently. I’d just have to get into power.
The night traffic has died down. Every five minutes a car pulls up and disturbs the dark. A few sparrows have settled next to my pedestal. During my speech they plucked each other’s plumage. Now they’re probably having a heated discussion about my program. Most importantly, which role they’d assume in the animal security service. I hop off the pedestal and call a cab. Leave the sparrows behind and hope for a wide distribution of my ideas.
On the way home I do a stopover at the night cafe—well heated, as always. I receive messages. “Don’t have time,” I write back. “Very busy.” Outside, life goals are rushing past. To be a pioneer, that would be something. Who would succeed at a thing like that—cutting a path into this world—if not me? A thought, a speech, a call. While still in the slipstream of youth. Before things get really serious. You’d just have to conquer your fear of sounding overdramatic.
Maxims could be thrown onto the table, banners unfurled: Risk, risk anything! And we’d start a union for aesthetic goals. Today all I did was to jump off a skyscraper on a leash. That’s not enough.
I skulk home. Another day without action. Once again, only dreams of conspiracy, secret society and heroism. In Schiller’s Fiesco there is a warning: “Our best seeds for great and good things are buried under the pressures of bourgeois life.” In Bruckner’s Pains of Youth, Desiree says: “Bourgeois existence or suicide, there are no other choices.”
Out on the street I see the generations run into each other, hear their grumblings. Their hellos and goodbyes, light kisses on cheeks, as if it were nothing, as if by their mid-twenties everything was already over. And yet, this is moment to yell, “It can’t go on like this!” To return the old, fiery rage (not the new, dull one) to their glazed eyes. I could be an instigator. Could stand at the podium and speak about what really matters.
Every night, on my way through the dark streets, I rehearse my speech on the abandoned pedestal. First, I let the people wait. Letting them wait is the most important thing. And then, after about half an hour, just as the mood is about to swing, I rush to the front, without a manuscript, with a half-open shirt, ready to give it all.
I have a dream. Down in the crowd I see fired-up faces. They follow me, spellbound. Cheers erupt. I turn to the side one last time, building momentum, drawing a breath. Then I face the crowd. Raise my left hand. A short murmur, then silence.
The world needs me. I’m ready. I have jumped. I have rehearsed everything.
II
GULA
New game, new chance.
The wind picks up. Plastic bags slap against advertising columns, table cloths flutter, outdoor benches creak and wobble, water slushes from manholes.
The others drive by and send hatred. From their polished folding bikes, their convertible rental cars, their colorful strollers. Hatred. Scorn. Bitterness. A man in a wheelchair, without legs, pushes the hand pedal. A blouse dress, short with green stripes, swerves out of the way and crosses the intersection. Quickly out of here.
Women in headscarves, their white faces neatly cropped, sit in an old Ford smoking cigars. Small children with helmets squeak and dally past. People pass by, their mouths covered in masks to guard against bacteria. And no one, none of them, look me in the face. Don’t let their eyes stray, don’t smile at me.
I’ve just sat down and already the waiter lays out the goods: truffle salami, beef tartare and John Stone filet carpaccio on Icelandic river stones, half-pound Pomeranian East Coast Entrecôte (Delta Dry Aged) with chanterelle mushrooms and Lecsó, third-pound Freesisch West Coast roast beef on sunchoke salad and stewed cucumber. Accompanied by a bottle of Philip Kuhn’s Mano Negra, two glasses of Saint-Émilion and with the dessert of the day a clear apricot brandy. What would it be like if lust, desire and abundance ruled our lives? Instead of depression, caution and acid-reflux pills.
To casually play down the Michelin Star they got last year, the owner put up beer benches that are supposed to bring the status-conscious guests closer together. Silly idea since a beer bench is the least sensual of all seating options. Without a back to rest your arm on, without chair legs you can push back in anger during a fight. Forever trapped in the collective: as soon as one side gets up, the other falls off. Tumbles onto the ground and breaks their bones. But I am here alone, have to hold down the middle, am the sole one responsible for equilibrium.
A girl stands behind me. Skinny and dainty, large sunglasses. “Just a glass of still water please!” she calls. Her gaze is practiced, her smile deft. No carbs after 6:00 p.m. she declares, and definitely no beer or wine. Let alone Averna, the viscid remnant of German longing for Italy. Her mother is from the north of Spain, acting is something she picked up in school and now she writes novels. The first one was two years ago. Since then she’s been suffering from tendonitis. And yet she tries again every morning. The taste of toothpaste in her mouth, she sits at the kitchen table and sharpens her pencils.
“Are you writing anything important?” the writer Shalimov is asked in Gorky’s Summerfolk. I ask it, too. No, too little time, in Copenhagen she just did a performance in an old police station. She slept with and among the audience members there. Totally crazy. Free at last. A steady stream of words from a pretty mouth.
Some time ago she was dating a young singer who is now floating in space. He used to give sold-out concerts in old barns in the Uckermark. She accompanied him everywhere, helped him throw up and went with him to where kids and AA members count sheep together. But it didn’t last. They separated amicably—as if that was better.
The city is big, she hadn’t seen him since that very last time when they played charades in the back of a large car and dreamed of tiger blood that flowed through the cracks.
Now she gushes about Netflix and Inedia, the form of complete abstinence that Catholic nun Therese Neumann supposedly practiced for a long time at the beginning of the twentieth century. Nectar glands are said to form at the palate that supply the body. “If light is the nourishment for love, shine on!” Or something like that.
Crazy, how bright lightning is, even here in the city. When the storm clouds draw in and the first raindrops fall, people change their way of walking. All of a sudden, they move faster, more bent and sullen. The grip around the beer bottle tightens. Every German’s pursuit of happiness. It’s just so much harder to run off into the evening with a glass of wine, grape juice spills over and runs down your fingers like warm sunscreen.
The Blaufränkischer Zweigelt is hard to beat says Oli, the waiter with the diamond earring and an undercut. After school he did an apprenticeship as a TV technician, but then the big chains, the Media Markts and Saturns opened, the prices dropped and greed was hip. So, he changed tracks. Winery management, oenology. Oli’s cowboy-blue eyes have seen the inside of every Barrique barrel in Europe and he can talk endlessly about Franz Keller. His Riesling has a creamy finish, like a Werther’s Original, but with a gooseberry-like tartness. Oli’s wine prose is ingenious. Only sometimes, his love of metaphors gets the better of him. Then he apologizes: “That didn’t come out quite right.” When Oli says “Sommelier” the first syllable sounds like he’s saying “zombie.” On weekends h
e holds tastings in discotheques. Why should only the elite get to sniff and spit? Beer pong can be played just as well with wine glasses, and of course a Chardonnay can also go with steak. “Those who measure etiquette on the color of the wine should see an eye doctor,” says Oli. And also, by your mid-forties everything is over anyway.
From the other side of the street a beggar approaches my table. Proud, not demure. Wishes me a good evening with a voice soft as theatre snow and immediately breaks off as I wave my hand in a well-trained reflex. “Sorry, I don’t have any change.” Without even looking. The beggar punishes me with graciousness: “Have a lovely rest of your evening.” My brother always says: Don’t give them anything! But my sister, who is intelligent, with beautiful senses, gives freely. To every supermarket security guard and subway musician, even if they just walk down the car with an amplifier.
My heart cramps as the beggar lowers his head and turns to the next table. Contempt in his gaze, but formality in his posture. Hand resting on his lower back, ready to take a bow and patiently accepting all disregard. All the while he could just start yelling, long and loud until everyone listens, until they beckon him to their table and feed him with Dry Aged Beef and wet his chapped lips with 2009 Bordeaux.
The Freesisch beef—three weeks dry aged on the meat hook at two degrees Celsius—is the best. Oli can eloquently speak on Irish salt marshes at the Atlantic coast, on grass loaded with minerals and the special taste the meat gets from it. The same goes for the vacuum packaged lamb, which hung in the walk-in refrigerator for four months and was so tender, you could break it apart with your tongue. In his eyes, the claim that eating meat is solely a man’s business is chauvinistic. Crafts and ballet are not just for women either.
A young pin-striped suit strolls past, telling his company that he’s looking forward to “nesting” soon. “Nesting” with his boyfriend and his coffee machine. Tai Chi, hardwood floors and a newspaper subscription. “Nesting”: Would this word have left Gramsci’s mouth? Or Hemingway’s? Or any other meat-eater’s? No, no one who likes eating meat would say “nesting.” That’s a word for the contingent of folding-bike riders, long-beard cultivators and pug owners. Eating meat has become evil. Those who abstain save the world. Those who despise it eat on the right side of history. Those who salt and pepper it are viewed as incurable reactionaries. A reincarnation of Christian Thielemann with a pocket square collection in his nightstand. Those who love their filet—meaty, sinewy, marbled pieces of prime European beef—fattened up on Atlantic shores with smoked hay and warm beer—probably also favor dirty jokes and patterned underwear.
