by Irmgard Keun
Her mother is a mailman’s widow who assiduously kept the pair of them alive before the currency reform by black-market dealing. Her name is Maria, the mother’s name is Martha.
Martha is flowering. Her muscles are blossoming. She used to steal coal, she heaved sacks of potatoes around, she smuggled in Belgian coffee.
There was one time she brought twenty wool blankets, five bars of chocolate, and a crate of soap into the wretched hole where the old people were hanging on without a home or a family to look after them. They were all hungry and cold. They had no friends and no one to love them. Children at least can be smooth-skinned and pleasing to the eye. Neglected children provoke interest and sympathy, including even from politicians. The abandoned elderly in their bunker had nothing to do except grow tired and die. If they happened to go outside for five minutes to sniff the air, then they would take in some light and strength as well, and the strength roused their almost exhausted capacity for suffering and hence extended their sorry persistence. Maybe it was wrong of Martha to bring them some joy and reanimate them.
Sometimes Martha paints her lips, and sometimes Herr Liebezahl likes her better than her daughter.
Liebezahl is a bouncy fellow somewhere between thirty and fifty, with a carnivalesque pate, a few scraps of fair hair, and boyish blue eyes.
In addition to Johanna’s bedsitting room there is a further room at the back of her store, and that’s where Liebezahl once based his enterprise. It’s just a little branch office by now, Liebezahl has other, larger premises elsewhere in the city.
Liebezahl can do nothing and hence everything. His mission statement runs more or less like this:
Intimate of the stars and the magic of the cosmos. Cosmobiological institute. Interpreter of dreams. Graphology, chiromancy, science and magic. Get your subconscious raised here. Everyone is entitled to happiness and fulfillment in love, you just need to know how to go about it. Money is there to be picked up. Have your personality illuminated. No man is obliged to stammer. Nothing succeeds like success.
Liebezahl draws horoscopes, reads palms, swings crystals, lays cards, sells amulets, and does a little podiatry. He keeps extending his empire with fresh initiatives. Recently he opened a section on color that consists of a small room, painted white. On the walls are the inscriptions:
FIND THE COLOR OF YOUR SOUL.
KNOW YOURSELF THROUGH COLOR.
HAPPINESS THROUGH COLOR.
TELL ME YOUR COLOR, AND I’LL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE.
HEALTH THROUGH COLOR.
Liebezahl had fifteen hand-towel-sized pieces of cardboard painted in fifteen different colors. He keeps his overheads low. “It would be helpful to know your color, Madame,” he says, to a lady who has come about a corn or some occult matter. The lady is sat down in a comfortable chair in the little room. “Lean back, Madame, take the tension out of your limbs, relax.” Liebezahl hangs up a piece of yellow card that the lady is then made to concentrate on for several minutes. It is followed by other cards in red, blue, green, brown, pink, and violet. The lady stares and stares. “Immerse yourself in it, Madame.” The lady does so. “Fascinating, Madame, you are a fascinating case—I think we know a little more about you now.” The lady would like to know a little more about herself now too. “What color do you find pleasant, Madame? What color makes you agitated? You are highly strung, such a pronounced orange type is rarely met with—we need to have you seeing more green. Five minutes of green, three times a week.”
Liebezahl already has forty regulars. Ladies on their way to a social occasion drop in on Liebezahl first for their ten minutes of yellow or red, to be relaxed or stimulated. Others turn up in the wake of domestic ructions and partake of a little blue to settle their nerves. One tough-minded businesswoman comes five times a week to see pink, and to be helped to a sweetly youthful smile. She claims the pink has made her a better businesswoman. The wife of an official in the postal service assures anyone who cares to listen that three looks at carmine were enough to regain her husband’s love. An intensive course of yellow helped an art teacher free herself of her depression and nervous stomach ailment. Eight men, including the owner of a delicatessen, a capmaker, and a barman, also belong to Liebezahl’s faithful. As do I. When I was with Liebezahl yesterday, I said, “I’d like to see some orangey red and to be left alone.”
Liebezahl removed the art teacher, who was engaged on her yellow: “There, that’s enough for today. Too much isn’t good for you.” He led me into the room: “Here, Ferdinand—orange red will be pleasant for you, I’ll look after you myself, make yourself comfortable, there are cigarettes on the table, I won’t charge you a penny. I’ve just got in a very nice olive green…”
Liebezahl would have shown me all the colored cardboard I wanted. I looked at his olive green, then had some of the orange red, leaned back, felt nicely pampered. I was only bothered by the thought of the art teacher whose course of yellow I had interrupted. “Really doesn’t matter,” said Liebezahl, “I want to be rid of her anyway. She’s starting to turn the color philosophy into a religion and calling me the new Messiah.” I thought the publicity wouldn’t hurt. “Too much publicity can,” said Liebezahl, “and too much success is no good either.” He knows what he wants. He left me to sell a customer some star-sign scent. The customer was a Capricorn who wanted it to take effect on a Scorpio. “This is a scent that never fails with Scorpio and Cancer, Madame,” I heard Liebezahl say.
Liebezahl has various male and female assistants in his employ, but they lack his imagination and his persuasiveness. He is the life and soul of his enterprise, and it’s rare that he can take half an hour off.
I asked Liebezahl once whether he really believed in his astrology and the rest of his mumbo jumbo. He was offended. Did I think he was stupid or something? It was enough for him that others were, enough to fall for that nonsense.
Some of Liebezahl’s clients affect a superior smile, claim to be sceptics, and only to indulge in all this out of fun. Of course, it is precisely these sceptics that fall hook, line, and sinker for Liebezahl’s magic. They remind one of people who ask to try morphine just once out of curiosity and go on to become lifelong addicts.
Across the way, three doctors share a set of premises. A neurologist, an internist, and an orthopedic surgeon. They have almost no patients. From their windows, the three doctors observe a steady stream of clients going to Liebezahl for help and advice.
Out of charity, and because his health is worth more to him than money, Liebezahl recently consulted the internist over a mild case of diarrhea. He referred one of the elderly color-lookers—who after three shots of purple had pulled Liebezahl down by the hair and tried to snog him—to the neurologist. He also tries to send some custom the way of the orthopedist from time to time. The doctors are beginning to value Liebezahl as a neighbor. A few days ago, the internist bought a little bottle of Capricorn scent for a certain lady and claims Liebezahl knows more than the neurologist. The neurologist in turn spoke deprecatingly about the orthopedist and went to Liebezahl for treatment of an ingrown nail. Ever since getting the purple lady as a patient, he has had a little money to spare.
Liebezahl is a helpful person. In answer to Johanna’s appeal he horoscopically thrust Herr Peipel upon Meta Kolbe. He worked on Herr Peipel graphologically and made sure Fräulein Kolbe appeared among his cards. The two will hardly be able to oil out of their psychic destiny.
Herr Peipel is ashamed of admitting his belief in the occult mysteries, he plays the embarrassed fellow. But Liebezahl refuses to be fazed. He is certain he will have some decisive extrasensory impact upon Herr Peipel.
Meta Kolbe, meanwhile, is a true believer. If her horoscope predicted an accident for next Thursday, she would happily break a leg. Sooner a broken leg than lose faith in her horoscope. If Thursday brings no broken leg, then an ink stain on her finger will happily count instead. Whatever happens or doesn
’t happen, the horoscope is always right. It cost her money, and beyond that she is flattered that curious stars, moon-knots, dragons’ tails, nebulae, and great and little bears are engrossed with her. She seems to picture excitable meteors, comets, Jupiter, and Saturn all out for a walk, making rhombuses for her, stepping into the third or the fifth house, and having a good natter about Meta Kolbe. “Hey,” says a dapper comet, “did you see Meta Kolbe down there! Delightful person, the shyest sweetest little thing, but a dormant volcano. Some woman, though, eh? Let’s sic Venus onto Mars a bit, I think she’s earned it.”
Johanna stuffs Liebezahl with a bit of liver sausage and some lemon sweets. She has an instinctive way of organizing menus. Liebezahl gulps down whatever is put in his mouth, his spirit is away elsewhere, his imagination is engaged. He is set on expanding his empire by a novel pairing of clairvoyance with fashion. He has been able to buy a quantity of striped and spotted materials from a bankrupt merchant. Now he needs a clairvoyant who among other things will let the ladies know that “I see happiness—happiness and dots—green dots on brown—silk—a man with roses—a large house—green dots—oh, it’s fading…” Liebezahl likes the idea of an experiment where a clairvoyant will give fashion tips. “Madame,” he will say, “that white blouse looks magnificent on you, and yet the weave is capable of absorbing certain disappointments. You see, Madame, materials have their own magic. The weave of your charming blouse won’t let itself be imbued with your joys. It refuses the charm of your personality. It constitutes a barrier between you and the party to whom you feel drawn. Now, I have a clairvoyant, a material seer, who has made an analysis of fabrics. Would you like a risk-free consultation? I have a magnetic line in striped silk, which unfortunately does not work on every lady. I refuse to sell anything without the say-so of my textile magus. Perhaps you could come by next Wednesday, that is the earliest the gentleman in question could risk going into a trance.”
“Will she come?” asks Johanna. “She thinks her white blouse suits her.”
“But she wasn’t happy in it,” says Liebezahl. “Her white blouse let her down, the lady was looking to it for more effectiveness.”
“How do you know she wasn’t happy in her white blouse?” asks Johanna.
“Because she comes to me,” says Liebezahl. “All the people who come to me are discontented and unhappy. Constantly discontented people are always stupid. Clever people don’t come to me.”
I have no pedagogical faculties, otherwise I might be able to persuade Liebezahl that it’s more ethical to empty bins or open a skim-milk bar for recovering alcoholics than to put the squeeze on people whose lame mental mills are no longer capable of grinding the dull grains of their existence. But perhaps he makes people happier with his gaudy deceits than if he went around emptying their bins? Or else he would put a doughty binman out of work? You probably need a license to empty bins.
Johanna refills our glasses and rests herself against my bony chest. She feels the need for some fleeting animal security. “I will never understand, Liebezahl,” she says, “how any woman could be stupid enough to fall for your gobbledygook—but you might let me have a yard of your brown silk with the green dots.”
I am told to go and fetch Peipel and Meta Kolbe so that Liebezahl can work his magic on them some more. There’s no time to lose, since he’s got to go to Deutz tonight to meet Miro Rocca—that’s the name of a clairvoyant and telepath who some weeks ago found a hidden coffee bean for some journal. Other magazines printed his picture. He looked exhausted and despairing, just like someone with newly depleted inner reserves would look.
I go the long way around, by the town woods, before heading up to Meta Kolbe. I could use some fresh air. It’s not cold, and I feel at home under the misty autumn skies. It does me good to be on my own. People alienate me from life. It’s been a while since I last stroked a tree trunk.
Meta Kolbe was alone, without Herr Peipel. She offered me a small liqueur. Women like that give you something syrupy when what you need is a bright, clear spirit. Fräulein Kolbe looked rumpled and perplexed, her bustling alertness seemed put on and unenthusiastic. Just as I was wondering how I might turn the conversation to the matter of Peipel and the forthcoming union, she raised the subject herself and asked me what I thought of him. “A cultivated individual,” I said. She didn’t entirely like him, said Meta Kolbe; admittedly, she was rather picky. (She struck me as the sort of woman who would allow just about any remotely plausible male to make off with her savings book.)
“You put me in mind of an Italian painting,” I said, in an effort to perk her up. Women like to be told that sort of thing. “Did you know you have remarkably beautiful temples? Did no one ever tell you that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Meta Kolbe. I told her that her nose indicated extreme sensibility, while the curve of the corners of her mouth betrayed a demonically wild, although carefully controlled temperament. “How could you know?” asked Meta Kolbe.
There is no sense in telling an upstanding woman that she’s an upstanding woman, with gifts for frugal domesticity. She knows that anyway. Only a vicious woman likes to be told of her virtues. To a raddled old whore, I would say that she manifests a radical innocence and is at heart a simple housewife.
Briefly Meta Kolbe assays a conversation about developments in the Far East and recent American literature. She is relieved when I change the subject to the revelatory form of her wrists. She tells me about her childhood—“I was a hoyden, a real tomboy”—and her successes with the opposite sex, and why she didn’t want any of them. The only subject that a woman will find interesting when talking to a man is herself. We went on to talk about Meta Kolbe’s broken thumbnail, her first celluloid doll, her cousin’s improper advances, her wandering kidney, her shy smile, velvety eyes, appendectomy, charm, preference for dry perfumes, health-food shops, roof terraces, Dover soles, tea roses, fur mittens, and Cossack choirs. Then Meta Kolbe started telling me her dreams. After the fifth, I took my leave.
I went off to report to Johanna on my unsuccessful undertaking. Evidently, Peipel had run away from Meta Kolbe, and I hadn’t been able to gin up his memory. From her conversation, I got the impression that Meta Kolbe might have been prepared to take me in part-exchange for her radio, if only I’d been ten years younger and twenty years wiser, as strong as the boxer Schmeling in his pomp, as sagacious as a cardinal, wealthy as a maharaja, and charming as a Hollywood star. I would have to work in the sciences, hunt tigers, lead daring expeditions, play the cello, write poems, master tax problems, be a political panjandrum, and spend all my days making love to her.
Someone who has suffered chronic nglect from the opposite sex must surely feel entitled to make a few demands of her own. As long as I can’t afford to buy myself half a herring, I can keep the belief that apart from lobster in madeira, truffled pheasant, and baby asparagus I don’t really fancy anything.
Many’s the day I haven’t been able to afford a tram ticket. I tramp along beside the rails, criticizing the cars that dart past me, occasionally condescending to spray me with muck. It’s not the cars that are to blame—it’s the rain, the poor state of the roads, and my ill luck as a pedestrian to happen to be walking past a juicy pothole just as a car with the naive and unquestioning confidence of a natural phenomenon happens to be passing. Cursing mildly, I hop up and down, and imagine the pathetic figure I would be had it been me at the wheel. Most of all, though, I criticize the cars. How few of them I would agree to drive. Mud-spattered from top to toe, I trudge on, imagining a winged Rolls-Royce, striking, elegant and discreet, shaped like a racing car and with the capacious comfort of a cozy old Citroën. When all the time I’d be happy to hitch a ride in a converted dog kennel with a two-stroke engine. The possession of this wheeled kennel would make me humble with so much blissful excess. As long as I have nothing, I won’t just demand everything, I’ll demand more than everything. Meta Kolbe is perfectly right to want a Ho
llywood actor plus prizefighter plus cardinal plus Bavarian yodeler plus exotic foreigner plus proper German plus dreamer plus businessman. She’s right. She’ll never find a husband, and I’ll never own a car. The meanest and dowdiest would suffice for us, but we’ll never get it.
When I returned to Johanna, I found a cheerful scene awaiting me. A friendly young man with enormous hands, jug ears, and a snub nose was playing the accordion. “This is Anton,” said Johanna, “but you won’t form a proper opinion of him, you need to see him from the back, he has a charmingly shaped head.” It can’t be an easy matter for a woman to maintain a passion for a man based on his rear view.
Peipel too is back. He is sitting in a corner with Liebezahl, receiving occult consolation.
Johanna drags me into her shop, we sit down on her counter, among the collected Ganghofer, some volumes of Rudolf Herzog, and a title called Orchids, Blood, and the Amazon Basin. “That’s really popular,” says Johanna. “The books that are most in demand are the ones that people think will be improper. I’ve got a title called Sultry Nights, and the clients queue up for it. But it’s actually about humidity, it’s set in the tropics or something, there’s nothing about sex in it at all. People bring it back the next day, and they’re too embarrassed to tell me it was a disappointment.”
Then Johanna proceeds to tell me about Anton. He’s a refugee from the East, he has an aunt in the West with a potato business, he’s a brilliant accordionist who loves the samba and the jitterbug, doesn’t read books, not even smut, and wanted to swap his wristwatch for a small electric heater to give her. The wristwatch is worth nothing, Anton wouldn’t have got a clapped-out lighter, never mind an electric heater for it. But he meant well. “I could talk about him for hours,” says Johanna.
