Magic Hoffmann

by Arjouni, Jakob

  ‘Megastars. Carlo.’

  Fred said he wanted to speak to Annette. There was a pause, then he could hear her laughter approaching.

  ‘With which anonymous, handsome man have I the honour of speaking?’

  Confused, Fred held the receiver away from his face. Was she drunk?

  ‘It’s me, Fred.’

  ‘Ah Fred, darling. My apple wine man! I’ve already…’ She suddenly burst out laughing. Fred could hear a man’s voice in the background. Then the mouthpiece was covered, until Annette announced, exhausted: ‘ ’Scuse me, we’re tidying up here…anyway, I was really worried - are you celebrating already?’ She spoke without pausing for breath. ‘Say hello to old miseryguts from me - only if his little darling isn’t there of course. It’ll be good for him to go out with you a bit, and don’t let him get you down: when Nickel starts to yawn at eleven it means all kinds of things, but not that he’s tired. Maybe the three of us will go out one of these days…’ The man in the background said something and Annette burst out laughing again. ‘Swine!’ she yelled.

  Fred waited until the laughter had died down, then he said: ‘Annette, Nickel doesn’t live at…’

  ‘Yes?’ she interrupted. ‘I’m back. Terry’s standing round here telling filthy jokes. What did you say?’

  ‘Nickel doesn’t live in his old flat any more.’

  ‘Lucky for him. That dingy hole.’

  ‘I mean…’

  ‘Shove off!’ She turned away from the phone and yelled: ‘Oh, now Marcel’s coming. Sorry Fred but…’

  ‘Annette, please. I have to …’

  ‘Hey Marcel!’

  Fred ground his teeth and slammed down the receiver. The other guests looked across at him. Ignoring their glances he stomped back to the counter and shoved his empty glass at the landlord.

  ‘The paper’s yours if you want it.’

  Fred looked up. The landlord was pointing with a smile at the rolled up newspaper under Fred’s arm

  ‘Oh that…’ Fred was too angry to worry any further. He threw the paper on the counter and downed the schnapps. The landlord waited, bottle in hand, and poured unbidden.

  ‘You look like you could use it,’ he remarked. In contrast to his face, the voice was lively and clear, its tone calm and relaxed, like the voice of an expert who has an overview of what looks to the layman like impenetrable chaos.

  ‘Two more then home to bed,’ he advised, ‘any more is unhealthy. You’re still young. Those ones over there…’ he made a disparaging gesture towards the tables, ‘…can drink till they fall down dead and it doesn’t matter. But with you…’

  ‘Oh yes?’ came a slow growl.

  Three pairs of fierce old eyes blazed at him from the tables. Fred shifted his gaze nervously between them and the landlord.

  ‘Ignore that con man. “Any more is unhealthy” - don’t make me laugh. Pours you two schnapps you don’t even want, then acts concerned: the old shithead!’ The speaker grinned evilly, and two single grey teeth came over his bottom lip.

  ‘Anyway. While they’re scraping that stuff out of your stomach… Cancer of the intestine,’ the landlord added for Fred, while he leaned his forearms on the counter and calmly awaited further onslaughts. Fred took his money out. Today he didn’t need any more grief.

  ‘You know that doesn’t bother me?’ said the one with two teeth. ‘Just think. That is if you’re doing something where it could bother you - and I don’t mean collecting stamps.’

  ‘Apropos,’ said another, whose small deformed face was reminiscent of a celery root, ‘is it true that your wife is going round saying these extra fat bottles with ribbed glass are the best thing since the invention of separate bedrooms?’

  Fred put a twenty on the counter.

  ‘Hmhm,’ mumbled the landlord, ‘and yours is supposed to have refused her deathbed so she could stay alone with you in the room.’

  There was a pause in which the mood seemed to alter radically. Fred cleared his throat and pointed to his money. The three old boys stared at the landlord with hate-filled eyes, while they placed their hands against the edge of their tables and leaned forward, as if they wanted to leap on him at any minute. The landlord looked from one to the other and clicked his tongue provocatively. Before Fred’s eyes he was feeling for a kitchen knife. This can’t be true, thought Fred.

  Celery face stood up and said: ‘Say that one more time!’

  ‘Gladly: the word is she died of vomit, because…’

  ‘You filthy swine!’

  Furious howling, shifting of chairs, landlord with knife in hand. Fred leapt for the door and grabbed the handle, when roars of laughter started up behind him. For a few seconds he thought he’d gone mad. Slowly he turned round to see the three old men and the landlord rolling about. They were slapping each other on the shoulder, wiping tears from their cheeks, trembling again and again with renewed fits of laughter, and their bright red faces seemed about to burst. This lasted until celeryface turned to Fred and asked breathlessly: ‘Was it the “Filthy swine”?’

  ‘Nonsense,’ shouted the landlord, ‘it was the knife.’

  ‘Without our yelling,’ said the one with two teeth, ‘neither would have worked.’

  ‘Well, tell us.’

  All four looked at Fred, their heads nodding expectantly.

  ‘I…I don’t know. Is this a game?’

  ‘Oh God,’ sighed celeryface, ‘he’s really scared.’

  ‘I’ve always said that’s young people for you. Know everything, can do everything, but one decent joke and they don’t understand the world any more.’

  ‘Yes, a joke,’ confirmed the landlord. ‘The first to scare a new guest so much that he runs out arse over tit, gets to drink free for a week. If I win the others invite me to …a pleasure of my choice.’

  The old men winked at Fred maliciously. ‘And all he wants to do is go to the opera!’

  ‘You must decide,’ said the landlord, ‘and don’t let yourself be influenced by those mummies.’

  ‘Well…’ Fred reflected, ‘quite honestly it was everything together, but the knife finished me off.’

  ‘You see.’

  The old man made sullen gestures of denial.

  ‘Just because we had no knives and forks on the table.’

  ‘I’m not even sure it’s allowed. Didn’t we agree: words only?’

  ‘Listen Granddads,’ said the landlord and clapped his hands, ‘you’re bad losers. Young man, what would you like to drink?’

  Fred looked across to the old boys, then at the shelf full of bottles.

  ‘Your best whiskey?’

  ‘That’s it young fella. Drink up all his malt. May he go broke tomorrow!’

  For the next hour Fred stood at the counter, surrounded by the old men, drinking Irish whiskey and answering questions about where he came from and where he was headed. To his astonishment, his Canada plans met with wild enthusiasm and admiration for the first time since his release from prison. The old men slapped his shoulder and unselfishly made him the focal point of the evening. Celeryface boasted of having been in Canada himself many years previously, and asserted that there was no more fantastic country on earth. The one with two teeth raved about a tour group of Canadian women for whom he had acted as a guide in Berlin, and the third old man, a crumpled dwarf with streaming eyes, recited the names of several ice hockey players. The landlord on the other hand had nothing to offer apart from some scanty knowledge of the life cycle of salmon, and he was treated like dirt by the others in the meantime. Proudly they courted Fred’s favour, as if he had another ticket to hand out. If only Annette could have seen him!

  ‘Young man, if apple wine really is unknown in Canada, or not particularly well known, then I think it’s an outstanding idea.’

  With the encouragement of the old men, Fred began to feel more and more comfortable. They understood him. They might have been a little strange, but they knew their stuff where it counted.

  Goaded
on by the whiskey, he started cursing Annette: a girlfriend who thought she was making films, instead of which she spent the whole day on the phone, and she only stuck around here for bullshit like that.

  The old men listened attentively, and eventually Fred yelled out euphorically: ‘You can’t let some prophet of doom destroy your dreams. I make my dreams become reality!’

  Thereupon he took a huge slug, and only when he put the glass back did he notice that the old men were suddenly eyeing him mockingly.

  ‘Well, well,’ said the one with two teeth, ‘and what else do we have in the poetry album?’

  ‘I am small, my heart is pure, why can’t I be a big fucker any more?’ proposed celeryface.

  ‘Or,’ the landlord solemnly raised his finger, ‘God, I’m getting aristocratic, not one woman likes my dick!’

  They laughed until the one with two teeth pointed his chin in Fred’s direction and declared: ‘Young man, such language is unseemly.’

  Fred looked in irritation from one to another. Their searching glances bore down on him. It was dangerous to chatter in their presence.

  ‘I…’ Fred reached out for cigarettes, ‘…well, sometimes I think up things…like pop songs.’

  ‘Hm,’ said the dwarf, giving Fred a light, ‘have you already tried with an instrument?’

  The others grinned.

  Then the landlord poured a round, and celeryface started telling a story about an air hostess he had met in Toronto. In future Fred would have to guard against careless remarks.

  He would have most liked to have told them about prison. He didn’t know why, but he had the feeling that even if he stuck to the truth - four years of clinging on mindlessly -he wouldn’t be treated like a pitiful failure round here. But at the same moment the wanted notice occurred to him, and when the old boys had read the paper and learned that he had previous convictions, they might hit upon an idea.

  The evening drew on. When Fred swayed towards the door at about midnight after fond farewells and promises to return, the landlord called after him: ‘your paper!’

  Fred turned round, and the landlord handed him the roll of paper with a wink.

  ‘But don’t carry it under your arm as if there were a body in it. And you’d better buy…some sunglasses tomorrow.’

  Fred sobered up at a stroke. He looked into the landlord’s grinning face, then he grabbed the paper and stumbled out.

  Once on the street, he pressed himself against the wall and peered through the steamed up glass into the interior of the pub. The landlord was laughing and pointing at his eyes. At some time during the course of the evening he must have had a look in the paper. Or did he know from the beginning? Fred broke into a sweat after the event. Why hadn’t he noticed anything? How could he have forgotten the danger so quickly? Nevertheless, the landlord didn’t seem to want to betray him to the police.

  Furious with himself, Fred headed for the hotel. From now on he’d have to tread very carefully. The haircut obviously didn’t provide much camouflage. In any case he couldn’t go looking for Nickel tomorrow - he would just have to stay in the hotel and wait for the lecture. They would hardly print the picture more than once - after all he hadn’t murdered anyone - and most people would hopefully have forgotten by the day after tomorrow…Fred shook his head as he walked along: he had only come to Berlin to collect his friends and his money; why did he have to get caught up in all this?

  There was still a strong smell of sulphuric acid in the hallway of the hotel. Photos of horses had replaced racing cars on the new wallpaper, and the new counter gleamed green. The fourth window was boarded up like the first three, and posters with sunrises and palm beaches had been pinned over it.

  After Fred had assured himself there was no evening paper behind the counter, he pressed the bell. The same young man who had given him the key a couple of days before emerged from behind the door, albeit noticeably aged. His face was grey and caved in, his eyes stared apathetically. Fred could hear excited voices in the background.

  With a shifty look the man said: ‘No vacancies.’

  ‘But I have a room. My name is Hoffmann .’ And Fred added with an approving look into the hallway: ‘You fixed it in no time.’

  The man frowned, as if he were wondering whether Fred was making fun of him. Then he nodded weakly. ‘Now I know. Everything’s a bit confused today. Room thirty one, no?’ He looked across at the keys. ‘But you’ve got your key.’

  ‘I wanted to pay for yesterday and two more days.’ While the man looked in the ledger and punched some figures onto a calculator, Fred asked: ‘What’s sulphuric acid for?’

  ‘The expression of justified fears.’

  ‘What…?’

  ‘Someone’s thrown it in here for the fourth time - that’s when you can call it a neurosis.’

  Thrown it in? Fred looked up at the boarded windows. Alarmed, he asked: ‘Does that mean that the police come in here?’

  The question seemed to amuse the man - or rather to cheer him up strangely. His smile could scarcely be called funny.

  ‘Are you kidding? This whole joint could blow up, and a copper wouldn’t even look up from his plate of sausages. We poured out the acid ourselves, God knows why. And the fact that we paint graffiti all over the courtyard, saying we should crawl off and die, that is part of our culture.’

  He prepared the bill, and Fred paid his money onto the counter. He had no idea what the man was trying to explain to him, but he was pleased that the police seemed to avoid the hotel for some reason.

  The staircase was silent as ever. When Fred entered the room and turned the light on, his roommates droned away contentedly. Glittering fat and green, they turned nervous circles around the ceiling lamp.

  Fred opened the window and collapsed on the bed. He counted his remaining money. It was enough for another two or three days.

  He laid his head back and thought of Canada. A stream, a meadow and a log cabin appeared on the grey ceiling. The log cabin was a bar, and people were sitting on the veranda drinking HOPEMAN’S APPLE WINE and talking about the weather. Fred closed his eyes. Girls in colourful dresses were drinking his health and laughing. Johnny Guitar Watson was on the jukebox. …his thoughts flowed in English: Hey Hopeman, how are the apples this year? Very good, I think. We will see in September … When you wait for the apples, what are you doing all day long? Love my woman, build my house, have some drinks. Who is she? The most beautiful woman in the world. Really? Yeah! …How did you get your first money? I was a big gangster, known in all South Hessen…

  The pictures began to blur then vanish blending with other images. Annette at a big party. She was making fun of him. Terrys and Marcels were reaching out their claws for her. They were grinning, laughing, drooling. They changed into policemen. They were preventing Fred from fleeing. Groups in uniform marched towards him. Men with children. Students with rucksacks. Women with machine gun earrings. He turned round. Behind him were three giggling old men…

  Suddenly there was a buzzing which brought Fred back to the hotel room. He opened his eyes and listened. It was coming from the ceiling. He turned the light off and pulled the pillow over his head, but the buzzing could be felt as well as heard. It was as if someone were working in the room above with a miniature pressure drill. Fred turned the light back on and looked at the time: half one. He hauled himself up and slipped into his shoes. He climbed the dimly lit staircase up to the fifth and last floor. Here there was no more red runner and the room numbers were written on the doors in chalk. Fred traced the noise to number forty six and paused for a moment. Finally he knocked. The buzzing stopped.

  ‘Yes?’

  Fred pushed the door open and entered a room that was identical to his own - at least in so far as he could see the furnishings. The ground and the furniture were strewn with a chaotic jumble of clothes, shoes, bags and hats. In the window was a sewing machine, and around it were piled pieces of leather and leatherette of various colours. On the chair in front of it sat a
figure, who looked at first glance like a rag doll. Her feet were in thick socks, one red and one blue, which were covered by grey and white pyjama pants, rising up her legs to a faded pale blue flowered dress, round which was tied an equally faded green apron. She wore a brown polo neck under the dress and around her neck she wore a loosely tied, brightly patterned scarf. Her long blond hair was tied up by a giant hair clip, which looked to Fred like a garden implement, into a pile on top of her head, from which thick strands fell into her face. Her pale young face seemed translucent, with dark shadows under the eyes. The eyes themselves were lively, clear, large and blue, and they watched Fred curiously.

  ‘Evening,’ he said and looked around irresolutely.

  ‘Evening,’ the woman replied out of one side of her mouth. An extinguished cigarette was clamped in the other side.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I…I live beneath you, and…’

  ‘No!’ she sighed dispiritedly and took some matches from her apron.

  Fred didn’t know quite how to interpret this no, and once the cigarette was lit and the woman had taken a few quick puffs, he said: ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can believe you. How many rooms in the hotel do you think are occupied?’

  ‘No idea. You don’t really bump into masses of people.’

  ‘Exactly! And why does the boss give you the room under mine of all rooms?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘So that you’ll complain, and he can prove to me again how gracious he is to let me live here. You’re not the first one he’s put in there.’

  ‘Hmhm,’ Fred watched her puffing away, then furiously expelling the smoke. ‘Maybe I’ll just ask if I can have another room, because of the view or something.’

  ‘It’s all the same. If you want to do me a favour just leave it, otherwise the old boy will be on my case again in the morning.’

  ‘The old boy who can barely speak German?’