Käsebier Takes Berlin

by Gabriele Tergit

  “That’s a nice story. Maybe the insurance company also paid the city council a little something, how about that?”

  “That happened in Niedernestritz, but of course you can’t write about that. You can never write about the really good stuff.”

  “Good story, but what are we going to do about the page?”

  “I have an idea. An acquaintance recently told me about a popular cabaret: supposed to be a great singer there in Hasenheide, got to check it out.”

  “I’ve only got bad manuscripts; Szögyengy Andor’s written about ‘The Last Horse-Cart Driver’ again . . .”

  “What pests, these professional Hungarians!” said Gohlisch.

  “There’s been an article on weekend outings lying around since September, good article, but since I’ve gotten it there’s been nothing but bad weather, so I can’t use that. You can’t run an article on weekends when it’s so cold. You just can’t.”

  Miehlke came in again. “Well, what’m I supposed to do, gents, the page has to be out by four thirty. I’ll take the construction and cut it myself if you gents won’t deliver. Like I said, nothing depends on it.”

  Miermann sat there, resigned. “All right, we’ll take the construction piece, but we’ll have to cut half of it. Gohlisch, you always leave me hanging. When will we run the article on the singer?”

  “Next Wednesday, for sure. Upon my soul!”

  “Well, that’s something! When you say Wednesday in eight days, I can be certain that you mean Wednesday in eight months.”

  “I can’t work on command, it has to come to me. I’m not a fountain pen. I’m a steadfast servant of thought.”

  “If it thaws next Wednesday, we’ll run the slush article; otherwise, yours.”

  “Done.”

  “But I need to be able to rely on you. That page is getting worse by the week. You writers are out of good ideas, and we aren’t getting any submissions. There’s no talent.”

  “That’s true,” said Gohlisch, “but only because the untalented writers are popular and cheaper. A big shot publisher recently said that the worse newspapers are, the more they sell. What’s talent good for? No talent plus a dash of sadism sells a lot more. A rape is more popular than a sentence by Goethe, although Goethe’s still acceptable. Briand sat at the desk of the Petit Journal for over a decade and told people stories. That’s how his newspaper got started. He never wrote a line himself. He was paid a handsome salary, and that’s how Briand was made. But publishers haven’t got a clue about the business of writing.”

  And with that, they vanished into the composing room.

  2

  Once again, nothing comes of the slush story

  IT WAS even colder the following Wednesday.

  “Have we ever had a winter like this?” asked Gohlisch. “If we still had one of my articles lying around on frost and ice or frozen lakes in the Mark, it would surely thaw. Here’s the article. I’m going to order coffee now. Cake? No cake?”

  “Cake,” said Miermann.

  “My dear Miermann,” exclaimed Herzband the writer, who went by Lieven, as he burst into the room with outstretched hands, his cloak aflutter. “What do you have to say about that most exquisite piece Otto Meissner wrote about me?”

  “I can say I read the lovely piece that you wrote about Otto Meissner,” said Miermann.

  “I can’t ignore that your answer was meant to cut me to the quick. I admit that I’m vain to an almost ungodly degree. But can’t friends praise friends? I ask you: shouldn’t friends praise friends? Please, I ask you: isn’t it one’s duty to forge camaraderie in resistance to this world, inartistic as it is, bereft of gods? We few, creative, intellectual thinkers? The writer should praise his comrade, since only the like-minded can recognize one another! Have you already read my book, dearest Miermann, Dr. Buchwald Seeks His Path? Not yet? A political novel of the highest caliber! Nothing less, I assure you, dear editor, nothing less is offered than the solution to foreign affairs. I’ll send it to you. The writer must be a traveling salesman for his own books, the writer must manage his own reputation since his fame furthers that of the nation. The writer’s vanity is justified, and nothing can harm his stature more than if he looks upon the intellectual trade with scorn! Think: my books have been translated into every culturally significant language, even Irish. Recently, I had a four-hour-long conversation with Bratianu on a trip to Bucharest. ‘I’ve just read,’ he said, ‘a very beautiful novel by a German writer named Lieven.’ I stood up and bowed. ‘I am that very man.’ What a moment! What an experience! What joy! Bratianu read a German novel; Bratianu loved this novel; Bratianu loved this novel’s author; I am that author! So, dear Miermann, so as not to take up any more of your precious time, I ask you to run a notice regarding an event of European import: the great French lawyer and poet Paul Regnier has asked me to write a play with him on the trial of the Soviet saboteurs. I have accepted his request. We will begin our work shortly. This is the first sign of Franco-German cooperation on a European theme. In a few words, I have sketched the importance of this event. Here they are. An international item. Please place it in the evening paper straight away.”

  Gohlisch had, in the meantime, been looking out the window.

  What a strange store over there, he thought. For years it had been a clothing store, but now it’s disappeared, like all the clothing stores. Recently, at Hausvogteiplatz, an old lady said to me, “Isn’t it awful, now D. Lewin’s gone too. I’ve been buying my coats at Manheimer’s for forty years. I just came in to the city from Karlshorst to buy myself a coat. V. Manheimer’s gone. I think to myself, I’ll go to D. Lewin. Lewin’s gone as well.” It was almost like the revolution, people spoke to each other on the street for no reason. Then the store became a wine shop. Germans drink German wine, but eventually they also began to sell Bordeaux and all kinds of schnapps. Six bottles of wine for five marks; even that was too much for people. Beer’s cheaper. Then came a store for kitchen furnishings. All sorts of kitchen furnishings. Eschebach’s Kitchen Units, three smooth cupboards next to one another, bottomless glass drawers; next to them, tasteful antique cupboards in carved wood or colored glass. Furniture stores don’t work. A person needs rent, gas, electricity, heating, and food—lots of food—fresh food three times a day, but he can walk around in the same coat for years and get his kitchen cupboards at the flea market. The kitchen store vanished as well, thought Gohlisch, and a restaurant sprang up, but there are too many restaurants in the neighborhood. Good wine restaurants; Aschinger’s, free bread, forty-five pfennigs for a sausage, peas with bacon for seventy-five pfennigs; then there’s the old Münze, a beer restaurant, excellent; a kosher restaurant, separate meat and veg; lots of bakeries. Far too many restaurants in the neighborhood. New ones can’t compete. The restaurant disappeared and the storefront stood empty again until another restaurant took its place. Young plucky things who stuck a pickled herring in the window.

  “You’re not interested in literature,” Lieven said venomously, addressing the back of Gohlisch’s head. Gohlisch was still looking out the window.

  “Oh, certainly, but only good literature,” said Gohlisch. “Karl May, or Buried in the Desert, or things like that. By the way, there’s nothing doing with the slush,” he added in Miermann’s direction.

  Miermann understood, and said to Lieven, “Excuse us, we have to put together a newspaper. Unfortunately, we’re just honest workers. Not free spirits, but servants to the publisher. Obedient slaves to the public. I’m very interested in your book. No doubt I’ll read it.”

  Lieven bowed, put on his big, floppy hat, his cloak flying. “I bestow my greetings upon the men of the world,” he said.

  “He’s really gone soft in the head,” said Gohlisch. “You only hear things like this about that man: ‘Mr. Adolf Lieven will write a drama that takes place among artists.’ No scenes, no title, no plot. Just ‘artists.’ Then they begin sending out press releases. ‘Mr. Adolf Lieven announces that his book, The Lame Vultu
re, will be translated into new Siberian.’ Mr. Adolf Lieven was received by the president of Argentina during his South American research trip. We don’t get news like that from Gerhard Hauptmann. But what will we do about Thursday’s page? Thank God, coffee. Say, girl, don’t catch a cold without your coat. Are you paying, Miermann, or is it my turn?”

  “I’m paying this time,” said Miermann. “The slush isn’t going to work. The streets are disgustingly clean. But the slush has to come one day, otherwise, where’ll we get our spring from? I also have an article on marriage statistics.”

  “That’ll fill a box, but you can’t lead with it.”

  “I just received a lead article, a pleasant piece from Szögyengy Andor on the different ways that Berliners spend their Sundays.”

  “These professional Hungarians again! Why don’t you take a look at my article on the singer, I don’t think it came out very well, it didn’t really come together—I’m not feeling that great anyways, I’m going to order a schnapps. D’you want one too?”

  “Does a man stand on one leg?” said Miermann.

  Gohlisch went to the phone and ordered two glasses of grappa.

  Suddenly, there was a loud noise in the hall. The door flew open, and a scent wafted in; first the scent, then a very large woman. She wore a very thick, loose fur coat made of light brown bearskin, a thin, bright yellow dress underneath, out of which peeked a pair of long, shapely, pink-tinged legs. A yellow, brown, and red scarf fluttered around her neck. She wore a bright red beret perched atop many very blonde curls. The beret was set far back on her head, crooked and to the right. She was heavily made up, which only accentuated her gaudy appearance. She was young, and had a wily face. With a great din, she suddenly stood in the small room that was already packed with two desks. An engraving of the Forum Romanum hung on the wall above Miermann’s desk. Gohlisch had tacked up a watercolor of a sailboat he had painted over his desk. She looked around for a second, then ran toward Miermann, who had jumped up. She put her arms around his shoulders, kissed him, and cried, “God, Miermann, my darling, I haven’t seen you in ages, what’s wrong with us? Here!” She pressed a manuscript into his hand. “Print it, sugar lips, print it! Don’t you remember?”

  “Of course, dear,” said Miermann. “The Academy Ball, four thirty, second closet, fourth corridor.”

  She was out again in a flash. Gohlisch yelled, “I’m an honest republican from the clan of the Verrinas,” and banged his fist on the table.2 “Are you acquainted with that Kurfürstendamm slut?”

  “No clue,” said Miermann. “I only know who she is.”

  In that moment, a big blond man came in: Öchsli the theater critic. “What the hell was that?” he cried. “All of a sudden a gal came sweeping down the hallway, called out, ‘Sweet Öchsli, haven’t seen you for ages, d’you still remember?’ But I don’t remember anything.”

  “That happened to me too. She’s not a friend, but I know who she is. That was Aja Müller. She has one car, two poodles, and two relationships: one with the playwright Altmann and another with the son of a director at the D-Bank.”

  “Must be quite nice sleeping with her,” Gohlisch replied, and continued writing.

  “The things she writes are quite nice too,” said Miermann. “Snobby, but not too snobby given the topic. Parties and balls. I’ll give it straight to the setter, since I don’t have a lead. Maybe you can rework the thing on Käsebier.”

  “I’ll see. By the way, the place was completely packed. Not a seat in the house, even at six thirty. A pair of acrobats performed, a lot better than in the big vaudeville shows. Käsebier is excellent. It’s worth it. He sings with a partner, also very good, by the way, traditional songs from the Rhine, unbelievably kitschy. One was especially good, the story of a tenement, ‘How Can He Sleep with That Thin Wall?,’ quite excellent. And then he plays the pimp.” Gohlisch picked up a scarf and took a few steps, soft and fresh. “Passage Friedrichstrasse, under the lindens green.” He raised his chin, thrust out his lower lip, and raised his open hand to his face, jerking it once, twice, to indicate business. “I’m pretty sure that there’s room for a thousand people in there. It’s quite a thing with the acrobats; a man walking on a tight-rope is already enough for me. But apparently that isn’t enough. He also has to play the fiddle while he’s doing it. It’s a very strange thing: music as an accompaniment to a display of human agility. Plus an excellent clown; he wanted to sit on a chair but it was all wobbly, and he couldn’t get it to stand straight. He took out a big cigar box and with a great deal of difficulty broke it into little pieces, deadly serious. Finally, he ended up with a piece small enough to shove under the leg of the chair, but it kept slipping away. All of our male gravity, gone up in smoke. The tricky business of preventing a chair from wobbling that still wobbles. I’m going to get some breakfast.”

  “You lack ambition,” Miermann said.

  “Ambition? For lead articles?” asked Gohlisch. “No, I don’t have any. I don’t try; I want to be asked.”

  “You’re being asked.”

  “No, I’m not. I know only smooth talkers make it around here.”

  Miermann laughed. Gohlisch went to breakfast at a Hungarian place on Kommandantenstrasse. The place was decorated in white, red, and green, like a Hungarian country tavern. Ears of corn hung from individual booths, and the whole place was garlanded with corncobs. The booths were brightly painted and looked like rustic canopy beds, with four wooden pillars holding up the roof. Dr. Krone was sitting in one of them.

  “Greetings, sir,” said Gohlisch—then a conspiratorial figure who published unsavory exposés in various newspapers and magazines under the byline ‘Augur’ came creeping in. He carried twelve newspapers under his arm, kept his head down and his eyes up. Gloomily, without a word, he shook everyone’s hand. The three gentlemen ordered a bottle of Tokay.

  “What have you got, sir?” Gohlisch asked Dr. Krone, who hadn’t opened his mouth.

  “I’m completely depressed. What’s going on with health insurance is unbearable. Ninety percent of the population has health insurance and the ones who don’t will only see professors. The professorial title is pure gold. I don’t see any way of moving forward. I don’t have the time and the money to do research. Before the war, you could buy yourself a monkey; now I can’t afford a monkey, and the same goes for rabbits. On the other hand, it’s unbearable to sit in my consultation room and wait for patients.”

  “Well, why do you live in the west anyway?” said Gohlisch. “If you moved to Brunnenstrasse, you’d have plenty of work.”

  “I’d just be doing slapdash stuff. A hundred patients a day, ten minutes per patient, I’d have sixteen hours of work. The only way to make things easy for yourself is to stop examining patients thoroughly. My only consolation about all the undiagnosed carcinomas is that there’s nothing to be done. I had another great case recently. I wanted to prescribe a hay fever treatment for a patient, now, during winter: would their insurance approve it? It’s a preventative treatment and costs eighty-five marks. What did the insurer say? Impossible, costs too much. So what am I to do? Become a charlatan or starve? You know, there are doctors who get lots of traffic.”

  “I recently went to see Dr. Ahlheim,” Gohlisch said. “First, I wait in a room with five other patients. Nurses keep coming in: ‘One moment, please.’ I wait. One comes, yells, ‘Mrs. Meyer to room one for an X-ray, please.’ Another one, ‘Mrs. Schulze to room two, undress, please.’ A third one, ‘Mrs. Kühne to the reception, please.’ ‘Mrs. Marheinke to radiotherapy, please.’ ‘The gentleman to the next room, please.’ Fine, so I go into the next room. I wait, along comes another nurse, ‘Sir, please undress in room five.’ I tell her I’ve sprained my thumb, I don’t have to get undressed. ‘Very well,’ the nurse says, ‘then please wait.’ I sit there for a while. In the meantime, the rigmarole continues. A nurse enters. ‘Next room,’ she says. By now I’ve been funneled into the third room. I wait. Next door, things carry on. ‘Mrs. Niederges�
�ss under the electric arc, please, Mrs. Weltrein to electrotherapy.’ ‘Sir, please undress in room seven.’ I explain that I’ve sprained my thumb, I don’t need to get undressed. ‘Very well,’ the nurse says, ‘then please wait.’ Finally, the well-known, popular doctor comes in. I tell him I’ve probably sprained my thumb. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘You’re right, you’ve sprained your thumb. Diathermia. Come back twice a week for diathermia. If it’s not better in four weeks’ time, we’ll talk.’ Well, I hadn’t lost my mind yet. I went to a young doctor whom nobody had recommended to me, he twisted my thumb back into shape, case closed.”

  “That’s how it is,” Dr. Krone said. “You have to cram in the patients, things can’t go on like this with health insurance. They’ve socialized the profession without nationalizing it. The insurers decide on the prices, but we’re not paid by the state.”