“It’s the same everywhere,” said Augur. “Service doesn’t matter anymore because no one values it; we only talk about it. Instead of an economy run by and for the officers and the student corps, we now have hundreds of interest groups: nationalists, socialists, Catholics, salary groups, pension groups. Without a backroom connection you’re lost. But they’re all the spawn of capitalism. What can you expect of a capitalist economy in which there are only exploiters and exploited?”
“Well,” said Gohlisch, “I think the terror of communism would be even worse.”
“Last time that scoundrel Nagel, that slave-driver, got twenty marks out of me,” Augur cried.
“I’m going to order three more grappas,” said Gohlisch. “By the way, that’s a disgrace, Augur.”
“I can’t find out anything,” the conspirator said. “I run around all day putting a five-line story together, and then they haggle over the price. They furnished new rooms at city hall. First off, they’re incredibly fancy, second, they were privately contracted. How’s that possible?”
“I’ve been running around looking for a lead for ten days, I can’t find anything out,” Gohlisch said.
Dr. Krone bade them farewell.
“I feel sorry for Krone,” Gohlisch said. “He can do a lot. Specialists know what he’s worth.”
“Sure, but he doesn’t know how to exercise his authority,” said Augur. “An acquaintance of mine went to him recently, he examined him endlessly and finally said, ‘I’m still not quite sure what seems to be the problem. Come back the day after tomorrow.’ You simply can’t do that.”
“That’s rich coming from you, a man of the times! You don’t understand the sense of honesty that allows a man to admit that he hasn’t found the answer yet? You want him to tell you, ‘Go to bed straight away, you’ve got pleurisy, keep yourself warm,’ when he hasn’t found anything? You also share that primitive persuasion: ‘When I go to the doctor, he’d better prescribe something.’ People who have medical and legal stock phrases at the ready are good for hysterical women. But it makes me sad that you can’t appreciate someone not trying to pull the wool over your eyes for a change.”
“Come on, Gohlisch,” said Augur, “I appreciate it, I’m just giving you one solution to the puzzle of why Krone lacks for work. Success is a question of suggestion, not work.”
“Miermann would say: ‘That one sentence explains fascism completely, you’re all cowards and slaves in search of authority.’ ”
They paid.
“Be well, Augur. Heil and Sieg and catch a fat one.”
3
It thaws. The slush article is published, and the article on the singer is typeset
ON WEDNESDAY morning, Gohlisch rewrote the article on the singer.
The head of local news asked, “Will you allow Mr. Meise to make a phone call?”
Gohlisch responded, “I’d rather not, but if I don’t have a choice. Let me order myself a coffee and a grappa first.”
Mr. Meise was a crime reporter.
“Mr. Meise,” said the editor, an old grumbling bear of fifty, who wrote quiet novellas in private, “Mr. Meise, we really must find out how Professor Möller’s doing. His obituary is the lead article, and it’s already gone to the typesetter. A man who redefined the natural sciences, so to speak—we can’t lag behind the big papers or quote them under any circumstances. WTB doesn’t know anything yet.”3
“I’ll make inquiries right away,” said Meise.
“Be especially careful not to be tactless, please.”
Hm, thought Gohlisch, Käsebier is out of luck, I’ll never get on with the article if things keep going like this.
“Did you put the phone here?” he asked.
“Yes, of course,” Meise said. It rang. “What, a car accident? On Pankstrasse? How many dead? —None? We’re not interested if there are no dead.”
Meise hung up, the phone rang again. “Tractor hit a streetcar? —How many dead? —None? Any severely injured? —Three? Fine, that’ll do, which hospital? —Name and address please? Müller, Freisinger Strasse? —Thank you, Mr. Müller, many thanks, Mr. Müller, you can collect your money at the register when the article has run.” He hung up. “Well, I better conduct my inquiries on Möller very carefully.” Gohlisch was curious to know what Meise considered careful. Meise picked up the receiver and dialed a number.
“Is this Möller? This is Meise, Berliner Rundschau. What? Oh, the missus herself, please forgive me for asking, but I wanted to inquire whether your dear husband is still alive?”
After a while, Meise put down the receiver.
“Well?” asked Gohlisch.
“Mrs. Möller appears to have hung up,” said Meise.
“I can imagine,” said Gohlisch. “You call that tactful?”
“So nothing’s certain yet,” said Meise, reassured, and left.
Gohlisch wrote. Miehlke, the typesetter, knocked.
“What’s with the Käsebier story, Mr. Miermann wants to know, otherwise he’ll take the slush story, the barometer just sank.”
“Tell him that I’ll bring it to him by three thirty. I just want to have breakfast.”
With that, he put on his coat and went down to the café. Augur was sitting there.
“One breakfast with coffee,” said Gohlisch.
“Did you know,” said Augur, “Karl Lambeck has come to Berlin for his play at the Deutsches Theater. I bumped into him yesterday on Rankestrasse. I’d never seen him before, he didn’t open his mouth, but he looked great, even better than in the pictures. Aja Müller was there, that ass Lieven, and a few others.”
“So,” said Gohlisch, who didn’t much care, “why did Knorr get the gig to furnish city hall?”
“No idea,” said Augur.
“How’s your daughter, by the way?” said Gohlisch.
“She has a mild case of apicitis.”
“I’d send her off to Switzerland.”
“The doctor says she’s in no condition to travel right now, maybe later. But it’s not that bad.”
“Shall we have another grappa?” said Gohlisch. “I’d ask a different doctor, maybe you can send her to Switzerland after all,” and ordered two grappas. “The grappa is good here,” said Gohlisch, “it’s made of pure grapes. —Oh, look, it’s already three forty-five. What a thaw! It was barbarically cold today. Let Miermann use the slush story. Another coffee.”
“Yes,” said Augur. “Do you know I’m the one who wrote the article on Black Friday?”
“Congratulations,” said Gohlisch.
“What do you think I got for that information?”
“Well, you should have gotten a few thousand marks. It’s stupid, that silly gossip rag became famous all of a sudden.”
“I should have, but what I actually asked for was five hundred marks. You know what they gave me?”
“Hmm, one-fifty.”
“Thirty.”
“I’d sue.”
“What can you do, they’re my best clients.”
“All the same, that’s no good. We may be fountain pens, but a big publisher can’t just take you for a ride.”
“If I complained, I’d get four hundred marks and lose my best client. It may be a gossip magazine, but it’s independent. No one else would dare to publish the dangerous stuff I get from the ministries. It’s not worth thinking about.”
“You need a steady gig.”
“And to be dependent?”
“You’re more dependent when you’re independent. —It’s four thirty now, let Miermann use the slush story. —You know, here’s the thing: some people have a reputation and nobody notices they’re no good; some people do good work but by the time anyone notices, they’re no good anymore either. I’m a lazy bum, but nobody’s figured out how to make hard work look good to a genius like me. Well, Heil and Sieg and catch a fat one!”
With that, Gohlisch went to Otto’s wine bar. When he came back to the office at six, the slush story was typeset.
&
nbsp; Miermann’s wife was there: Emma, a slight older lady who always wore the same dark-blue dress. She was the same age as Miermann, who had taken so long to find a stable position and make a name for himself with a few thoughtful, well-written, little-read books. When Gohlisch came, she said goodbye with a friendly smile.
“I hope I haven’t scared you off,” said Gohlisch.
“God forbid, I’m happy to leave the young ones to themselves,” she said, giving her husband a benign look.
Gohlisch brought in the article about the cabaret in Hasenheide—and Käsebier.
“Let’s typeset it for next Thursday right now.”
“Otto Lambeck’s in Berlin. Augur saw him on Rankestrasse. He’s here for his play at the Deutsches Theater,” said Gohlisch.
“Your piece is a mess!” said Miermann. “There are as many commas as periods. If you say ‘as well,’ you need another ‘as’ somewhere. This sentence ends with and. Lord, Lord, forgive him, he knows not what he does. What do you mean by partout?”
“Thoroughly.”
“It means ‘everywhere.’ I don’t want to kiss Aja Müller partout, that means ‘everywhere,’ not ‘thoroughly.’ Gohlisch, Gohlisch! Keep learning. Keep improving. Do you find it pleasing to say ‘anyway’ all the time? No. You’re my problem child. Go read Fontane. And read Heine and everything—everything—by Anatole France. He’s brazen, but read him. I’ll bring you something tomorrow.”
Miermann worked on Gohlisch’s “Singer” for two hours. Finally he sent it to the composing room.
4
The article on the singer is published
WEEKS passed. Miermann and Kohler were sitting in the office on a Wednesday afternoon.
It was Kohler’s birthday, and a few people had remembered. Miermann had thought of it too. “What shall I give her?” he had asked Gohlisch.
“A book,” Gohlisch had answered. “What else could you give Miss Kohler?”
“No, that’s exactly why I’ll give her perfume.”
“Grand, how grand,” she said to Miermann when he handed her the perfume.
“How are you, anyway?” he asked.
“Not too bad, thanks.”
“Still because of Meyer?”
“Yes. I’d like to travel with him. He wants to, but he doesn’t.”
“But that won’t do! You can’t let him notice; if he does, you’re done for. He’ll never marry you if you make it that easy for him.”
The young woman thought, It’s 1929. In 1929, it’s ridiculous not to have a boyfriend, especially when you’re thirty. He’s a bohemian from 1890. Still has notions of “dishonor.” Out loud, she said, “Shall we order coffee and cake to celebrate? The beginning of spring, I mean.”
The phone rang. “I’ve got to go,” said Miermann. “I’m looking for a room, I posted an ad today. I’ve gotten an offer in the neighborhood. I’m going there later.”
“It’s tricky with the rooms around here. You won’t find something you can count on. They’re all disgusting. And the hotels are impossible,” said Miss Kohler.
“You think so?”
“Is she quite young?”
“No, well over thirty.”
“All the same, cafés and cars kill all love, it’s ghastly.”
“I’ll take a look at the room,” Miermann said as Gohlisch came in. “What will we run as the lead tomorrow?” he asked.
“I don’t know either,” said Gohlisch. “Is this the right kind of weather for thinking about the papers? You could write about old gardens, or Heine’s balcony, or the first spring flowers, or love in Potsdam. But what’s in the papers? Poland’s demands on Germany. Notes on the budget of the Ministry of Transportation. Lord Asquith is dead, and there’s a Negro singer in Berlin. That’s how it is.”
Miermann dug around in his folder. “Three articles by Aja Müller. ‘Crowning the Queen of Fashion.’ ‘How Do I Clean My Nails?’ ‘An Afternoon with a Screen Actress.’ That won’t do. That’s something for the society papers, but not for us; we still want to be taken seriously. I’ll send it all back to her. Gohlisch, you know we still have the article on Käsebier in the overmatter, let’s use it. We’d almost forgotten about it. Miehlke would say it doesn’t matter.”
“And nothing does,” said Gohlisch, but he still went into the composing room. Miehlke couldn’t find the set type anymore.
“It’s gone,” said Miehlke. “I can’t find it. You’ll have to come back round quarter to five.”
Miehlke was the best typesetter in Berlin. No one understood why he hadn’t moved on to the Berliner Tageszeitung long ago. But he was sixty-five years old, and at that age one doesn’t like change. Miehlke searched the room, growing angry. Gohlisch stood in the corner, meek and unobtrusive. In the meantime, iron forms filled with type came out of the composing room. Cut-up bits of manuscript lay under each line of type. An elegant young man of about thirty, a bon vivant in a gray linen smock who always asked editorial for free tickets to the movies, removed the type sorts from the galleys and placed them on the table at record speed. Metal sorts lay on the table, which he picked up and reassembled into new galleys. It was a wonder that “Olympics Without Football” didn’t get mixed up with “Romanian Parliament Dissolves,” or “Disturbances at the Halsmann Trial” with “The New Romanticism.” But they didn’t get mixed up; they were assembled. One man laid the type-filled galleys on the printing press, placed pieces of paper over the galleys, pulled the lever, and there was the article. He hung up the long galley proofs on hooks; one was labeled National Desk, another Foreign Affairs, one was Heye, another Miermann. Hooks for the culture, sports, and local sections were on the other side.
New manuscripts came out of the newsroom. Miehlke cut up the manuscripts as if in a sped-up film. He wrote “8-pt., ⅛.” on them in red, “65, 66, 67,” and cut the page at every number. Then the cut-up pages went into the composing room.
Galleys filled with type for unpublished articles lay under the table. Miehlke searched. It was almost five o’clock.
“I’m outta time,” said Miehlke. “It’s almost time to go to press, the pages’ve gotta go out.” Gohlisch started searching too.
“Get outta here,” said Miehlke. “You’re in the way.”
Gohlisch was feverishly trying to spot his article in reversed type. The big clock said 5 p.m.—five more minutes, otherwise it would be too late. He found it! Miehlke grumbled.
The printer put through the page. Gohlisch carried off the big galley, which proclaimed MONTMARTRE IN BERLIN, with the headline in Renata three.
Gohlisch went to Miermann. “I think the headline looks bad in Renata,” he said.
“Quick, quick, take something else and set it twelve point.”
Gohlisch deliberated. Koenig Bold, ugh, he couldn’t stand Koenig Bold, everyone was using Koenig bold these days. Over the article, he wrote, “Cheltenham italic, Versalia bold, twelve point.”
“Hey, that’s something special, we don’t see type like that every day.”
“Mr. Miehlke, please—Cheltenham italic for the headline, set twelve point, Versalia bold.”
Briese the typesetter came over and said admiringly, “That’ll look good.”
The article stood there, broken up by the names and numbers of the typesetters. Polte, machine 30, Schwarz, machine 32, Numratzki, machine 36, Hoppe, machine 25. Those are the setters, thought Gohlisch. They make between six and seven hundred marks a month, as much as I do, a compositor makes five hundred marks, and Miermann, our Miermann, gets eight hundred. He’s been here too long. If you stay that long, no one appreciates you.
The article came back. The headline had been changed.
“Looks good,” said Gohlisch.
“Very nice,” said the head of the culture section.
The head of the printing room came and looked at the headline. “Very good,” he said. “Cheltenham isn’t used often enough, more Versalia bold would be better too.”
“There’s not enough variat
ion in the typefaces,” said Gohlisch.
Then the editors swarmed into the composing room in time for the printing.
Schröder stood there, ranting that there was too little room. New elections, metal workers’ lockout, the German embassy and the Cavell Film company, the Wyszaticki trial, the committee debate on draft service. Administrative reform. Higher education. Statistics on Berlin. The warmest day in February. Massive fire in Charlottenburg. Streetcar collision with tractor. Where to put it? Where to put it? One is as important as the other. The new elections can’t go, and every other paper has the German embassy and Cavell Film too. So cut thirty lines on “Higher Education”! Cut “Social Debates in the Reichstag” to sixty lines! Stick “Unrest at Yesterday’s Boxing Matches” on page four! Arts section too long! Cut twenty-five lines on the world premiere in Vienna! And the fourteen-year-old who just had a child!
“Gohlisch, proofread it quickly, otherwise you won’t make it.”
Gohlisch read. Damn it, he thought, they typeset earth for soul. Typos, typos! You could never rely on the proofreaders.
Blumenfeld, the sports editor, called out, “For the ‘One Thousand Guineas’ race they typeset ‘On Those and Guineas.’ ”
“Gohlisch, cut twenty lines, quick.”
“I can’t cut anymore, the article is completely pared down, what can I still cut?”
“Cut, cut,” Miehlke shouted. “You always think it matters, it doesn’t matter. Otherwise I’ll cut. Can’t print on the margins.”
“You’re right there, Miehlke.”
Gohlisch cut. An old man came with pincers and cut away the excess. The page was done. Miermann ordered a printing. Gohlisch held the wet page in his hand; it smelled vile. The page looked good, possibly even very good. One-eighth ads. At the top, MONTMARTRE IN BERLIN. The headline in Cheltenham Italic, set twelve point, Versalia Bold; next to it, BERLIN STATISTICS as main headline. Below, a second headline: BIRTH, MARRIAGE, AND DEATH. And beneath, a third: BERLIN FACES DIRE FATE WITHOUT IMMIGRATION.
“Those three headlines are wonderfully complementary,” said Miermann. “Bernhard bold twelve point for ‘Berlin Statistics,’ true objectivity, ‘Birth, Marriage, and Death’ is almost cosmic in Schwabacher Tertia, and bold Koenig Korpus for the swan song: ‘Berlin Faces Dire Fate without Immigration.’ No one pays any mind to the stuff in eight-point font.”
Käsebier Takes Berlin Page 4
