Axolotl Roadkill

by Helene Hegemann

  ‘And the third one?’

  ‘You go back to sleep now, and afterwards I’ll read you the story about the pig that wouldn’t wash. There’s this pig that refuses to take a bath, and then one day it does have a bath and it never wants to get out again because it’s so great. And after that I’ll read you that other book, the one that explains what all the different kinds of tractors do.’

  ‘Why such crap books?’

  ‘Because you chose them yesterday, Bibi.’

  Then we all sit there with gelatinous milk chocolate mush in our mouths and alternate between discussing German splatter films, Madonna’s biceps and therapy programmes.

  ‘When I was a twenty-six-year-old student I was so broke that I put a small ad in the paper, with a female friend of mine. We called ourselves “Amor and Psyche”, that was kind of hip back then, and we advised men with no sex lives on the broad subject of women for fifty euro an hour.’

  ‘Like consultant physicians?’

  ‘Yup. Oh, er, hmmm, maybe you should try this one: not wearing clothes.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘It was a complete nightmare, we’d be sitting there with these unattractive consultant physicians and persuading them, hey, if you can get a woman to talk about her childhood, that means she’s in love with you.’

  ‘Well, I was raped as a child.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘No. The whole rape thing’s just supposed to relativize the fact that I still expect anything from that disgusting bastard. I love the guy. He’s not the only person I love, but he might be the only one I can still believe in, surrounded by all this stupid out-of-touch shit here. So. And then I had a mother too until not that long ago. Very simple issue: she was schizophrenic, obsessive-compulsive, neurotic, sadistic, highly intelligent and unemployable because of the drugs. We lived in a one-bedroom flat and shared a bed every night until she died. Whenever I woke up in the morning and she wasn’t lying next to me, I knew she’d be stretched out over the kitchen table, totally melancholy and drunk as a skunk with her head buried in her arms. I get home, she’s lying around somewhere – that’s how our peaceful coexistence worked for the main part. Putting up with her corporal punishment was a relatively bearable state of affairs, because then our roles were clearly defined and my position was clear-cut: just being the weak one for a change. I read this book a while back about codependency but I couldn’t find an explanation model that fitted me. They analysed all these different family combinations, but drug-addict single parents with only children between three and thirteen simply don’t come up. In view of all that, I can say, yes, I went through some stuff back then, and now I’m starting to ask myself how I managed it. But unfortunately it didn’t make me into a great artist. It’s really kind of difficult for me. All that getting tortured. It switches off your dissociation, your ability to adapt; a person like that can’t get used to physical pain.’

  ‘It’s amazing that you can talk about it.’

  ‘See? That’s what I was going for, that one bastard sentence that I never wanted to hear again. It doesn’t make any difference whether I talk about it or not. I’ve been repeating myself for three years, in this glitter, dirt and sequin system, a real bad nightmare bass for grown-ups. I can’t stand it. I have no problem talking about anything that’s ever happened to me that entails post-traumatic disorders, but you know, it’s a total myth that it’s possible to get your head around all your personal issues with all that psychology crap. It doesn’t get you anywhere. Regardless of that, what you can say is, I’ll be disabled for the rest of my life and no one can change that. I’ll be able to understand the behaviour of suicide bombers for the rest of my life, and no one can change that.’

  ‘Yes, maybe.’

  ‘I have a whole load of raised scars to show off as soon as anyone accuses me of social incompetence or anything else, and then they leap up like enchanted ambulance-chasers – the whole deadly dull mass of psychologists, constantly maintaining something curdled into general understanding – and then they say, oh, what did they do to you, how great that you can talk about it, then maybe you’ll finally be normal soon. And that cements me right back into the victim maze, while all the others stumble out triumphantly somewhere or other. Every single second, you have to remember to conform to some norm or other and slave away at some stupid convention crap or other. She abandoned me once, when I was about sixteen months old. And everyone says you can’t remember that far back, but I remember that feeling, of being abandoned, and in a way being killed to some extent as well. Can you imagine how mega-aggressive I am to all the pseudo-experienced bastards all around me, who’ve never been confronted with any serious difficulty except maybe rheumatism or a broken heart? And then they want to tell me what to do in life and what’s acceptable and what’s not and what’s OK from an artistic point of view and that you must never talk about that kind of subject in a socially critical singsong, because that’s repulsive and out and everything has to take place on a totally sober and best of all entertaining level or best of all not at all, because it’s not even a social taboo, all it is is kitsch. I’m always thinking no – you have no idea of anything except orderly conditions, and as soon as your conditions aren’t orderly, if they’re not neat and tidy like they ought to be then you just take a brief jaunt through some kind of drug hell or you go to wild parties or puke all down your nineteen-forties Gucci dress, and that’s that, you go straight back to your tagliatelle. I hate people. Apart from Bibi, she’s great, I’ve just noticed. She’s sitting over there, throwing specially designed pharaohs off Playmobil cliffs, and she doesn’t ask too much. Modest and unassuming. Top of the pops.’

  ‘Did they even have Gucci in the Forties?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Are you in love with anyone right now?’

  ‘Yes, you can tell, can’t you? I’m in love with someone who said things to me that I’ve started dreaming about now. Every night. Shit. Now I’ve really gone and turned into one of those melodramatic weeping Wendys just because the woman happens to be perverted. And then I had a row with my best friend the day before yesterday. If the worst comes to the worst, she’ll write and tell me she’ll always love me and she can tell by my eyes where I’ve been and she’s my witness. And then we’ll never see each other again. We’ve always argued, once just because I made her a mix-tape and that offended her honour as a music expert, but this time it’s different somehow. None of it matters anyway.’

  ‘Shall we have another lie-down?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Then we lie on his bed side by side, while outside lots of friendly little people go to work or eat cream cheese bagels. Just before I fall asleep he says, ‘Turn around a bit, I want to show you something.’ And when I turn around he just puts his arm around me, in that decisive banker’s manner you see in films occasionally, and then I fall asleep, and when I wake up for a moment in between, I put my arm around him for a change, and then I fall asleep again. The whole thing ends up with his head between my legs and me screaming in ecstasy and tossing and turning from left to right and digging my hands into his elbows as he props himself up on the bed.

  At some point I force myself to get up. As I’m tiptoeing to the front door I spot an aquarium lined with large pebbles on top of a cabinet in the hall. Estimated gross water capacity, 160 litres. It has to be lighter in the aquarium during the day than at night, and that just about sums up the axolotl’s needs in terms of lighting concepts. If there was ever a more idyllic moment in the history of my personal heteromatrix or at least in the history of humankind, then I’ve never heard about it.

  From:

  Ophelia

  To:

  Mifti

  Subject:

  Day before day before yesterday

  ‘That’s my childhood, the childhood of an orphan, a foundling, a homeless little girl with no father or mother, who never had love bestowed upon her. It was awful, but I have no regrets.’ And then she said, ‘Pretti
ness fades, beauty remains.’ What terrible thing did you send me, it made me want to puke – animal masks are totally in right now, non-stop animal masks, expressionless potato fields everywhere you look and expressionless people in animal masks. The two of us can be so unbeatable together and stir up the whole crappy little pessimistic leftist cultural scene so bad it makes them all break out in a sweat. I know all the tricks, I just haven’t used any of them yet.

  You have to tell me what your songs are called so I can use them on my life.

  From:

  Mifti

  To:

  Ophelia

  Subject:

  RE: Day before day before yesterday

  (I-now-because everyone’s stopped doing

  culture-think-doing a bit of

  art-wouldn’t do me any harm as the

  idiots’ mainstream arrogance is suddenly

  befalling us, the lower

  middle class has it’s parents’ money – so we could

  almost . . . be like Oscar

  Wilde wrote . . . are you down with me? guess so)

  are you flattering me? aren’t we experts at that?

  don’t I know all the tricks?

  is hate love hate and hate love or love despite

  precisely because nevertheless or simply

  it isn’t

  simple

  PS: Just to get one thing straight: there’s nothing you can give me in terms of music that I don’t yet have, don’t already know. And darling, there is no generally accepted hierarchy that covers all aspects of life. That’s a classic German fallacy. Of course you’re miles above me, but you know that already. I’m less than existent in German culture. But I don’t care about that. I’ll just let you have your world and you let me have mine.

  From:

  Mifti

  To:

  Ophelia

  Subject:

  RE: RE: Day before day before yesterday

  You’ve adapted to set patterns of thinking and feeling because you’ve internalized norms. That’s your personality structure and that’s carved in stone for the most part.

  Not that I care. I don’t know what to say to you, honestly.

  From:

  Ophelia

  To:

  Mifti

  Subject:

  RE: RE: RE: Day before day before yesterday

  My dear, I’m really not made to worship other people – even you – how can you think something like that? Why should one person be above another person? What criteria is that based on? Let me assure you, I’m a long way down in your ranking system. Personality structure? Since when has anything like that existed and why should personality be static?

  OK, I’m not fucking German and I do not understand half of your way of thinking BUT, Jesus, how dare you think that music is received by me just the same way as it is by hundreds of other people? That was insulting. Well, it’s the internet and it’s easy. Press delete or ignore – what the hell did you think I had to offer you?

  Let’s just not talk about music, OK? What norms have I internalized? Saying that’s just a phrase, and phrases are way below your level. Also, I’d really be interested in what my structure looks like, that one that’s carved in stone. Because you’re the first person who’s ever been able to define it in words. What do you want? To keep me?

  From:

  Ophelia

  To:

  Mifti

  Subject:

  RE: RE: RE: RE: Day before day before yesterday

  Yes, of course.

  From:

  Pörksen

  To:

  Mifti

  Subject:

  (no subject)

  Sorry, Mifti, we didn’t really talk properly at the wedding – just wanted to get back to you on the subject of that thing again. You’re plagued by existential fears? Man, hey, YOU’RE the one plaguing the EXISTENTIAL FEARS! I messed up. I’m a baaaastard, I know. But seeing as we’ve had the same kind of missing each other so many times the other way round, and seeing as you love me, just like I love you (and dammit, I do!), I know you will and must forgive me. Yup, it’s as simple as that, honey-bun (goddammit!). Shall we go to Stadtbad tonight? Or to Arm und Sexy. Or we could have a grog together at lunchtime or eat mince. I’m at the office, the only dumb thing is I forgot my telephone so you can only get me via thingy, you know.

  From:

  Ophelia

  To:

  Mifti

  Subject:

  RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Day before day before yesterday

  That’s easily said. And you know it.

  Dear Holy Saint Mifti, in view of yesterday’s situation I started wondering what you expect from me. To look old and ugly next to you? To admire you unconditionally?

  I have to ask you again, how can you not have noticed that I’m not made to worship other people? You’ve had enough experience out there! And I’m not some insignificant director’s 46-year-old ex-girlfriend who you want to manipulate.

  All I’m getting at is that I want you to allow me something that makes me me. I feel like we’re in an ‘anything you can do I can do better’ situation. Of course you get more confirmation, because I’m a complete coward and I hoard files of photos and texts and music on my computer and under the bed. Because I create extreme amounts of stuff and then lose interest in it as soon as it’s finished, which actually corresponds to the idea of art, that if it’s a question of art or life, I’m always shouting out: both – and please, what’s the difference if you mean it seriously. Your family said art, mine said money. And now, as you can imagine, I’m annoyed that it’s all lying around somewhere not making any profit.

  I ask myself three things: are you worth all the effort and why should I ever go anywhere with you ever again and apart from that, how inflationary is your use of compliments, in actual fact?

  Sometimes I wish I knew how you’d insult me, then I’d know what’s the worst thing to expect from you – and that’s not psycho, it’s strategic.

  I’m so dissociative that I can turn into what other people see in me, so I’m sure you’ll allow me to ask a couple of questions before I transform into a forty-year-old wreck just to make you happy.

  I’m fantastically socially compatible, as long I don’t care about the people I’m dealing with. If you say so, I’ll keep Saturday free, but if I end up hanging around and waiting and don’t hear from you, then I won’t do anything with you again.

  And if you’re gone now, you’re gone. Better now than later, when you’ve got used to someone.

  I’m sooo tired, Mifti, I’m tired and dumb and sad and I’m just scared that the little bit I have will end up halved and halved to infinity, and nothing will be left of me.

  From:

  Mifti

  To:

  Ophelia

  Subject:

  RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Day before day before yesterday

  I means love nothing else.

  From:

  Mifti

  To:

  Ophelia

  Subject:

  RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Day before day before yesterday

  I means: it means love nothing else.

  From:

  Mifti

  To:

  Ophelia

  Subject:

  RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Day before day before yesterday

  Meant.

  16th June

  I can’t walk straight any more. The train arrives quite blurred, and it’s boiling hot inside. We take off our sweatshirt jackets and grab four seats facing each other. There are all these super-micro-families in endless variations of checked shirts around us, making like they’re really ‘touched’ as soon as their gaze inevitably falls on me. So I’m sitting there, an insane emptiness in my head, everything’s kind of all right, and only the whites of my eyes are visible, so to speak. My pupils keep drifting off the whole time. Everything, happens, like, kinda.

  Then at some point a park bench. Edmond, An
nika and me staring bombed out of our brains at a couple of bunny rabbits by the tree opposite us. Funnily enough, I expect a yielding crack as my skull is shattered by something like a baseball bat and I tip over. There’ve been no sounds for a while now anyway. I give a wail of pain, grab my head and crawl around on the grass, yelling through the litter on the ground, I breathe out, and bright white smoke rolls along a neat sandy path, disappearing in the shadow of the tree and coming back to us a moment later, until we’re wrapped in a lead-grey cloud. Crazy weather, by the way, I think it might be Sunday, Wednesday at most. A group of women in bright pink sports outfits jog past us, laughing. My mobile rings. Edmond and Annika give each other a kind of funny look, and when my father pipes up on the other end and says, ‘Kiddo, I have to read you something!’ another paranoia attack struggles to the surface.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They knocked out the old stove in the bedroom yesterday, the whole flat’s covered in dust sheets and someone knocked over a bucket of rubble. Anyway, on the wall behind the stove, where that huge picture of the forest used to be, there are all these old newspapers from 1960, and it says, “To Yuri Gagarin, USSR – congratulations on your great achievement! Humankind has always dreamed of flying into space!”’

  ‘Ah, that’s sweet.’

  ‘Do you want to come round for a bit?’

  We don’t say a single word on the way to our father’s place. We haven’t exchanged one word all day long, but suddenly the silence isn’t the result of pure boredom, it’s something else; something more unnerving. As if the other two were in on a plot against me, and it’s giving them a guilty conscience.