But next day she greeted me as merrily as the earlybird. Howdy, wage slave! Howdy, whore! I appropriated that word, I think, in every post-Babylonian tongue. And I was gettin fed up too. It was better flyin around on bikes with Kopic. All the combinations and permutations and multiplications and alphabets were startin to make me sick. Light and heavy private odors. Too many moist things. Sheets, shits. Too many stains. Pubes and hairs. Every dirty line of work’s got its sad or brutal consequences. Their business. But most of those whores were slaves. And a lot of em weren’t there voluntarily, that’s bullshit, and anyone who says so deserves to get his face bashed. Some were obvious victims that would’ve gotten under the wheel anytime anywhere. Some liked it. Some were chasing the golden dream and refused to give it up. They went right on dreaming, eyes shut, taking wheelies for the nightmares. And many were forced into it by slaps, poverty, fear. They’d run away from wars, scary streets, factories. Idiotic dads and dangerous lovers. A couple girls there couldn’t’ve been a day over fourteen. They got old fast. Coke and booze and bed. They didn’t know anything else. And what else’s a slave? The pimps’ mugs were as bad as the spooks’, if not worse. The girls got beatings. Whenever they acted up, and sometimes just for the hell of it. So they’d know where they were and what they were worth. The romantic, picturesque life of the whore was probably dreamed up by some delirious writer as a reward for an unreal amount of pumping, licking, pinching, blowing, and stroking … his nerves must’ve been trembling pretty good … by the time he got it up. Maybe there’s other brothels. But if this is one …
There was one strange thing there that no one ever talked about. And that’s what did me in. I couldn’t even pry anything outta Litka, who’d worked her way up to the bar, and that’s up there in the hierarchy.
This woman dressed all in black, down to the veil over her face. She also had a hat, a very elegant one if I may say so. I was somewhere off in a corner, stationed behind my sword, a.k.a. my broom, dipping a rag into my shield, when she came clattering up the stairs past me like I didn’t even exist. She always went by at the same time. Slicing through the air as she moved, or more like outside of it. I know what a dance is, and this woman danced with every move she made, yet with extreme dignity. In her cold and mechanical movements she was … free. That’s how she wanted it. Any marshal, any statesman that nods to the crowd from a red carpet, could learn a lesson in dignity. To see this … lady walking up the brothel stairs. She had her own room, just to herself. I wasn’t allowed to clean in there. But one day, swayed by curiosity, I knocked on her door. I knew she didn’t have anyone in there. Her door had a peephole, she slid it open. I saw her face, actually just part of it, without the veil, that was enough. She was wearing a black mask, so I couldn’t see even a wedge of skin, only her eyes. Those eyes were naked, like there was nothing behind them anymore. Domineering, icy, very evil. I dropped the rag and stammered something. The peephole slid shut.
I knew what Domination was, what it meant here in this brothel. Whipping, just another one of the numbers in the matrix. Only this was something different. I ran downstairs to the bar and told Litka: Make it a double. An if you got any feelings at all for the wage slave standin in front of you, tell me who that woman is. Ich verstehen nichevo. C’mon, Litka, don’t do this to me. She could see I was a total wreck. And what she told me stuck in my head, my brain translated it from Kanak. You saw her, huh? Yep … the mask, the eyes. Hey, how much does she go for? One trick? Girl behind the bar oughta know these things. She’s not for you … she said a sum that took my breath away. You could get a Rolls Royce for that! Maybe two, said Litka. She started wiping glasses, all at once she had her hands full. You know they always come in the back way for her, through that hallway where we’re not allowed. They built it just for her. Sure I know, I faked. But she takes the stairs. Walks around here like she owns the place, I said. Yeah, she even stops at the bar sometimes. I got a feelin she … likes it here. She gives people these looks sometimes, the girls. They’re afraid of her. She never talks to anyone. An you know what else … the girls say she’s dead. What? No way! The girls say she’s dead … but I think maybe she’s a famous actress, some star or somethin … an guests like havin her here for the atmosphere. Well, Litka, you’re no dummy, kein durak. That’s gotta be it. What those girls said, there’s no way. Then again, you know what the Russians say: vsyo mozhno, anything’s possible … myezhdu nyebom i zemli, between heaven and earth, I added, flipping my thumb up and down. Und under zemliyo, the whore added in Kanak. We laughed. Have another shot on me, Litka. I got a new job. Difrent verk. Luchshi rabota. Grosse marka. Geld. You’re leaving? Varum? It hit her hard, I could tell. There’d been more than one of those shots. She said to definitely stop by sometime … just to say hi. But I didn’t. I knew she was halfway hoping I’d get her out of there. I just wasn’t up for it.
And it was back to riding with Kopic, making merry and whizzing around. I put the brothel out of my mind. Shimako and Chiharu began teaching me words. Omako, they’d whisper, leering. Omako, omaku, omaken, rite nau, Chiharu san, et aussi, Shimako san, heh? Koishii avec moi, yoo super ober lesbien sistrs, ja? Nein, nein, nix omako avec moi, nix omako avec nous! Rien! they giggled, holding each other’s hand. We went for walks through Berlun, alerting each other to landmarks and miracles. One window had an effigy strung up in it. Its face was bloody. Ketchup dripped from it onto the pavement. Nagel für prasident! Any president that’d let this stuff go on’s got some strange ideas about runnin a country, I politicized. Guess they’re just different, Jakob concluded. I went into a bakery to get some rolls. There was a little lake with swans swimming in it. Plus there were like 60 kinds of rolls and not one of em looked normal. I fled. The Japanese Kanaks cracked up laughing and went off to shop on their own. I waited outside, chain-smoking and observing life. When they came out, I carried their bag. They enjoyed it so much, I think sometimes they went shopping just so they could have a guy behind em carrying their bags. It was new for them. They’d look back and giggle. Wave to me every so often. Those two had wads of yen. They were in movies.
I liked their moola, it had holes drilled in it. Reminded me of the shells some of the black Kanaks wore around their necks. Maybe money started somethin like that. People from crustaceans an people’s money from crustaceans’ protective armor. Anything is possible. I pitched yen with Kopic’s kids. They kept winning. Yeah … yeah, I thought to myself, you don’t hafta win every time … looking into the pools of their almond eyes, sparkling as they cleaned me out … just make sure you never lose for keeps, Hansel, an you too, Gretel, be wary on your path in the woods, steer clear of the traps, an torch that monster when it tries to gobble you up.
Chiharu and Shimako were constantly soaking and scrubbing each other. Berlun seemed filthy to them. What snow-white pastures do you hail from, O copper-skinned maidens, golden ones? But they’d escaped them. They knew their way around shopping, the rest of us other things. I was very astonished to hear they thought the salespeople were rude. I always got embarrassed in stores. Exotic-smelling beauties wrapping my pair of potatoes or kilo of milk in silk, tying it up in a bright-colored ribbon, and smiling at me like a newlywed bride. Too many smiles, nothing but considerateness, excessive kindness. But then Shimako san explained that it was just another tribal contract. Dis voman, she pointed a long painted nail at the salesgirl, in Tokyo owt of jop. Imposseeblay to tuch yor noze. Vhen tok to kunden. Before the poor newly unemployed girl could finish blowing her nose, I got it. A smile lit up my face too, though not so my cavity-ridden fangs showed. Oil rite, na ja, panyahtno, honto, tribal contract. And what’s fermenting down there, beneath the surface … I’m quite familiar with that.