Grace’s breast moves in my hand as I dial Tuuli’s number, Svensson Home. Grace is asleep or pretending to be asleep. If Felix answers, I’ll hang up, I decide, and with each ring in the receiver, with each inhalation, with each exhalation, I say to myself what I’ll say to Tuuli: the two of you stop calling me, get your own telephone number, do whatever you want, but give me my books back, give me my plants back, and what about the plates and cups, what am I supposed to eat off and drink from? If the two of you could see me now, you’d be surprised how thin I am, Svensson’s all skin and bones, the old Svensson has almost disappeared. Fuck and live wherever you want, but if you could see me now, Tuuli, if you could see me now, you’d be worried. Grace wakes up, I trace my finger around her nipple, the sunlight is pouring into the room and I’m in the middle of it, on the fire escape sits a crow, the porcelain dog is still staring, Grace’s nipple is so much darker, it contracts so much more than Tuuli’s. Do you know any German? I ask. You’re my first one, says Grace. She turns on her side, she’s not interested in the telephone either. I count the tattoos just to the left of her spine, down her whole back, the characters I can’t read. I lay my other ear on Grace’s hip, look directly into the sun and grab her from behind between the legs, maybe because I have to, when someone picks up the phone. I say, I just want to see your face, Tuuli, that’s all. But then it’s Felix who answers and says the boy was born on Saturday.
August 6, 2005
(Master of chairs, master of chickens)
In my head this image remains: Elisabeth in late summer under a village linden between Fischland and Darss, leaning on the hood of my R4, her red dress (second wedding not in white!) and the dahlias in her left hand, singing “The Linden Tree,” Am Brunnen vor dem Tore, / Da steht ein Lindenbaum, at her side children wrapped in towels on the way back from the beach. How she then goes down on her knees next to a little girl and points at me, that man over there is named Mandelkern and is now my husband (the red of the dress and the towel’s green fight). Elisabeth laughs, I laugh too.
Lua
Now the small, pretty mother is laughing and the dog is coughing. I’m standing with the rope in my hand under an alley of lindens on the shore of Lake Lugano and observing Svensson (in the sunlight the fine drops of the linden flowers, which will now be sticking to our windshield in Hamburg). Svensson lets go of the small woman’s hand, the boy stands next to his mother and observes the three-legged dog on the boat. The animal is a kind of German shepherd, black and old, he has a light spot on his chest and stands on his foreleg coughing on the boat’s bench, or maybe he’s barking, I can’t tell the difference (fatigue). The dirty swans turn away. I don’t understand what Svensson is saying, he’s gesturing at the boat and the dog, he’s pointing at me, then out at the lake. Finally he holds out his cap to the boy, but the boy doesn’t take the cap. When Svensson then tries to shake his hand, the boy evades him and starts to climb across two or three pedal boats toward the boat (Svensson awkwardly following). The boy looks past Svensson to his mother. The sun has now sunk lower over the smooth water, occasionally a light breeze comes out of nowhere, and the dog stops his coughing (the lake suddenly like plastic wrap). The small, pretty woman (Tuuli) takes another two drags and again stamps out her cigarette with her heel.
Who exactly is Daniel Mandelkern?
I’m a journalist, I say, Daniel Mandelkern. Then I apologize to the small, pretty woman for not having introduced myself sooner, I’m here to conduct an interview with Svensson, I’m actually an ethnologist, but I’m currently working as a freelance cultural journalist. She smiles (she keeps her eye on the boy). So it’s Mandelkern, Manteli in my language, she laughs, Karvasmanteli (Manteli must mean “almond” too). The success of Svensson’s book is really remarkable, I say (awkwardly), of course I’m not the only one whose interest has been aroused, and: I find it equally remarkable that for the whole journey we had the same destination.
There are more important things,
she says, going around me and my outstretched hand, you’re not going to get anywhere with your interview today, Karvasmanteli, just come along (she speaks slowly and clearly). Svensson jumps ashore again, and tries to help her across the pedal boats, but she too steers clear of Svensson. He holds his hands apologetically in the air. Svensson and I watch as she sits down on the deck between the dog and the boy. She talks to the boy, she seems to be explaining the dog’s three legs (Finnish is a soft language). Finally Svensson asks: You’re Mandelkern? In reply I repeat: yes, it’s very nice to meet you, we have an appointment here this afternoon, Riva Albertolli, right? Svensson looks at me silently. I’m holding the plastic bag with my notebooks, postcards, and shirts in one hand and the small woman’s suitcase in the other (in my head: Elisabeth in the bathroom; the drizzle on the chestnut trees as I ran off last night). I’m early, I say to Svensson, my baggage is still on its way, I’d be glad to wait here for you. In the sunlight between the lindens a few old men play chess, panama hats and bright summer shirts (I could join them). But Svensson shakes his head: Climb aboard and come along, he says, or stay here, it’s completely up to you, Mandelkern. You decide (memory is bulky baggage).
hairpins and the deeper water
Here in Lugano there’s no wind, the mountains on the right and left are wearing thin clouds, near the shore the lake is a translucent green, but after a few meters the bottom is already no longer visible. Svensson backs the boat between the pedal boats into the deeper water, then he shifts into forward, accelerating so suddenly that the boat rises steeply. The heavy dog loses his balance and, lying on his side, slides across the wet deck (his foreleg a frantic scratching on wood). Tuuli with the Finnish passport falls toward me, her head lies briefly on my shoulder (she clutches the boy immediately with both arms). From up close I don’t smell any trace of her cigarettes, the light hair on the nape of her neck is sticky, I think of milk. Svensson apologizes, the boat slows down. The dog struggles to his feet, the boy closes his eyes, a hairpin falls on the deck and glimmers in the puddle (for blonde women there are golden hairpins, says Elisabeth, for dark-haired women there are black ones, but for redheads there are none. My reply: girls with freckles and red hair are honored guests in the devil’s lair, followed by Elisabeth’s laughter). I pick up the hairpin, dry it off, and give it back to Tuuli. The dog is coughing again, now the boy is crying after all, one of the yellow swans soars into the air and follows the boat.