Can you elaborate on that?
Svensson’s reply: Claasen is his neighbor, a former journalist from Germany, his wife left him, the children are already grown up. Now this pyromaniac in early retirement burns his possessions every day at four, log after log, dry and damp wood, leaves, grass. Svensson opens another window shutter. Furniture, pictures, books. Clothing is the worst. Do you smell that? Melting seventies synthetics: jackets, suits, shirts, dresses. Sometimes Claasen gazes into a book for hours before he throws it into the fire. Depending on the wind direction, a veil of the desire to forget hangs over the shore, when no wind is blowing you sometimes can’t see the other side of the lake (Caravina). Svensson gives me back the bag and turns to the door. Make yourself at home, Mandelkern, get some rest, if you’d like. We’ll call you down for dinner later, and I again say “okay” (you look tired, Mandelkern, Elisabeth would say, lie down).
my assignment, my profession
My assignment: get on the trail of Svensson the man. The true personality of the artist, said Elisabeth after the editorial meeting on Friday, always remains hidden behind success stories (this is what interests Elisabeth). My assignment doesn’t have much to do with my vocation. My profession: I’m an ethnologist, even if my dissertation has been shelved for two years (“Thick Participation and Mediated Identity: A Method in Flux”). It deals with distance and proximity (the ethnological dilemma). Sooner or later, everything I write has to do with me, I think, and of all thoughts it is this one with which Svensson leaves me alone in his room (I find myself in the middle of the group under investigation).
Optolyth
The room has very high ceilings. The shelves on the walls are nearly empty: a little bit of dust on them as if the books were only just removed, a few novels left behind. On the wall hang three large paintings (about 1 x 2 meters), opposite them under the three windows looking out on the lake stands a small, tidy desk, arranged on it along an invisible grid: two small yogurt jars (La Laitière), in the first a yellow pencil, some paper clips, loose change (Swiss francs, dollars, euros, reais), in the second a few crayons. Then a letter holder (without letters), an inkwell (without ink), in the middle a pair of binoculars (Optolyth). A hotel bill for 84.50 euros (Hotel Stella d’Italia, dated August 4, 2004). On the back of the desk a row of reference books (show me what you read, and I’ll tell you who you are, Elisabeth once said to me, referring to my ethnographies, theoretical writings, lists, and notebooks). Next to the reference books a green plastic picture frame, in it a photo of Svensson and Tuuli. She’s smiling, she looks tired, between them a blond man. Svensson is holding the camera. In the background a chimney, the three faces pale and red-eyed from the flash; the blond man is laughing exuberantly and holding a beer can up to the camera (Pabst Blue Ribbon). And finally, the outlines of a monitor and a keyboard in the dust on the desk. I put my bag on the desk and take out my notebook. It’s now Saturday afternoon, Elisabeth will have gone to the office today despite everything. She’ll drink water and write until her headache is gone. She’ll try to call me at the Hotel Lido Seegarten, she’ll dial my cell phone number. She’ll realize that I’ve run off (I take notes to leave a trail, each word a pebble, each sentence a row of little stones). The smoke hangs low and thick and dense over the water.
Shoot the Freak
The paintings on Svensson’s walclass="underline" 1. two old men in front of a wire fence, behind it shiny red lettering (Astroland); 2. a roller coaster and smoke (old dragon). The third and middle painting shows a very thin man in a purple T-shirt at the foot of a green children’s slide. Behind him red tower blocks, snack stands, ocean waves, and hot dogs. The man is in the middle of all this, his eyes are ill at ease, they look straight ahead and seem to threaten the painter. His pants are pulled down and hang around his thin legs, his cock is sticking out from his body (erect, pale). All the paintings in thick oil on canvas, with bottle caps, sand, and beach grass pressed into them. The brushstrokes and colors are reminiscent of the pictures in Svensson’s children’s book. Between a hot dog stand and a lottery stand stretches a series of bright-colored pennants, on each pennant a letter: SHOOT*THE*FREAK. The man resembles Svensson (self-portrait). Svensson is a strange man.
Der Lindenbaum
In my head this image remains: Elisabeth moving into her new office in the spring of 2003. I put two moving boxes down on the carpet, she sits on her desk and watches me. Marry me, she says (the commanding green of her eyes). I laugh, I close the doors to the hallway and the other offices, but then the telephone rings, and Elisabeth says, wait here, Mandelkern, wait for me.
Who exactly is Dirk Svensson?
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
Onkel Tobi by Hans G. Lenzen
Water Supply Systems for Home Farming by Williams & Steynman The Great Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds
The Encyclopedia of European Trees
Piccolo Mondo Antico by Giovanni Fogazzaro
Selected Poems by William Wordsworth
I lie down on the mattress in the corner of the room (headache) and fall asleep.
ATTENTION FRAGILE/ACHTUNG ZERBRECHLICH
At twilight I wake up and look around. Under the desk are an abandoned power strip and a huge brown leather suitcase with a heavy lock. On the ceiling a mobile that I didn’t notice earlier dangles over me (small colorful airplanes). On the floor next to my head a cheap stuffed animal (a gray mouse in blue overalls, “Euromaus” on the bib). The dog must have forgotten it. I sit down at Svensson’s desk and take Elisabeth’s ring out of my pants pocket (E. E. E.). According to the intern’s research, Svensson has no kids, even though he’s a children’s book author, and, Elisabeth added, that’s exactly what makes him interesting. Outside the dog is coughing as if he really were going to die soon. I sit down at the desk and leaf through Svensson’s books: the German shepherd, withers height 50–60 centimeters, weighs up to 40 kilos, thick undercoat, thick covering of fur, back straight and firm, life expectancy with good care and breeding fifteen years, even temperament, strong nerves, child-friendly, good-natured, and brave. My legs are too long, the desk is too low, the suitcase under the desk is too high (I’d have to sit with my legs askew). I try to move it, to pull it out, but the suitcase is defiant and drags only reluctantly across the wood, the sound must be audible in the whole house (its weight an invitation to open). I push it back into its place. Old leather, metal-reinforced corners, nicks and stickers, on the handle hangs a nametag: Felix Blaumeiser (this name for the second time already today, Tuuli called him an idiot). But Dirk Svensson is not Felix Blaumeiser, I think, unless it’s a pseudonym (inquire at some point). I take a paper clip from the yogurt jar, bend it into a hook and try to open the suitcase, but the heavy lock refuses (copper is softer than people think). I sit back down at the desk, my legs aslant on the suitcase, and write down:
— What should I write about?
— What shouldn’t I write about?
— Is the boy Svensson’s son?
— Where will his pretty mother sleep?