— How do I find out who Felix Blaumeiser was?
— Why does Lua have only three legs?
— Tuuli says that Svensson can’t paint — who painted those pictures?
— Who exactly is Kiki Kaufman?
— How do I open the suitcase?
— What are the things that Tuuli wants to show me?
Octopus
Between the books on our bedroom floor Elisabeth will now be sleeping with the window open, she’ll simply ignore the mosquitoes from the canal. My move into Elisabeth’s apartment: I admired her resolution and absence of melancholy. Elisabeth asked for a weekend, and when she called on Monday and asked me to come to the Octopus furniture store on Lehmweg, the first dumpster had already been collected and with it almost all the furniture and all the old decoration ideas. She wanted us to start with a clean slate, Elisabeth said on the telephone, paint buckets and rollers were ready for painting (the echo of her voice in the empty apartment). On the footpath along the Isekanal a sleeping fisherman and an unexpected quiet in the middle of the city. It was Monday and March, I was ready to dispose of my furniture, so to speak, I felt light (Elisabeth doesn’t cling to things). Elisabeth in the empty showrooms of the furniture store: how she picked out two tables, a bed, and a sofa. I said “I guess so” and meant “yes,” I filled out an order form. We decided on white. At one point Elisabeth spilled paint on her pants and continued to paint half naked. We no longer spoke about her marriage. My marriage, said Elisabeth, has ended up in a dumpster. For weeks I took one box of books each evening to Elisabeth’s apartment on my bike, we spoke of “our apartment.” At night take-out from the Thai place downstairs, where no one seemed to speak German (you never get what you order). In July we lay between our book piles on the newly delivered bed and drank malt beer. We didn’t have to try hard, everything came naturally. At Svensson’s desk I notice the inexplicable similarity between Elisabeth and Tuuli (my unfulfilled assignment, my unanswered questions, my many possibilities). But that isn’t a question. It’s not an answer, either (focus, Mandelkern!).
golden hairpins
The second day on Svensson’s lake has passed without hesitation (without concern for my questions). I’m standing in flip-flops in Svensson’s dark ruin, I light a cigarette, open the window, and hang my shirt over the window latch (the pane a mirror, in it Mandelkern bare-chested, smoking). The cicadas and crickets can no longer be heard, I see the dog hobbling sluggishly to the shore again, at the dock he falls heavily on his side. Why is Lua waiting for death down there by the water? Svensson is nowhere to be seen. Why am I still here? I don’t seem to be bothering Svensson in the least, and Tuuli also seems to want my presence here (my main informant). She brings me water when I’m asleep, she lays her small fingers on my chest (how easily & emptily “beauty” is written, how stupidly this cigarette hangs in the corner of my mouth!). Conjecture: Tuuli and Svensson never touch casually, on the pier in Lugano he grasped her wrist somewhat too forcefully; their relationship has passed its peak, now they’re confronting the consequences. Soon it will be midnight, there’s no more chance of Svensson unmooring his boat today. Elisabeth will now be standing in front of the fridge in our kitchen and drinking water from the bottle, dehydration is one of her new worries. She’ll be thinking about professional and private consequences (I shouldn’t still be here). My decision in the light of the last candle: think more about it tomorrow, get to the bottom of things tomorrow, interview Svensson tomorrow about his work and biography in a completely professional manner (were they in love once, is the boy Svensson’s son). Tomorrow I should ask for an interview in all soberness, leave, and send 3,000 words to the editorial department. But when I empty my pants pockets, I’m suddenly holding Tuuli’s golden hairpin in my hand (I could stay).
journalistic scrupulousness
The moon over everything an appropriate lighting. I’ve bent Svensson’s paper clips and tried his pens, I’ve searched for the key to the suitcase, I’ve pulled and tugged. Without success. My kneeling in front of the suitcase, Tuuli’s golden hairpin in my hand, the window is wide open: Macumba in the water and the lights on the other side of the lake. Do I hear footsteps on the stairs? Do I hear Tuuli singing? Is Svensson still talking? Tuuli’s hairpin is slightly curved and rounded on one end, it’s sturdy enough to turn in the lock, and Svensson’s suitcase (Blaumeiser’s suitcase) acquiesces, it opens with a soft click, and that very second all the lights turn on in the room.
That a night can suddenly be so bright.
That a dog can die so loudly.
Quiet, Lua, quiet!
My wincing and springing to my feet and standing paralyzed: I’m frozen in front of the open suitcase in the brightly lit room, the dying dog by the water is coughing and barking at the same time, down below Svensson is emerging from the house (two tinted lights at the end of the dock, a floodlight with a motion detector on the outside of the house). Tuuli follows him and talks relentlessly at him: it was a fuse, idiootti, she only had to flip the switch! Not Claasen, not a power outage, not fallen trees, not heroic independence, not rebelliously refused bill payments, not his retreat from this world, paskapää, only his morbid collection of old, useless things, his dumb insistence on a corny idea of the ruin, only his inability to deal with the present. Only a damn fuse (a bogus epiphany)! Then Lua is finally quiet.
in the suitcase
Stones (heavy), flowers (dried), finally: a thick packet, brown paper and tight packing string. I put the packet on the desk (that smell of old suitcases), untie the knots very carefully and remove the paper (journalistic scrupulousness). That a night can be so quiet (that paper can rustle so loudly). I find the light switch and turn off the lamps.
Astroland
Observed from the safe darkness of the room: on the way to the lake Svensson takes off his T-shirt, he leaves his shoes in the grass and tosses his pants aside, Tuuli picks them up and throws them at him furiously (can that be explained?). In the light of the motion detector, Svensson finally stands naked on the dock. For a moment he looks across to the opposite shore, then for a few seconds at Tuuli. She’s still berating him, but I don’t understand what she’s saying. Svensson spreads his arms and dives headfirst and perfectly straight into the black lake (reflection of the sky). The water splashes up over him, the surface evens out, Tuuli is standing alone on the dock. On the other side of the lake shines the yellow tower of Santuario di Nostra Signora della Caravina, in the deeper water is the white buoy, above the lake Monte Cecchi, the moon. Svensson has vanished (everyone is waiting). Svensson doesn’t reappear. The light over the property goes out, because no one is moving.
Svensson can’t lose.
In the unwrapped packing paper in front of me the thick stack of paper:
Capoeira with Heckler & Koch
MY BAG IN THE BACK OF THE TRUCK, THE ANTARCTICA BOTTLES open, and we’re off. David at the wheel of the red pickup, Felix in an open shirt and panama hat, me with the twenty-four-hour flight in my bones. We blast through a red light. Between the entrance ramps and concrete pillars the greenery grows rampant, and over everything an airplane thunders in for a landing. Felix reaches for the glove compartment and tears the door off, holy Mother of God, there’s nothing there, did you drink it all, he asks. David? And again: David? Felix says “DAVI” with the last d silent, as Brazilians do. David with his pitch-black skin drives with tunnel vision down the street, a luminous tube through the sultry night, from the rearview mirror dangles a crucifix. Synthetic lambskin hangs over the seats. At our backs shimmers the Recife airport. Felix raises his bottle, spraying some beer, welcome to the tropics, my Svensson! Felix is wearing multicolored bracelets around his wrists and explains that that’s what’s done here. I’m out of it, in the glow of the streetlights before my eyes there’s a sprinkling of moisture or cigarette smoke. Or is it the light-emitting diodes in the crown of the holy Madonna flashing from the dashboard? Is the driver really wearing the black skull-and-crossbones sweatshirt of FC St. Pauli? I say: The flight from São Paulo was a disaster, they’d unscrewed the seats next to me, there were only two other passengers on board, the propellers were flapping and grating. There was beans-and-rice and nothing to drink, it was hard for me to swallow. Felix and David raise their bottles with a loud clink. Turn on the music, meu amigo, says Felix, make it louder, there’s something to celebrate, Svensson’s here! I say: I guess I am, but where are we actually going?