“Nonsense! Simply Gerda.”
I regard the fat giant suspiciously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Eduard gives a false laugh. “Nothing. Only poetic license. The sonnets have something to do with the circus. Distantly, of course. As you know, it’s stimulating to the imagination if you can find—even theoretically—a concrete point of departure.”
“Stop talking nonsense,” I say. “What does this mean, you cheat?”
“Cheat?” Eduard replies with feigned indignation. “It would be fairer to call you that! Didn’t you act as though the lady were a singer like Willy’s disgusting friend?”
“Never. You just thought so.”
“Anyway,” Eduard announces, “the thing tormented me. I investigated and found out that you had lied. She’s not a singer at all.”
“Did I ever say she was?” Didn’t I tell you she was with the circus?”
“You did. But you used the truth to make me disbelieve you. And then you imitated the other lady.”
“How did you find out all this?”
“I met Mademoiselle Schneider accidentally on the street and asked her. One’s allowed to do that, I presume?”
“Supposing she tricked you?”
Suddenly Eduard has a smile of disgusting self-assurance on his baby face; he makes no reply. “Listen to me,” I say, alarmed and therefore very calm. “This lady is not to be won with sonnets.”
Eduard does not react to this. He continues to show the superiority of a poet who in addition to his poems owns a first-class restaurant. And I have seen that in this matter Gerda is vulnerable. “You scoundrel,” I exclaim in rage. “All this won’t do you any good. The lady is leaving in a couple, of days.”
“She is not leaving,” Eduard replies, showing his teeth for the first time since I have known him. “Her contract was renewed today.”
I stare at him. This clod knows more than I. “So you met her today?”
Eduard begins to stammer slightly. “Accidentally today—that was it! Just today.”
The lie is written plain on his fat cheeks. “So you instantly had the inspiration for the dedication?” I say. “Is that how you repay our months of faithful patronage? With the jab of a kitchen knife in the genitals, you dishwasher?”
“You can take your damned patronage and—”
“You’ve sent her the sonnets already, haven’t you, you impudent peacock?” I interrupt him. “Oh stop it, lies won’t help you! She’ll show them to me anyway, you maker of dirty beds!”
“What do you mean?”
“Your sonnets, you matricide! Didn’t I teach you how to write them? Nice thanks! Couldn’t you at least have had the decency to send her villanelles or odes? But no, my own weapons—well, Gerda will show me the stuff so I can translate it to her!”
“Why, that would be—” Eduard stutters, his self-confidence shaken for the first time.
“It would be nothing,” I reply. “Women do such things. As I know. But since I value you as a restaurant keeper, I will reveal something more; Gerda has a giant of a brother who keeps watch over the family honor. He has already crippled two of her admirers. And he is especially fond of beating up people with flat feet. That means you.”
“Nonsense,” Eduard says. Nevertheless, I see he has grown thoughtful. No matter how improbable an assertion is, if it is made with enough assurance it has an effect. That’s something I learned from Watzek’s political idol....
The poet Hans Hungermann comes up to the sofa where we are sitting. He is the author of the unpublished volume of poetry “Wotan’s Death” and the dramas “Saul,” “Baldur,” and “Mohammed.” “How fairs art, my friends?” he asks. “Have you read the ordure that Otto Bambuss printed yesterday in the Tecklendorfer Kreisblatt? Buttermilk and phlegm! To think that Bauer publishes that slimy bastard!”
Otto Bambuss is the most successful poet in the city. We all envy him. He writes sentimental verses about picturesque nooks, country villages, street corners in the evening, and his own melancholy soul. He has had two thin volumes published by Arthur Bauer—one, indeed, is in a second printing. Hungermann, the stalwart writer of runes, hates him, but tries to exploit his connections. Mathias Grand despises him. I, on the other hand, am Otto’s intimate. He longs to visit a bordello sometime but does not dare. He thinks it would impart a mighty, full-blooded élan to his somewhat anemic verse. As soon as he sees me he comes up. I’ve heard that you know a circus lady! The circus, what a subject! Do you really know one?”
“No, Otto. Eduard has been boasting. The only one I know sold tickets to the circus three years ago.”
“Tickets—nevertheless, she was there! She must still have some of the atmosphere. The smell of carnivores, the ring. Couldn’t you introduce me to her sometime?”
Gerda really has a future in literature! I look at Bambuss. He is a tall, stringy fellow, pale, chinless, with an insignificant face adorned with spectacles. “She was in the flea circus,” I say.
“Too bad!” He takes a step backward in disillusionment. Then he murmurs, “I must do something. I know what I lack—blood.”
“Otto,” I reply. “Couldn’t it be someone unconnected with the circus? Some simple bed rabbit?”
He shakes his narrow head. “That’s not so easy, Ludwig. I know all about love. Spiritual love, I mean. I need no more of that; I possess it. What I need is passion, wild, brutal passion. Ravening, purple forgetfulness. Delirium!”
He is practically gnashing his tiny teeth. He is a teacher in a small village near the city, and of course he can’t find delirium there. Everyone there is interested in getting married or in marrying Otto to some honest girl with a good dowry and the ability to cook. But Otto doesn’t want that He believes that a poet must experience life. “The difficulty is that I can’t bring the two together,” he explains darkly. “Heavenly and earthly love. For me love immediately becomes soft, full of devotion, sacrifice, and kindness. The sex drive grows soft and domesticated. Every Saturday night, you understand, so you can get a good sleep Sunday. But what I need is pure sex, nothing else, something you can get your teeth into. Too bad. I heard that you knew a trapeze artist.”
I observe Bambuss with new interest. Heavenly and earthly love—he too! The sickness seems to be more widespread than I thought. Otto drinks a glass of Waldmeister lemonade and looks at me out of his pale eyes. Very likely he expects me to give up Gerda at once so that his heart may grow genitals. “When are we ever going to a bordello?” he asks sadly. “You did promise me, you know.”
“Soon. But that’s no purple sink of iniquity, Otto.”
“I only have two weeks more of vacation. Then I’ll have to go back to the village and it’s all over.”
“We’ll do it before that. Hungermann would like to go too. He needs it for his new drama ‘Casanova.’ We could make a joint expedition.”
“For God’s sake, I mustn’t be seen! Think of my profession!”
“For that very reason! An expedition is harmless. The crib has a couple of public rooms on the lower floor. Anyone can go there.”
“Of course we’ll go,” Hungermann says behind me. “All of us together. We’ll make an expedition of discovery. Purely scientific. Eduard wants to go along too.”
I turn toward Eduard with the intention of pouring a sauce of sarcasm over that superior sonnet cook—but it’s no longer necessary. Eduard suddenly looks as though he had seen a snake. A slim fellow has just tapped him on the shoulder. “Eduard, old comrade!” he says cordially. “How goes it? Rejoicing that you’re still alive, eh?”
Eduard stares at him. “Nowadays?” he says in a strangling voice.
He has blanched. His chubby cheeks suddenly sag, his shoulders droop, his lips, his hair, even his belly hang down. In the twinkling of an eye he has become a fat weeping willow.