And so it did. Accordingly as the Revolutionary Advisory Council voted, the chairs to the left or right increased or decreased. And since even during the Tribunal's regular proceedings new political conflicts kept arising, the public often took more interest in the factional infighting of the feminist movement than in the cases of Awa, Wigga, and Mestwina, which are also my case or cases; after all, it was I who buried the cast-iron cooking spoon a good three feet deep.
Despite the Flounder's annoyance, he was ignored amid the passions aroused by these procedural debates. When the first two rows were evacuated by the Revolutionary Advisory Council and thrown open to the public, he protested and threatened to withdraw from the proceedings. "This is intolerable," he cried. "I can't have the public so near me. There have already been several menacing incidents. I, too, am entitled to security. Reserve the first two rows for experts. I'm expecting several gentlemen and a lady whose
publications have established them as authorities in the field of archaeology or of medieval canon law. They, too, must be seated. And for myself I demand security guards."
His pleas were granted. From then on the first and second rows were occupied by various experts, two female security guards, and witnesses for the prosecution — all women who, whether destitute, divorced, working, disadvantaged, deserted, battered, or oversupplied with children, had in some way been victimized by the institution of marriage. Stammering, whispering, voiceless, or shrill, now on the brink of tears, now with malignant laughter, they gave expression to the misery of oppressed womanhood: But after my fifth child. . Sleeping with my head next to the radiator. . But he just wouldn't stop. . He even threatened my mother. . And the relief checks stopped coming… So I took those pills. . But nothing helped. .
Whatever sufferings the witnesses for the prosecution invoked, men were always to blame. I felt guilty at every turn. But the Flounder remained on a high plane and stuck to facts. He knew everything and the opposite. He was even up on canon law. That was why he waived his right to defense witnesses, including me, who after all was the man most intimately involved. By and large I was mentioned only in passing. Tried anonymously, I was a mere member of the public. Silent, often bored, because the factional struggles were again drowning out the case of Awa, Wigga, or Mest-wina, I, in my place in the eleventh row, drew parallels.
True, I found no Awa among the judges — except perhaps for the always serene Ms. Schonherr — but I had discovered my morose Wigga in the form of Ms. Helga Paasch the nursery-garden owner. And Mestwina, too, sat facing me among the associate judges: how beautifully round everything about her was! The small head, framed in strictly ordered hair. The round, columnar neck with — really, Use-bill — an amber necklace on it. The gently sloping shoulders. And the latter-day Mestwina — this, too, must be mentioned— also had the glazed and empty look that had betrayed my then Mestwina when she had sopped up too much fermented mare's milk.
Ms. Ruth Simoneit is obviously an alcoholic. On several occasions she disturbed the discussion of the Mestwina epi-
sode with babbling, compulsive headshaking and intermittent swigs from her private flask, and finally, when Mestwina's decapitation was brought up, with tragic sobs and loud howls, with the result that Ms. Schonherr was obliged to escort the besotted and hypersensitive associate judge out of the movie house with motherly firmness. (And later on I myself took a certain interest in the poor, unfortunate spinster.) She started before noon on Remy Martin. And she never ate properly. And the record player was always running in her two-and-a-half-room apartment: tragic tear-jerkers, professional screamers. But she wants to become a teacher. Incidentally, Ruth is the only one of the eight associate judges who, though drunk at the time, inquired about me: "And what became of the shitass who buried the cast-iron spoon?"
Because, to tell the truth, Ilsebill, the action always revolved around me. I made messes and squirmed out of trouble with lies. I repressed and forgot. How gladly, there in the presence of Ms. Schonherr, or Helga Paasch, or Ruth Simoneit, I'd have confessed that I was to blame for everything: I did that. And that. Chalk Mestwina up to me. I and I alone am responsible. I still take the blame. Here I stand, yes, here I stand, a man, though damaged and since then intimidated by history. .
How I see myself
In mirror reversal, more obviously crooked.
The upper lids beginning already to sag.
The one eye tired, drooping, the other crafty, awake.
So much insight and inwardness
after all my loud and repeated
barking at power and those who wield it.
(We will! It shall! It must!)
Look at the pores in the cheeks. I am still or again good at blowing feathers, and like to make definite statements about matters that are still up in the air.
The chin would like to know when at last it will be allowed
to tremble. The forehead holds firm; what the whole thing lacks is an
idea. Where, when the ear is covered or committed to other images, do crumbs of laughter nestle?
The whole is shaded, darkened with experience.
I have put my glasses aside.
Only from habit does my nose sniff.
On the lips
that are still blowing feathers
I read thirst.
Under the udder of the black-and-white cow
I see myself drinking
or snuggled against you, O cook,
after your bosom hung
dripping over the fish stew;
you think I'm handsome.
Oh, llsebill
Now that you're burgeoning. Though there's still nothing to see. But even now my mouth is filled with intimation. I have a foretaste. We might, you and I, that is — for I am burgeoning with you — two gourds — make plans. A future for three and more. Wishes. Who hasn't got wishes? You need a noiseless dishwasher. Good. I'll buy you one. And travels, of course. Why not? To the West Indies, like it says in the folder. And right after the event — end of June, you say— fluttery dresses, the kind that wrinkle and don't drip dry, outrageous pants, sexy sweaters. Everything you want. No more dishwashing problems. And in the garden (next to the graveyard) I'll grow a gourd-vine arbor for us, like the one that throve for three summers during the Thirty Years' War on Konigsberg's Pregel Island, across the way from the tavern. In it sat my friend Simon Dach when he wrote to me (Opitz
von Boberfeld) in delicate rhymed verses, "Here let me live at ease amid the beans and peas. Breathing fresh air I lie. Peering through vines, as clouds pass swiftly by. ."
A gourd-vine arbor would give us and our little boy when he gets here a place to think in without having to travel, because a gourd-vine arbor would be just perfect for you and me. And they grow quickly. And I with a kitchen knife will — as Simon Dach wrote, "I used to carve my sweetheart into the gourd" — scratch your fairy-tale name in a still-tiny (but soon, with you, to burgeon, Ilsebill) gourd. There in the twining arbor we shall read the papers to see what a mess the world is making of itself: on the Golan Heights, in the Mekong Delta, and now, too, in Chile, where there was a glimmer of hope. Thus camouflaged with gourd leaves and biblically secure, I could commit my lamentations about the rising price of copper and the Yom Kippur War to writing; just as my friend Dach wept aloud in his gourd-vine arbor when Field Marshal Tilly broke all records in the field of Catholic atrocities: "O Magdeburg, shall I keep silent now! Of all thy splendor what remains to show?" If the truth be known, the Thirty Years' War — as seen from a gourd-vine arbor — has never stopped, because a gourd-vine arbor, though — as the prophet Jonah found out — it doesn't amount to much, is nevertheless a fit place from which to see the world as a whole with all its changing horrors. That lovely vale of tears.