Hostile ladybugs
in flashy red and black armor
soldiers in an army
of seven-hundred-twenty thousand
dive-bomb Stuyvesant Town
Impervious to obstacles
potential predators
antennae on alert
they flex their wings
climb up sharp thorns
attack and devour
the hapless aphids
A deserter abandons the troops
grabs a female from behind
rides on top of her
holds her tight
Four to seven weeks to live
five- thousand aphids to kill
they refute the war
ponder their true nature
and copulate for two hours
Coccinella Septempunctata
Feindselige Marienkäfer
in schwarz-roter Rüstung
marschieren
Antennen alarmbereit
Soldaten in einem Bataillon
von siebenhunderttausend
überfallen
den Hauptfriedhof im Sturzflug
Erklimmen scharfe Dornen
todesmutig
attackieren und verschlingen
den Feind
Des Kampfes müde
verlässt ein Deserteur die Truppe
besteigt ein Weibchen
krallt sich an ihr fest
Ein kurzes Leben
vier bis sieben Wochen
ein harter Kampf gegen
unglückselige Blattläuse
Der Ausreißer trotzt dem Krieg
kopuliert ungestüm
erwägt seine wahre Natur
Paaren statt morden?
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Crime Against Spring
Each neighborhood has its perpetrators
The Butcher of Bay Ridge
The Elmhurst Executioner
The Gansevoort Girdler
The Mastermind of the Moshulu Massacre
The victims
Twenty-three hydrangea bushes
Twelve Chinese dogwoods
Seven roses of Sharon
Four sassafras
Three butterfly bushes
Two sycamore maple trees
My favorite magnolia
Winter-weary
We sit next to the Ghandi statue
And bemoan the destruction
Of our sanctuary
(The first poem written after a 25 year hiatus; published in 138journal.com)
The Butcher of Bay Ridge
The Elmhurst Executioner
The Gansevoort Girdler
The Mastermind of the Moshulu Massacre
The victims
Twenty-three hydrangea bushes
Twelve Chinese dogwoods
Seven roses of Sharon
Four sassafras
Three butterfly bushes
Two sycamore maple trees
My favorite magnolia
Winter-weary
We sit next to the Ghandi statue
And bemoan the destruction
Of our sanctuary
(The first poem written after a 25 year hiatus; published in 138journal.com)
Monday, March 2, 2009
Phantom Pains
It was New Year’s Eve 1964. Our living room, decorated with paper streamers, was buzzing with anticipation. Mother had lit votive candles on the windowsill as a tribute to our brothers and sisters in the Ostzone. Separated from us by a wall, barbed wire, and mine fields, the East Germans were not as free or as fortunate as we West Germans were. We were never to forget their plight. The aroma of Berliner Ballen, special New Year’s Eve doughnuts, permeated the house. Perfectly round, filled with marmalade, fried in fat, and sprinkled with powdered sugar, they were my favorite pastry. On New Year’s Eve, each Berliner had a small object inside. A pig predicted a lucky year; a ring, a wedding; a coin, wealth. If you got the one filled with mustard, your year ahead would be full of bad luck.
Mother removed the pink rollers from her hair, sealed the curls with hairspray, and admired her helmet head in the mirror. She changed into her Sunday dress. Father stayed in his stretched-out blue track suit, the empty pant leg rolled up and fastened to his trousers with a safety pin. His wooden leg leaned in the corner of the living room. We gathered around our kidney-shaped coffee table. I looked at the pickled herring, liverwurst, and Gouda cheese canapés decorated with gherkins and pretzel sticks, but decided to wait for the Berliner Ballen. The more I stared at the minute hand on the grandfather clock, the slower it moved. My brother and I were bouncing on the sofa. We couldn’t wait for midnight to run outside into the freezing cold and watch the sky ablaze with fireworks.
I was hoping that our family would experience Freude, joy, a feeling I mostly knew from books and songs like Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, which we had learned in music class. Tickling sensations in my toes made me want to jump up and do my version of a rain dance. But I froze when I caught a glimpse of my father’s contorted face. His bushy eyebrows were furrowed together, creating a deep canyon on his forehead. He let out a piercing scream. The stump of his amputated leg was acting up. I knew what was coming. I had experienced it all too often. Once unleashed, the pain might last for several hours, perhaps the entire night, and turn Father, a huge, strong man, respected and feared by his wife and children, into a sobbing, tortured mass. The phantom pains, without fail, always arrived in time to ruin all our holiday celebrations.
Mother ushered us upstairs to the bedroom; Father grabbed his cane and hobbled to the kitchen. He locked himself inside the kitchen every time the phantom pains attacked. No one was allowed to enter. Sitting alone in the dark, he sang for several hours with a loud, mournful voice that resonated throughout the entire house and prevented us from sleeping. I knew all of Father’s moods, all the songs that mirrored them. I knew his favorite Wanderlieder, his favorite Volkslieder, and his favorite Soldatenlieder. I knew the words to all the melodies.
Heinrich and I sat down on my bed and stared at each other. We were both trembling despite the heavy sweaters we wore to save money on the heating bill. It was only half past ten. Heinrich was pessimistic. “We’re gonna miss all the fireworks.” Not ready to give up hope, I thought of the loving father dwelling above the starry canopy and hummed Ode to Joy. I would hum it over and over until joy would visit our home.
Father was sad over losing the war, sad over losing his leg. I listened to the intensity, the ebb and flow in his wailing. I listened for a possible change in his mood. He started to sing In einem Polenstädtchen, one of my favorites. In the song, German soldiers march into a small Polish town and encounter a captivating maiden who refuses to kiss any of them. Many nights, unable to fall asleep, I had mouthed along with the refrain Aber nein, aber nein sprach sie. Ich küsse nie. I had imagined myself as the irresistible maiden among all the lonely men. Like her, I would not allow anyone to kiss me.
The longing and homesickness in his voice were heartbreaking. I pictured Father among a group of soldiers with their knapsacks, marching and singing in the open air. I pictured the long Russian winter, the battle of Stalingrad, being hit by a grenade. I pulled the heavy down comforter up to my neck to ward off the harsh and biting wind he must have felt. I tried to understand his phantom pains, the agonizing torture he felt. But why did his pains, undoubtedly real, have to return today on New Year’s Eve? Did he want to make us suffer, make us feel as bitter and depressed as he was?
Mother, balancing a plate of Berliner Ballen on her palm, entered our bedroom. “It’s a quarter to twelve. Have a Berliner,” she said and sat down between us. “You have to understand your father. He’s afraid of New Year’s Eve. The fireworks sound like an artillery attack to him.”
I pictured Father among a group of soldiers with their knapsacks, marching and singing in the open air. I pictured the long Russian winter, the battle of Stalingrad, being hit by a grenade.
Life was unfair. I was tired of having to understand Father. I was ten years old. It was New Year’s Eve and I wanted to join the jubilation. Not steal away alone in tears, but follow the rose-strewn path.i The War had ended almost twenty years ago. Heinrich and I had never fought in a war, nor lost a war, but we were being punished as if we had. Ignoring the pastries, we went over to the window and pressed our noses against the glass.
The street was full of people. “Holy cow, did you see that Kometenhagel? Amazing,” Heinrich said. Like a silver serpent, it shot up and opened into a cascade of tiny stars. There were mini explosions everywhere.
“Two more minutes,” Heinrich whispered. The people outside started to shout “Zehn, neun, acht, sieben…” yelling louder and louder as the numbers decreased. A thunderous, deafening blast erupted when everyone set off their fireworks at the same time. There were Roman candles, pinwheels, single rockets, cherry bombs, and my favorite, Chinaböller. Brilliant silver, green, red, and gold flashed in the sky.
Half an hour later, the detonations petered out. Once in a while, a Bengali cylinder flame or Bombette shot up. It had been a great show. Heinrich wiped a tear from his eye. I put my arm around him. Our own New Year’s Eve Family Fun Pack sat unused at the foot of the stairs. We had not fired our shells and mortars.
Outside, our neighbors were locking arms, clinking glasses, and downing shots of liquor. Father’s voice soared above the sporadic flare-ups of fireworks. He sounded strong and confident. “Breslau, Danzig, Königsberg. We’ll take you back!” he shouted. Those towns once belonged to Germany. In school, we had learned that the price for losing the war was surrendering parts of our country to Poland and the Soviet Union. My history teacher didn’t think we would ever get these territories back. Father demanded them back. He launched into a combat song:
Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen
SA marschiert mit ruhig-festem Schritt…
Mother, looking like a frightened little girl, began to tremble. That song always upset her. I liked the melody, so forceful, buoyant, and optimistic. Mother stood up and closed the curtains as if she didn’t want our neighbors to hear Father’s singing. Heinrich sank his teeth into a Berliner while Father sang himself into a rage.
In school, we had learned that the price for losing the war was surrendering parts of our country to Poland and the Soviet Union. My history teacher didn’t think we would ever get these territories back. Father demanded them back.
Free the streets for the brown battalions
Free the streets for the Storm Troopers
The swastika, the hope of millions…ii
Mother sighed: “Why does he have to sing that song all the time?”
“Why are you worried, Mama?” I asked.
“That’s the Horst-Wessel-Lied. It’s illegal to sing that song. Your father could get into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” I asked.
“Like ending up in jail,” she said.
Heinrich was beaming. “Look, look, I got the pig, the lucky pig!” he shouted, displaying the rosy plastic piglet. Hoping for a delicious plum marmalade filling and a lucky charm, I took a big bite of my Berliner. The strange taste made my mouth pucker up. It couldn’t be true. I had gotten the one Berliner filled with mustard. Disgusted, I spit the pieces of dough and mustard into my hand. They looked like baby vomit. Life was unfair. There was no loving father dwelling above the starry canopy. Only my own father who was like my Berliner Ballen—good on the outside, but filled with the bitterness of war on the inside.
i Ode to Joy (An die Freude), lyrics by Friedrich von Schiller
ii Horst-Wessel-Lied, the Nazi Party’s anthem, was part of Germany’s national anthem from 1933 to 1945. A regulation required the right arm to be raised in a “Hitler salute”
when singing the first and fourth verse. In 1945, the Horst-Wessel-Lied was banned. Both the lyrics and the tune remain illegal in Germany to this day.
Text first published in the anthology "Families. The Frontline of Pluralism",Wising Up Press, Heather Tosteson and Charles D. Brockett, Editors, reprinted by guernicamag.com
Mother removed the pink rollers from her hair, sealed the curls with hairspray, and admired her helmet head in the mirror. She changed into her Sunday dress. Father stayed in his stretched-out blue track suit, the empty pant leg rolled up and fastened to his trousers with a safety pin. His wooden leg leaned in the corner of the living room. We gathered around our kidney-shaped coffee table. I looked at the pickled herring, liverwurst, and Gouda cheese canapés decorated with gherkins and pretzel sticks, but decided to wait for the Berliner Ballen. The more I stared at the minute hand on the grandfather clock, the slower it moved. My brother and I were bouncing on the sofa. We couldn’t wait for midnight to run outside into the freezing cold and watch the sky ablaze with fireworks.
I was hoping that our family would experience Freude, joy, a feeling I mostly knew from books and songs like Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, which we had learned in music class. Tickling sensations in my toes made me want to jump up and do my version of a rain dance. But I froze when I caught a glimpse of my father’s contorted face. His bushy eyebrows were furrowed together, creating a deep canyon on his forehead. He let out a piercing scream. The stump of his amputated leg was acting up. I knew what was coming. I had experienced it all too often. Once unleashed, the pain might last for several hours, perhaps the entire night, and turn Father, a huge, strong man, respected and feared by his wife and children, into a sobbing, tortured mass. The phantom pains, without fail, always arrived in time to ruin all our holiday celebrations.
Mother ushered us upstairs to the bedroom; Father grabbed his cane and hobbled to the kitchen. He locked himself inside the kitchen every time the phantom pains attacked. No one was allowed to enter. Sitting alone in the dark, he sang for several hours with a loud, mournful voice that resonated throughout the entire house and prevented us from sleeping. I knew all of Father’s moods, all the songs that mirrored them. I knew his favorite Wanderlieder, his favorite Volkslieder, and his favorite Soldatenlieder. I knew the words to all the melodies.
Heinrich and I sat down on my bed and stared at each other. We were both trembling despite the heavy sweaters we wore to save money on the heating bill. It was only half past ten. Heinrich was pessimistic. “We’re gonna miss all the fireworks.” Not ready to give up hope, I thought of the loving father dwelling above the starry canopy and hummed Ode to Joy. I would hum it over and over until joy would visit our home.
Father was sad over losing the war, sad over losing his leg. I listened to the intensity, the ebb and flow in his wailing. I listened for a possible change in his mood. He started to sing In einem Polenstädtchen, one of my favorites. In the song, German soldiers march into a small Polish town and encounter a captivating maiden who refuses to kiss any of them. Many nights, unable to fall asleep, I had mouthed along with the refrain Aber nein, aber nein sprach sie. Ich küsse nie. I had imagined myself as the irresistible maiden among all the lonely men. Like her, I would not allow anyone to kiss me.
The longing and homesickness in his voice were heartbreaking. I pictured Father among a group of soldiers with their knapsacks, marching and singing in the open air. I pictured the long Russian winter, the battle of Stalingrad, being hit by a grenade. I pulled the heavy down comforter up to my neck to ward off the harsh and biting wind he must have felt. I tried to understand his phantom pains, the agonizing torture he felt. But why did his pains, undoubtedly real, have to return today on New Year’s Eve? Did he want to make us suffer, make us feel as bitter and depressed as he was?
Mother, balancing a plate of Berliner Ballen on her palm, entered our bedroom. “It’s a quarter to twelve. Have a Berliner,” she said and sat down between us. “You have to understand your father. He’s afraid of New Year’s Eve. The fireworks sound like an artillery attack to him.”
I pictured Father among a group of soldiers with their knapsacks, marching and singing in the open air. I pictured the long Russian winter, the battle of Stalingrad, being hit by a grenade.
Life was unfair. I was tired of having to understand Father. I was ten years old. It was New Year’s Eve and I wanted to join the jubilation. Not steal away alone in tears, but follow the rose-strewn path.i The War had ended almost twenty years ago. Heinrich and I had never fought in a war, nor lost a war, but we were being punished as if we had. Ignoring the pastries, we went over to the window and pressed our noses against the glass.
The street was full of people. “Holy cow, did you see that Kometenhagel? Amazing,” Heinrich said. Like a silver serpent, it shot up and opened into a cascade of tiny stars. There were mini explosions everywhere.
“Two more minutes,” Heinrich whispered. The people outside started to shout “Zehn, neun, acht, sieben…” yelling louder and louder as the numbers decreased. A thunderous, deafening blast erupted when everyone set off their fireworks at the same time. There were Roman candles, pinwheels, single rockets, cherry bombs, and my favorite, Chinaböller. Brilliant silver, green, red, and gold flashed in the sky.
Half an hour later, the detonations petered out. Once in a while, a Bengali cylinder flame or Bombette shot up. It had been a great show. Heinrich wiped a tear from his eye. I put my arm around him. Our own New Year’s Eve Family Fun Pack sat unused at the foot of the stairs. We had not fired our shells and mortars.
Outside, our neighbors were locking arms, clinking glasses, and downing shots of liquor. Father’s voice soared above the sporadic flare-ups of fireworks. He sounded strong and confident. “Breslau, Danzig, Königsberg. We’ll take you back!” he shouted. Those towns once belonged to Germany. In school, we had learned that the price for losing the war was surrendering parts of our country to Poland and the Soviet Union. My history teacher didn’t think we would ever get these territories back. Father demanded them back. He launched into a combat song:
Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen
SA marschiert mit ruhig-festem Schritt…
Mother, looking like a frightened little girl, began to tremble. That song always upset her. I liked the melody, so forceful, buoyant, and optimistic. Mother stood up and closed the curtains as if she didn’t want our neighbors to hear Father’s singing. Heinrich sank his teeth into a Berliner while Father sang himself into a rage.
In school, we had learned that the price for losing the war was surrendering parts of our country to Poland and the Soviet Union. My history teacher didn’t think we would ever get these territories back. Father demanded them back.
Free the streets for the brown battalions
Free the streets for the Storm Troopers
The swastika, the hope of millions…ii
Mother sighed: “Why does he have to sing that song all the time?”
“Why are you worried, Mama?” I asked.
“That’s the Horst-Wessel-Lied. It’s illegal to sing that song. Your father could get into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” I asked.
“Like ending up in jail,” she said.
Heinrich was beaming. “Look, look, I got the pig, the lucky pig!” he shouted, displaying the rosy plastic piglet. Hoping for a delicious plum marmalade filling and a lucky charm, I took a big bite of my Berliner. The strange taste made my mouth pucker up. It couldn’t be true. I had gotten the one Berliner filled with mustard. Disgusted, I spit the pieces of dough and mustard into my hand. They looked like baby vomit. Life was unfair. There was no loving father dwelling above the starry canopy. Only my own father who was like my Berliner Ballen—good on the outside, but filled with the bitterness of war on the inside.
i Ode to Joy (An die Freude), lyrics by Friedrich von Schiller
ii Horst-Wessel-Lied, the Nazi Party’s anthem, was part of Germany’s national anthem from 1933 to 1945. A regulation required the right arm to be raised in a “Hitler salute”
when singing the first and fourth verse. In 1945, the Horst-Wessel-Lied was banned. Both the lyrics and the tune remain illegal in Germany to this day.
Text first published in the anthology "Families. The Frontline of Pluralism",Wising Up Press, Heather Tosteson and Charles D. Brockett, Editors, reprinted by guernicamag.com
Sunday, February 8, 2009
THE NOVEL
Small discount shops line Vienna’s busiest streets, the word NOVELS is written in large bold letters above their entrance doors. To their customers, literature is a provision, just like TOBACCO and LIQUOR in the stores to the left and right of the dime-novel shops. It hardly matters that no great literature is offered here. The novel survives because it is life’s companion. This has not been true for plays for example for a long time. The theater summons people still convinced it has something important to say. We no longer believe this gesture’s self-importance. In contrast the novel does not draw attention to itself. It sits on the shelf, together with five hundred others and consents to be undiscovered, unread. For that reason, we always seek it out. (translated from WILHELM GENAZINO, published in ezratranslation.com, Voume2, Number 2)
Saturday, January 31, 2009
New York/New York
I had booked the Hotel Earle because Bob Dylan once slept in room 331. From the moment I first stepped out and into Washington Square Park, I was smitten with New York. It was a Saturday afternoon in late September, a sultry, sun-drenched day so rare in Germany even in midsummer. The sun was hotter and the sky bluer, more radiant than back home. At a time when all German cities turned into graveyards, Washington Square Park was full of manic activity. Blasting radios battled each other for dominance, senior citizens played speed chess with youthful contenders; dope peddlers, fire eaters, and aspiring folk singers all competed for the public’s attention. People of all races and ages danced to Parlament Funkadelic.
In Berlin every thinking person around me was depressed. As I watched the children on the swings shrieking with delight and hyperactive dogs engaged in rough and tumble play, my earnest, sullen self faded away and a new upbeat person emerged. I would never have to feel miserable again, not if I could experience Washington Square Park’s anarchistic exuberance any time I wanted to.
I discovered a bounce in my step and skipped the next ten blocks uptown. I walked upright, no longer with slumped shoulders. I made eye contact. I grinned when someone smiled or complimented me. Life in New York, as in a Mediterranean city, happened in the street. The street mirrored my mood. Since I was in high spirits I encountered only smiling faces. “Hey Babe, wanna come along for the ride to Florida,” a truck driver said. “Another hour unloading and I’m ready for takeoff.” “Great hair cut,” a hip black woman shouted. “Ola Mami,” a Latin-American teenager said smacking his lips.
14th Street was the Mecca of the less well-heeled New Yorkers. People were looking for bargains in the many 99 Cents and discount stores. Men sitting up high on ladders were watching out for thieves and enticing the shoppers to come inside. “Ladies and gentlemen, our prices are the best. Come on inside and see for yourself.” Many people lost their money in games of dice. The children’s clothing stores with their frilly dresses, the smell of Comida Criolla and Cuchifritos, the sounds of Salsa, the mix of English and Spanish, the entire human razzmatazz of 14th Street made me feel intoxicated with life.
At home I had been chided for my hyperactive Zappelphilipp ways. My parents always said: “Don’t walk so fast, don’t talk so fast, don’t wave your arms so much. In New York, everyone walked and talked fast. In New York, I was normal.
It was love at first sight—irrational and fatal. Could one fall head over heels –unsterblich—in love with a city just as much as with a person? Mubarez from Pakistan worked at the reception of the Hotel Earle. On my fourth day in New York he said: “You can become a New Yorker and still be yourself. You belong here. Stay.
In Berlin every thinking person around me was depressed. As I watched the children on the swings shrieking with delight and hyperactive dogs engaged in rough and tumble play, my earnest, sullen self faded away and a new upbeat person emerged. I would never have to feel miserable again, not if I could experience Washington Square Park’s anarchistic exuberance any time I wanted to.
I discovered a bounce in my step and skipped the next ten blocks uptown. I walked upright, no longer with slumped shoulders. I made eye contact. I grinned when someone smiled or complimented me. Life in New York, as in a Mediterranean city, happened in the street. The street mirrored my mood. Since I was in high spirits I encountered only smiling faces. “Hey Babe, wanna come along for the ride to Florida,” a truck driver said. “Another hour unloading and I’m ready for takeoff.” “Great hair cut,” a hip black woman shouted. “Ola Mami,” a Latin-American teenager said smacking his lips.
14th Street was the Mecca of the less well-heeled New Yorkers. People were looking for bargains in the many 99 Cents and discount stores. Men sitting up high on ladders were watching out for thieves and enticing the shoppers to come inside. “Ladies and gentlemen, our prices are the best. Come on inside and see for yourself.” Many people lost their money in games of dice. The children’s clothing stores with their frilly dresses, the smell of Comida Criolla and Cuchifritos, the sounds of Salsa, the mix of English and Spanish, the entire human razzmatazz of 14th Street made me feel intoxicated with life.
At home I had been chided for my hyperactive Zappelphilipp ways. My parents always said: “Don’t walk so fast, don’t talk so fast, don’t wave your arms so much. In New York, everyone walked and talked fast. In New York, I was normal.
It was love at first sight—irrational and fatal. Could one fall head over heels –unsterblich—in love with a city just as much as with a person? Mubarez from Pakistan worked at the reception of the Hotel Earle. On my fourth day in New York he said: “You can become a New Yorker and still be yourself. You belong here. Stay.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
A Gift That Fails-- On the Lack of Literary Success
Translated from Wilhelm Genanzino The Extended Glance (Der gedehnte Blick), München Wien 2004. Find the entire text in DIMENSION2,08
During the early 1950’s William Faulkner recommended a second occupation to all his fellow authors. Faulkner said in an interview that the shoemaker, carpenter, and baker trades were best suited to them, that manual labor was a wise counterpart to the more intellectual writing profession. He was concerned with the economic crisis in the lives of writers. With a stable secondary occupation, they could avoid the risk of not having enough money for food and shelter. In 1932, twenty years before this interview, Faulkner’s European colleague, Robert Musil, was in serious economic trouble, so much so that he felt compelled to go public and ask for help. In I Can’t Go On, he intended to tell the literary world: “I am writing about myself for the first time since I became a writer. The title tells all. It is the bitter truth (…). I believe that apart from the suicidal, few live such precarious lives and I will not be able to evade their hardly enticing company. This is my one and only attempt to resist such a fate.”
Musil did not have to publish his appeal. The Musil Society, an aid organization willing to support him with continuous donations, was established in Berlin. Musil was a widely admired author at the time. The first published volume of Man without Qualities brought him abundant fame and respect, but not enough money. The Rowolth Publishing House pushed for a sequel. Musil gave in and wrote thirty-eight chapters for a second volume published in March of 1933. A few months later, Musil left Germany and returned to Vienna. Another recently formed Musil Society there helped him out regularly although it was never enough. Musil was not able to shake off his dependency. Six years later, when he emigrated to Switzerland he became dependent on the help of strangers there as well. The Geneva priest Lejeune and the Swiss Aid Society for German Scholars contributed to the Musil household for years. It’s an interesting fact that Musil considered his failure to support himself unethical, but failed to take any action. In an interview, he stated: “Not to be famous is natural. Not to have enough readers to survive is shameful.”
The quote is revealing. Musil did not say: “Not to have enough readers is shameful.” He said instead: “Not to have enough readers to survive is shameful.” The social dimension, being able to live from one’s writing, was not Musil’s main theme. He did not consider the social aspect of literary life important enough to deserve its own failure. The best writer’s confidence is disturbed by the fact that writing should even exist as a social problem. These authors’ self-esteem is noble on the inside, but to the outside world it is uncompromising and unmoved. The stronger the inner noble feeling the more adamant is the denial of the external reality. Only raw, ethically irreconcilable isolation survives.
We can find these constructs of literary life today. The German writer Undine Gruenter, recently deceased in Paris who was unsuccessful and uncompromising all her life, made this journal entry on April 28, 1989: “To be sure, if I am badly off, because I have no money, from a social point of view it’s my fault. But I will not change my life because of this. I would rather continue to produce my 150 pages a year. Hopefully I will get better at it all the time.”
To live a common double life is out of the question for these authors. No need to consult Faulkner. Examples of double lives can also be found in German literature. I need only mention the two old prototypes, Joseph von Eichendorf and E.T.A. Hoffmann, lawyers by day and practicing romanticists in their spare time. Let me also cite Kafka, Döblin, and Benn. We cannot imagine them without their civic professions. Musil could have easily followed Faulkner’s suggestion. He had a second profession. Highly qualified and holding a degree in engineering from the Technical University in Brünn, he could have worked as an engineer anytime. But for Musil, writing was an absolute, internal, and all-demanding occupation. His work had to express his integrity and his aesthetic honor.
Honor expresses the desire for originality and purity. Purity is an inconceivable and pathologically malleable notion. Purity always demands a higher absolute purity and so becomes infinite like fame, which knows no boundary either. Because Musil’s contemporaries did not share his notion of honor, they were second-rate pretenders in his eyes. He belittled Joseph Roth, Leon Feuchtwanger and Franz Werfel in public. He ridiculed Thomas Mann as the writer whose pants had the most immaculate crease. No other author set himself apart more and no one paid a higher price for doing so. We might say Musil’s undeserved lack of success stems partly from his mockery and arrogance.
During the early 1950’s William Faulkner recommended a second occupation to all his fellow authors. Faulkner said in an interview that the shoemaker, carpenter, and baker trades were best suited to them, that manual labor was a wise counterpart to the more intellectual writing profession. He was concerned with the economic crisis in the lives of writers. With a stable secondary occupation, they could avoid the risk of not having enough money for food and shelter. In 1932, twenty years before this interview, Faulkner’s European colleague, Robert Musil, was in serious economic trouble, so much so that he felt compelled to go public and ask for help. In I Can’t Go On, he intended to tell the literary world: “I am writing about myself for the first time since I became a writer. The title tells all. It is the bitter truth (…). I believe that apart from the suicidal, few live such precarious lives and I will not be able to evade their hardly enticing company. This is my one and only attempt to resist such a fate.”
Musil did not have to publish his appeal. The Musil Society, an aid organization willing to support him with continuous donations, was established in Berlin. Musil was a widely admired author at the time. The first published volume of Man without Qualities brought him abundant fame and respect, but not enough money. The Rowolth Publishing House pushed for a sequel. Musil gave in and wrote thirty-eight chapters for a second volume published in March of 1933. A few months later, Musil left Germany and returned to Vienna. Another recently formed Musil Society there helped him out regularly although it was never enough. Musil was not able to shake off his dependency. Six years later, when he emigrated to Switzerland he became dependent on the help of strangers there as well. The Geneva priest Lejeune and the Swiss Aid Society for German Scholars contributed to the Musil household for years. It’s an interesting fact that Musil considered his failure to support himself unethical, but failed to take any action. In an interview, he stated: “Not to be famous is natural. Not to have enough readers to survive is shameful.”
The quote is revealing. Musil did not say: “Not to have enough readers is shameful.” He said instead: “Not to have enough readers to survive is shameful.” The social dimension, being able to live from one’s writing, was not Musil’s main theme. He did not consider the social aspect of literary life important enough to deserve its own failure. The best writer’s confidence is disturbed by the fact that writing should even exist as a social problem. These authors’ self-esteem is noble on the inside, but to the outside world it is uncompromising and unmoved. The stronger the inner noble feeling the more adamant is the denial of the external reality. Only raw, ethically irreconcilable isolation survives.
We can find these constructs of literary life today. The German writer Undine Gruenter, recently deceased in Paris who was unsuccessful and uncompromising all her life, made this journal entry on April 28, 1989: “To be sure, if I am badly off, because I have no money, from a social point of view it’s my fault. But I will not change my life because of this. I would rather continue to produce my 150 pages a year. Hopefully I will get better at it all the time.”
To live a common double life is out of the question for these authors. No need to consult Faulkner. Examples of double lives can also be found in German literature. I need only mention the two old prototypes, Joseph von Eichendorf and E.T.A. Hoffmann, lawyers by day and practicing romanticists in their spare time. Let me also cite Kafka, Döblin, and Benn. We cannot imagine them without their civic professions. Musil could have easily followed Faulkner’s suggestion. He had a second profession. Highly qualified and holding a degree in engineering from the Technical University in Brünn, he could have worked as an engineer anytime. But for Musil, writing was an absolute, internal, and all-demanding occupation. His work had to express his integrity and his aesthetic honor.
Honor expresses the desire for originality and purity. Purity is an inconceivable and pathologically malleable notion. Purity always demands a higher absolute purity and so becomes infinite like fame, which knows no boundary either. Because Musil’s contemporaries did not share his notion of honor, they were second-rate pretenders in his eyes. He belittled Joseph Roth, Leon Feuchtwanger and Franz Werfel in public. He ridiculed Thomas Mann as the writer whose pants had the most immaculate crease. No other author set himself apart more and no one paid a higher price for doing so. We might say Musil’s undeserved lack of success stems partly from his mockery and arrogance.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Sturm und Drang
Adolescence struck like a tornado. My parents, teachers, and most adults became my enemies. They were hypocrites and liars. My school, the Municipal Modern Language Secondary School for the Education of Women, was a prison. The teachers were harsh and punitive wardens. Most had taught during the Nazi era and although officially de-nazified, their fascist teaching methods persevered. Herr Bhode, my history teacher had lived on a large estate near Königsberg “until the Russians confiscated it.” He still advocated the doctrine of the Bund Deutscher Mädchen, Hitler’s youth organization for girls: “A German girl is a pure girl. She does not smoke or paint her face.” He aborted my first foray into make-up with blue eye shadow. “Make-up is for whores. Go to the bathroom and wash your face.”
I was thrilled when after years of pounding Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Hebbel, Herder, Fontane and legions of other dead writers into us, we finally got to read books written in our century. Herr Bhode, a staunch anti-communist, hated Brecht and called him “A traitor who moved to East Germany. Voluntarily! Imagine that.” He despised having to put Mother Courage, a play set during the Thirty Year War, on his lesson plan. The Education Department of our social-democratic state made it a mandatory part of the curriculum. Since Herr Bhode hated Brecht, I liked him right away.
“Girls, what is your interpretation of the funeral scene?” he asked. No one paid attention. It was the last period and the room was hot and stuffy. My class mates were bored. They liked romantic novels without all that bloody fighting. Two girls in front of me were reading the teen magazine Bravo under their desk. My neighbor secretly filed her nails. Some girls had their head down, others were yawning. I was the only one to raise my hand. Herr Bhode cut me down: “Tersteegen, we are not interested in your comments. You don’t have to think in my class.”
The old geezer made my blood boil. I was furious. How dare he forbid me to think? Our history book portrayed the Germans as victims of World War II who were led to disaster by a megalomaniac leader. The German loss of life, the soldier’s loss of limb, the allied bombing and the destruction of cities were described at great length. The losses of other nations and the atrocities committed in the concentration camps were relegated to a few paragraphs and fine print.
Whenever I asked adults how all of this could have happened, they shrugged their shoulders, refused an answer, or insisted that they didn’t know how terrible it had been. Frau Stanke felt that Hitler hadn’t been all that bad. “He built the Autobahn. Everyone had work again. Our Führer restored law and order in the country, and people felt proud to be German again.” I pitied the losses of the other nations, especially the Russians. Discovering Chekhov and Dostojewski made me fall in love with the Russian people.
I followed the Auschwitz trials and the testimonies of the camp survivors in the news. More than 6000 former members of the SS guarded Auschwitz from 1940 to 1945; only twenty-two faced trial. Those accused showed no trace of remorse. The loathsome concentration camp Doctor Mengele lived a privileged life in South America. I looked at pictures of emaciated bodies, rooms full of shoes and handbags. Had they really mixed ashes with fat to make soap from the remains of the Jews? How could I feel anything but shame about belonging to this nation?
We had murdered millions. What role did my father play?
I discovered rebellion and assumed a loud-mouthed belligerent defiant stance. Testy and antagonistic on principle I confronted my father about his participation in the war and his beliefs about Jews, Poles, and all the other “inferior races.”
“What did you do in the war?”
“I was a regular soldier.”
“A regular soldier? How many people did you kill? Did you enjoy doing it?”
“Watch your tone, young lady. We did what we had to do.”
“What about the guards in the camps? They did what they had to do. Would you have done it too?” I howled him down.
My father’s face turned dark red. His Adam’s apple started a little dance, as if he had trouble swallowing. I didn’t care that his blood pressure might rise to a dangerous level. Let him have a stroke right this minute. “What about the camps? Was that all right with you?” My mother ran in from the kitchen, an onion in one hand, a small knife in the other. “Leave your father alone. Don’t aggravate him. He’s not well. Your questions will bring him to an early grave. If he dies, it will be your fault.”
I stormed out of the room and marched up the stairs. I loved the screeching sound of my metal shoe tips hitting the cold hard stone. Hoped it would send goose bumps down my parents’ spine. I pushed the door to my room open and then slammed it shut with a loud wham. Turned the key and barricaded myself inside. My heart raced as if I had just finished a sprint on sport’s day. I would never calm down. Not in a million years. I wanted to hit something, kick the door in or punch a hole in the wall. Instead, I paced in a circle. My riding trophies, all seven of them lined up neatly on my book shelf, caught my eye. They had to go. Bam, bam they flew of the shelf. I loved the noise. The pictures of horses were next. They had graced my bedroom walls for as long as I remembered. A testimony to my childhood plans of owning a horse farm one day.
A horse farm! What a ridiculous idea! I started with my favorite picture. The Arabian stallion, torn to pieces, landed on the floor. The Lipizaners, Dülmen ponies, and the fine Przcwalski were next.The Araappaloosa show horse, the black Friesian with its long mane, the strong Holsteiner, and even the small Hucul from the Carpathian Mountains, they all had to go. I felt strong and powerful as I destroyed them. What would my father, the proud cavalry man think if he could see me now? He had taught me to love horses. I had followed him around on tournament day dressed in proper riding-habit, boots and riding crop, the entire outfit his gift for my ninth birthday. He had been proud to show his daughter off and asked a stranger to take a picture of us. He even let me bet on my favorite horse. None of this mattered anymore. The horses time was up. I did not stop until all hundred and twenty-five pictures were scattered on the floor. I thought about starting a bonfire, of burning down the house, but stopped myself right in time. Instead I stomped over to the chest of drawers, took the Animals album out of its sleeve, placed the 45 on the record player and lowered the needle. “We gotta get out of this place” was the best song ever written. I played it as loud as possible, at least twenty times in a row and sang along at the top of my lungs.
Somewhere baby
Somehow I know it baby
We gotta get out of this place
If it’s the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there’s a better life for me and you
Believe me baby
I know it baby
You know it too
I could not get out of this place, but I could redecorate. I started by pinning my new heroes on the wall: Che Guevara, Mao, and Bob Dylan. The man was a genius. How did he come up with the brilliant line “If dogs run free, why we don’t?” Above my bed I hung a picture of the cutest couple in the world, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful. Meanwhile my mother shouted from the first floor:
“Turn down that Negro music. I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.”
“So what. Have your breakdown already.” I muttered. My mother was a doormat, a piece of furniture. Stuck in the past. She acted as if the war had never ended. I had heard the story of the starving Rapp family a million times. “Living on cabbage for three months, a hard boiled egg divided among four people, a tablespoon of butter a real luxury.” I didn’t care one bit. I didn’t want to hear another word about German suffering. If my parents both ended up in a mental institution, I’d be happy to live with my grandmother. My mother’s parents were the only acceptable ones among my relatives. My father’s family, the first to join the Nazi party in their village, had been staunch supporters until the bitter end, but my mother’s parents never joined. The Nazis were too un-Christian for their taste. My grandfather had always made fun of the little man with the big mustache and listened to enemy radio. The family maintained friendly relationships with their Jewish neighbors. Grandma lit the fire in the synagogue every Saturday until there was no more synagogue.
Looking for role models and help with my unanswered questions, I turned to literature. In the backroom of the public library, high up on the shelf were the books deemed inappropriate for youth. Ms. Waldenburg, the petite middle-aged librarian with enormous horn rimmed glasses that hid kind blue eyes had been my friend since third grade. I harbored the fantasy that she loved me more than any other child who visited her library. There had been rumors that she had no husband and children because her fiancé had died fighting in Belgium. I was sure I was special to her and if she could she would adopt me. What a wonderful life we could have had, sitting together on the couch in the evenings, reading, taking breaks to update each other on the plots, reciting special passages out loud, all the while munching on butter cookies.
“Do your parents know that you are taking out Günter Grass and Hubert Fichte?” She asked.
“We have to read Grass for school.”
She knew that I lied. The books were full of dirty passages I wasn’t supposed to read yet. The Catholic Church had placed them on the list of forbidden books. “You might want to read this one too,” she said with a wink and placed Peter Weiss into my hands. Weiss, a writer outraged by the amnesia that had befallen my parents’ generation, was the answer to all of my prayers.
Judge: Did you see anything of the camp?
Second Witness: Nothing. I was just glad to get out of there.
Judge: Did you see the chimneys at the end of the platform or the smoke and glare?
Second Witness: Yes. I saw the smoke.
Judge: And what did you think?
Second Witness: I thought those must be the bakeries. I had heard they baked bread in there day and night. After all it was a big camp.
I started to question everything. How could there be a God? Why was he unable to prevent such barbaric cruelty? I signed myself out of religion class at school, and then doubted if it had been the right decision. Still I attended the Catholic youth group meetings in the basement of our church. We went there because we were bored and had nothing better to do. It was a chance to hang out, to meet boys and to get away from home. The young chaplain was handsome and cool. As a miner’s son he was one of us. He had invited us to watch Die Brücke. It had been shown on TV before, but my father made us turn it off and I never got to see the end.
Chaplain Paul fumbled with the projector while I surveyed the room. My friend Astrid who had a reputation for being fast played with her hair and shot seductive glances in Reinhold’s direction. I had known Christel, the youngest in the group, since kindergarten. We had played doctor together in her parents’ garage. Cornelia was a straight A student and we all despised her for that. I had a crush on Andreas. With his handsome features, sultry voice, gorgeous brown eyes and dark hair, he was every girls dream. He looked just like a movie star. I helped myself to pretzels and Coca Cola. The coke was warm, but tasted fantastic simply because it was forbidden at home.
Chaplain Paul turned off the light (our favorite part) and said with a somber voice: “This is the first German anti-war film, based on a novel and the true experiences of the writer. It shows what happens when children are educated in the wrong ideas, when they become victims of ideology. You have to watch it so you won’t repeat the sins of your fathers.”
Andreas and Reinhold yawned. They hated educational movies; they hated it when Chaplain Paul used big words. “What’s ideology anyhow?” Andreas asked.
The film took place in a small German town similar to ours populated with children, women, and old people. It was shocking and sad. During the final days of the war seven teenage boys were drafted into the Volkssturm, a small ad-hoc unit pulled together for local defense. They trained for one day, learned to use their weapons, and were sent to the front. Their teacher, afraid for their lives, intervened on their behalf. The boys, not much older than us, had to secure an unimportant bridge, meant to be blown up anyway and defend it against enemy seizure. At first we were proud of how brave they acted. Andreas poked Reinhold in the ribs to show his approval. When their commander, mistaken for a deserter, got executed Christel and Astrid started to cry. On their own now, fiercely patriotic, and elated to be called to duty, the boys continued to fight even as the German troops retreated. American tanks arrived and tried to cross the bridge. We were worried and concerned for the boys. I stopped chomping on the pretzels so no sound would distract us from the action on screen. The American soldiers looked young and handsome. One of them was chewing gum. I liked his uniform. He made fun of the young fighters, called them kindergarteners. Why didn’t the boys surrender? I held my breath. To continue to fight would be a suicidal mission.
Only one of the boys survived. The death of his friends and the death of the German and American soldiers were all in vain. We had tears in our eyes when the epilogue appeared on the screen. ”This took place on April 27, 1945. An insignificant event, it was not mentioned in any military report.”
No one spoke. Nobody went to the bathroom. No one was in the mood for board games.
At home I confronted my father: “Why didn’t you let us watch Die Brücke to the end?”
“You’re not old enough.”
“Not old enough,” I fumed. “I’m old enough to learn about the war.”
“You won’t watch crap like that in my house. Not as long as you live under my roof and I’m putting food on the table.”
“What kind of reasoning is that? Just because you feed me, I don’t have to buy into your lies.”
“Watch your mouth or you’re gonna get it.”
“So what do you want to do? Hit me? Does that make you feel good? Alright then, if it makes you feel superior and strong, go ahead and hit me.”
Shaking on the inside, I managed to act cocky on the outside. I turned my face to my father. He raised his hand and held it up in the air for a few tormenting seconds. We stared each other down. Then his arm collapsed as if it belonged to a rag doll. He couldn’t do it. I had won. I was fifteen years old and more powerful than my own father.
From now on I let him have it. “Why do we have to switch channels whenever a Jewish historian or scientist appeares? “What’s the point of tearing up all the Marxist and Maoist pamphlets I bring home?” He didn’t answer. I stormed out of the room and heard him lament: “I’ve raised a Bolshevik? My God, I’ve raised a Bolshevik!”
My father didn’t have a monopoly on hate. I could stew in hate too. I hated my life. I hated him. I hated his politics and his despair. I hated my mother and her wimpy ways. I hated school, Germany, and the character traits of most Germans. Their desire to regulate every aspect of life. Hated bus drivers, post office clerks, and anyone wearing a uniform who savored their power and found perverse pleasure in treating me as an inferior. I hated old ladies who scolded me when I tried to cross the street on a red light: “My God, these young people today. No respect for rules!” The entire country was plastered with Verboten signs. Playing in the yard verboten! Verboten to touch the flowers! Spitting verboten! Walking on the grass forbidden! Was life itself verboten?
Luckily I found kindred spirits. The TV brought images of San Francisco’s rebellious youth, flowers in their hair, into our living room. College students in Berkeley, Paris and Berlin protested the Vietnam War. They all told their parents off: “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” In Germany, longhaired beatniks, despised by adults, participated in many Easter peace marches. The more the adults hated them, the more I longed to be one of them. Marijuana made a lot of young people happy. I was determined to score some.
In Berlin a group of young left-wing college students, seven men and three women started an experiment in radical communal living. The members of Kommune 1 had given up individual possessions to practice for life after the revolution. It was just a matter of time before exclusive love relationships were a thing of the past. The women in the group were beautiful like models, the guys funny looking. Rainer Langhans had a flamboyant mop of curls on top of his head. Fritz Teufel had a full mustache and beard. Everyone wore round wire rimmed glasses. I begged my mother to let me change my frames immediately.
The guys of Kommune 1 were great comedians. I was always hoping to see another of their pranks on the evening news. When US vice president Hubert Humphrey came to visit Germany, several members were accused of planning a bomb attack and were arrested by the secret service. They got off. The police couldn’t prove a thing. Teufel said: ”We had planned to bomb him with eggs and pudding.” My father was outraged: “They all belong in jail. Get rid of them; send them to East Germany.”
Dieter Kunzelmann, the leader and most outrageous member had me crack up every time he made a public statement. The latest was his best: “I don’t work and I don’t study. Why should I care about the Vietnam War when I have trouble reaching orgasm?”
What was an orgasm anyway? How could I find a man like Dieter to teach me all about it?
( published in sic, 2006 and read in KGB Bar NYC, 2007)
I was thrilled when after years of pounding Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Hebbel, Herder, Fontane and legions of other dead writers into us, we finally got to read books written in our century. Herr Bhode, a staunch anti-communist, hated Brecht and called him “A traitor who moved to East Germany. Voluntarily! Imagine that.” He despised having to put Mother Courage, a play set during the Thirty Year War, on his lesson plan. The Education Department of our social-democratic state made it a mandatory part of the curriculum. Since Herr Bhode hated Brecht, I liked him right away.
“Girls, what is your interpretation of the funeral scene?” he asked. No one paid attention. It was the last period and the room was hot and stuffy. My class mates were bored. They liked romantic novels without all that bloody fighting. Two girls in front of me were reading the teen magazine Bravo under their desk. My neighbor secretly filed her nails. Some girls had their head down, others were yawning. I was the only one to raise my hand. Herr Bhode cut me down: “Tersteegen, we are not interested in your comments. You don’t have to think in my class.”
The old geezer made my blood boil. I was furious. How dare he forbid me to think? Our history book portrayed the Germans as victims of World War II who were led to disaster by a megalomaniac leader. The German loss of life, the soldier’s loss of limb, the allied bombing and the destruction of cities were described at great length. The losses of other nations and the atrocities committed in the concentration camps were relegated to a few paragraphs and fine print.
Whenever I asked adults how all of this could have happened, they shrugged their shoulders, refused an answer, or insisted that they didn’t know how terrible it had been. Frau Stanke felt that Hitler hadn’t been all that bad. “He built the Autobahn. Everyone had work again. Our Führer restored law and order in the country, and people felt proud to be German again.” I pitied the losses of the other nations, especially the Russians. Discovering Chekhov and Dostojewski made me fall in love with the Russian people.
I followed the Auschwitz trials and the testimonies of the camp survivors in the news. More than 6000 former members of the SS guarded Auschwitz from 1940 to 1945; only twenty-two faced trial. Those accused showed no trace of remorse. The loathsome concentration camp Doctor Mengele lived a privileged life in South America. I looked at pictures of emaciated bodies, rooms full of shoes and handbags. Had they really mixed ashes with fat to make soap from the remains of the Jews? How could I feel anything but shame about belonging to this nation?
We had murdered millions. What role did my father play?
I discovered rebellion and assumed a loud-mouthed belligerent defiant stance. Testy and antagonistic on principle I confronted my father about his participation in the war and his beliefs about Jews, Poles, and all the other “inferior races.”
“What did you do in the war?”
“I was a regular soldier.”
“A regular soldier? How many people did you kill? Did you enjoy doing it?”
“Watch your tone, young lady. We did what we had to do.”
“What about the guards in the camps? They did what they had to do. Would you have done it too?” I howled him down.
My father’s face turned dark red. His Adam’s apple started a little dance, as if he had trouble swallowing. I didn’t care that his blood pressure might rise to a dangerous level. Let him have a stroke right this minute. “What about the camps? Was that all right with you?” My mother ran in from the kitchen, an onion in one hand, a small knife in the other. “Leave your father alone. Don’t aggravate him. He’s not well. Your questions will bring him to an early grave. If he dies, it will be your fault.”
I stormed out of the room and marched up the stairs. I loved the screeching sound of my metal shoe tips hitting the cold hard stone. Hoped it would send goose bumps down my parents’ spine. I pushed the door to my room open and then slammed it shut with a loud wham. Turned the key and barricaded myself inside. My heart raced as if I had just finished a sprint on sport’s day. I would never calm down. Not in a million years. I wanted to hit something, kick the door in or punch a hole in the wall. Instead, I paced in a circle. My riding trophies, all seven of them lined up neatly on my book shelf, caught my eye. They had to go. Bam, bam they flew of the shelf. I loved the noise. The pictures of horses were next. They had graced my bedroom walls for as long as I remembered. A testimony to my childhood plans of owning a horse farm one day.
A horse farm! What a ridiculous idea! I started with my favorite picture. The Arabian stallion, torn to pieces, landed on the floor. The Lipizaners, Dülmen ponies, and the fine Przcwalski were next.The Araappaloosa show horse, the black Friesian with its long mane, the strong Holsteiner, and even the small Hucul from the Carpathian Mountains, they all had to go. I felt strong and powerful as I destroyed them. What would my father, the proud cavalry man think if he could see me now? He had taught me to love horses. I had followed him around on tournament day dressed in proper riding-habit, boots and riding crop, the entire outfit his gift for my ninth birthday. He had been proud to show his daughter off and asked a stranger to take a picture of us. He even let me bet on my favorite horse. None of this mattered anymore. The horses time was up. I did not stop until all hundred and twenty-five pictures were scattered on the floor. I thought about starting a bonfire, of burning down the house, but stopped myself right in time. Instead I stomped over to the chest of drawers, took the Animals album out of its sleeve, placed the 45 on the record player and lowered the needle. “We gotta get out of this place” was the best song ever written. I played it as loud as possible, at least twenty times in a row and sang along at the top of my lungs.
Somewhere baby
Somehow I know it baby
We gotta get out of this place
If it’s the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there’s a better life for me and you
Believe me baby
I know it baby
You know it too
I could not get out of this place, but I could redecorate. I started by pinning my new heroes on the wall: Che Guevara, Mao, and Bob Dylan. The man was a genius. How did he come up with the brilliant line “If dogs run free, why we don’t?” Above my bed I hung a picture of the cutest couple in the world, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful. Meanwhile my mother shouted from the first floor:
“Turn down that Negro music. I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.”
“So what. Have your breakdown already.” I muttered. My mother was a doormat, a piece of furniture. Stuck in the past. She acted as if the war had never ended. I had heard the story of the starving Rapp family a million times. “Living on cabbage for three months, a hard boiled egg divided among four people, a tablespoon of butter a real luxury.” I didn’t care one bit. I didn’t want to hear another word about German suffering. If my parents both ended up in a mental institution, I’d be happy to live with my grandmother. My mother’s parents were the only acceptable ones among my relatives. My father’s family, the first to join the Nazi party in their village, had been staunch supporters until the bitter end, but my mother’s parents never joined. The Nazis were too un-Christian for their taste. My grandfather had always made fun of the little man with the big mustache and listened to enemy radio. The family maintained friendly relationships with their Jewish neighbors. Grandma lit the fire in the synagogue every Saturday until there was no more synagogue.
Looking for role models and help with my unanswered questions, I turned to literature. In the backroom of the public library, high up on the shelf were the books deemed inappropriate for youth. Ms. Waldenburg, the petite middle-aged librarian with enormous horn rimmed glasses that hid kind blue eyes had been my friend since third grade. I harbored the fantasy that she loved me more than any other child who visited her library. There had been rumors that she had no husband and children because her fiancé had died fighting in Belgium. I was sure I was special to her and if she could she would adopt me. What a wonderful life we could have had, sitting together on the couch in the evenings, reading, taking breaks to update each other on the plots, reciting special passages out loud, all the while munching on butter cookies.
“Do your parents know that you are taking out Günter Grass and Hubert Fichte?” She asked.
“We have to read Grass for school.”
She knew that I lied. The books were full of dirty passages I wasn’t supposed to read yet. The Catholic Church had placed them on the list of forbidden books. “You might want to read this one too,” she said with a wink and placed Peter Weiss into my hands. Weiss, a writer outraged by the amnesia that had befallen my parents’ generation, was the answer to all of my prayers.
Judge: Did you see anything of the camp?
Second Witness: Nothing. I was just glad to get out of there.
Judge: Did you see the chimneys at the end of the platform or the smoke and glare?
Second Witness: Yes. I saw the smoke.
Judge: And what did you think?
Second Witness: I thought those must be the bakeries. I had heard they baked bread in there day and night. After all it was a big camp.
I started to question everything. How could there be a God? Why was he unable to prevent such barbaric cruelty? I signed myself out of religion class at school, and then doubted if it had been the right decision. Still I attended the Catholic youth group meetings in the basement of our church. We went there because we were bored and had nothing better to do. It was a chance to hang out, to meet boys and to get away from home. The young chaplain was handsome and cool. As a miner’s son he was one of us. He had invited us to watch Die Brücke. It had been shown on TV before, but my father made us turn it off and I never got to see the end.
Chaplain Paul fumbled with the projector while I surveyed the room. My friend Astrid who had a reputation for being fast played with her hair and shot seductive glances in Reinhold’s direction. I had known Christel, the youngest in the group, since kindergarten. We had played doctor together in her parents’ garage. Cornelia was a straight A student and we all despised her for that. I had a crush on Andreas. With his handsome features, sultry voice, gorgeous brown eyes and dark hair, he was every girls dream. He looked just like a movie star. I helped myself to pretzels and Coca Cola. The coke was warm, but tasted fantastic simply because it was forbidden at home.
Chaplain Paul turned off the light (our favorite part) and said with a somber voice: “This is the first German anti-war film, based on a novel and the true experiences of the writer. It shows what happens when children are educated in the wrong ideas, when they become victims of ideology. You have to watch it so you won’t repeat the sins of your fathers.”
Andreas and Reinhold yawned. They hated educational movies; they hated it when Chaplain Paul used big words. “What’s ideology anyhow?” Andreas asked.
The film took place in a small German town similar to ours populated with children, women, and old people. It was shocking and sad. During the final days of the war seven teenage boys were drafted into the Volkssturm, a small ad-hoc unit pulled together for local defense. They trained for one day, learned to use their weapons, and were sent to the front. Their teacher, afraid for their lives, intervened on their behalf. The boys, not much older than us, had to secure an unimportant bridge, meant to be blown up anyway and defend it against enemy seizure. At first we were proud of how brave they acted. Andreas poked Reinhold in the ribs to show his approval. When their commander, mistaken for a deserter, got executed Christel and Astrid started to cry. On their own now, fiercely patriotic, and elated to be called to duty, the boys continued to fight even as the German troops retreated. American tanks arrived and tried to cross the bridge. We were worried and concerned for the boys. I stopped chomping on the pretzels so no sound would distract us from the action on screen. The American soldiers looked young and handsome. One of them was chewing gum. I liked his uniform. He made fun of the young fighters, called them kindergarteners. Why didn’t the boys surrender? I held my breath. To continue to fight would be a suicidal mission.
Only one of the boys survived. The death of his friends and the death of the German and American soldiers were all in vain. We had tears in our eyes when the epilogue appeared on the screen. ”This took place on April 27, 1945. An insignificant event, it was not mentioned in any military report.”
No one spoke. Nobody went to the bathroom. No one was in the mood for board games.
At home I confronted my father: “Why didn’t you let us watch Die Brücke to the end?”
“You’re not old enough.”
“Not old enough,” I fumed. “I’m old enough to learn about the war.”
“You won’t watch crap like that in my house. Not as long as you live under my roof and I’m putting food on the table.”
“What kind of reasoning is that? Just because you feed me, I don’t have to buy into your lies.”
“Watch your mouth or you’re gonna get it.”
“So what do you want to do? Hit me? Does that make you feel good? Alright then, if it makes you feel superior and strong, go ahead and hit me.”
Shaking on the inside, I managed to act cocky on the outside. I turned my face to my father. He raised his hand and held it up in the air for a few tormenting seconds. We stared each other down. Then his arm collapsed as if it belonged to a rag doll. He couldn’t do it. I had won. I was fifteen years old and more powerful than my own father.
From now on I let him have it. “Why do we have to switch channels whenever a Jewish historian or scientist appeares? “What’s the point of tearing up all the Marxist and Maoist pamphlets I bring home?” He didn’t answer. I stormed out of the room and heard him lament: “I’ve raised a Bolshevik? My God, I’ve raised a Bolshevik!”
My father didn’t have a monopoly on hate. I could stew in hate too. I hated my life. I hated him. I hated his politics and his despair. I hated my mother and her wimpy ways. I hated school, Germany, and the character traits of most Germans. Their desire to regulate every aspect of life. Hated bus drivers, post office clerks, and anyone wearing a uniform who savored their power and found perverse pleasure in treating me as an inferior. I hated old ladies who scolded me when I tried to cross the street on a red light: “My God, these young people today. No respect for rules!” The entire country was plastered with Verboten signs. Playing in the yard verboten! Verboten to touch the flowers! Spitting verboten! Walking on the grass forbidden! Was life itself verboten?
Luckily I found kindred spirits. The TV brought images of San Francisco’s rebellious youth, flowers in their hair, into our living room. College students in Berkeley, Paris and Berlin protested the Vietnam War. They all told their parents off: “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” In Germany, longhaired beatniks, despised by adults, participated in many Easter peace marches. The more the adults hated them, the more I longed to be one of them. Marijuana made a lot of young people happy. I was determined to score some.
In Berlin a group of young left-wing college students, seven men and three women started an experiment in radical communal living. The members of Kommune 1 had given up individual possessions to practice for life after the revolution. It was just a matter of time before exclusive love relationships were a thing of the past. The women in the group were beautiful like models, the guys funny looking. Rainer Langhans had a flamboyant mop of curls on top of his head. Fritz Teufel had a full mustache and beard. Everyone wore round wire rimmed glasses. I begged my mother to let me change my frames immediately.
The guys of Kommune 1 were great comedians. I was always hoping to see another of their pranks on the evening news. When US vice president Hubert Humphrey came to visit Germany, several members were accused of planning a bomb attack and were arrested by the secret service. They got off. The police couldn’t prove a thing. Teufel said: ”We had planned to bomb him with eggs and pudding.” My father was outraged: “They all belong in jail. Get rid of them; send them to East Germany.”
Dieter Kunzelmann, the leader and most outrageous member had me crack up every time he made a public statement. The latest was his best: “I don’t work and I don’t study. Why should I care about the Vietnam War when I have trouble reaching orgasm?”
What was an orgasm anyway? How could I find a man like Dieter to teach me all about it?
( published in sic, 2006 and read in KGB Bar NYC, 2007)
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