City, Sister, Silver, page 30
I’m just talkin about the underworld now. The most amazing thing was the papers. After all those entry forms an exit forms an hassles an archivalia, finally you could run around the desirable states on your own. Pleading in the slammer, yes I’m goin home, right away, to my family. Only … I can’t afford a ticket, never mind a kennkarte. I don’t suppose there’d be any cash? Yes? Most grateful. Just a ticket? Great. And will the Railway Armed Forces be accompanying me? Are you nuts, you’re a grown man. Yes, sir, pardon me, boss boss, of course, herr commander. Hawk the ticket in the station restaurant and you had yourself a party. The next desirable state was across the border, true, but only wackos bothered with customs. To this day I could make it through with my eyes closed. I walked around like that sometimes anyway, just to see where I’d be the next time I rolled up my eyelids.
Refugees! City councillors met with economists and physicians and Ph.D.’s. Phones at army headquarters rang off the hook. Those riffraff, said the councillor, they’re buyin up all the cat an dog chow an feedin the stuff to their kids, what about my poor little Dagmar. An there’s more of em on the way. And the city councillors said to themselves, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hoxha, Hussein … maybe those guys were onto somethin. But they couldn’t send in the machine guns or they would’ve shattered their time. They were on the spot where two worlds crossed, two different times. All those flawless Swiss-Japanese timepieces of theirs were useless. Come winter they’re gonna tear down all our colorful ads an stuff their shoes an shirts with em. Let’s just give em cash. And they got a couple affirmative actions rolling. But the eastern outcasts only went and bought more canned food and juice and a better gun or two and higher-quality smack, none of it went for self-education.
And then one of the councillors trapped by time said, Leave it be, just string up the wires, leave it be, it’ll rot away … in time. Maybe he’s right, for now, but … especially around the penitentiaries, here and there a jailer or two lightly fingers the gun on his hip, a breeze ruffling his locks as he tilts his ear to the outcasts’ uproar … they’ve just refused the spinach an they want an extra blanket … an then he touches the one in his underarm, an when he sees some free protest goin by, doesn’t seem that bad to him … an when an absurd Kurdish nest or two, an irrational Angolan dormitory, goes up in flames … the telegraph’s not workin, the dispatches don’t get through, the wheels grind to a halt … an the dead bodies roast in the blaze … let’s wait, we’ll see, the councillor said. Yes, wait and see what happens.
As I knocked around, tryin to see an hear as much as possible for myself, I managed: Berlun: disturbing the peace and riding the subway without holding on; Dormut: hooliganism and provoking an officer (it was the first time in my life I’d ever eaten an artichoke, which I only knew from books before, an I got carried away); Milan: I donno; Paree: I don’t remember; Gibraltar: I’m not tellin; Munchen: sleeping in a private doghouse, an that was the only one that pissed me off, cause the dog couldn’t’ve cared less; we had four guys snoozin in there at the time.
After my successful sightseeing tour filled with Kanak studies, I came back to the lair and gave all my soap and blankets to Kopic. I kept one fragrant box for myself, just in case … and off to market we went.
And as I stood around, picking up all sorts of words and expressions as the tribes mixed together in byznys to survive … stealin cash an words from each other … experiences an words … it struck me maybe somethin was happenin here, maybe the mixing was givin rise to a new tongue … a Kanak one … an maybe it was a tongue of peace, a pre-Babylonian one … I mean they’re poor, they gotta communicate … till everything’s tremendous again an we all look like the billboards an pitch in to rebuild … they need each other … only most of the folks at the markets looked pretty bad, shabby, emaciated or bloated, all kinds of deprivation peering out of their eyes, and hunger … for safety and things … they would’ve had to mix with the handsome natives too … to put an end to tribes … but they’re not wanted, that’s obvious … the rags the Romanian Gypsy ladies bundled their lousy young in … weren’t fit for a dog, I know, I saw em. I was there. Maybe unfortunately what it’ll take, I thought … truly unfortunately, is another couple Auschwitzes, a Wall or two, a Gulag … an even longer path … till it dawns on everyone.
Beat it! Beat it! Quit gawkin, move! Kopic oftentimes interrupted my daydreams and meditations as the noose drew tight yet again, a raid … we grabbed the ashtrays and hopped on our steeds, if ours’d been stolen we stole someone else’s … and the prairie stretched out endlessly under our ponies’ hoofs as we rode, deftly hunched down in our saddles, zigzagging to safety from the Haida and Mandan bullets.
We didn’t steal much … just here and there … like sparrows, I guess, we were fed up with organizing and didn’t have the time for heavy-duty crookery. We weren’t in the mood either. There were huge quantities of colorful stuff to see. Look at that yellow, zaps me in the eyes, I donno that one, said Kopic. I get it, I said. We swung off our saddles, hitched up our bikes, walked into the department store, and came back out with beautiful sunglasses on our noses. At the next ad, I panicked. I donno that beige, my old WWI wounds’re gettin itchy an openin up inside, it’s definitely gonna rain. We stopped and went in a department store, came out with raincoats and umbrellas. Kopic had a radio, too. Switched it on. Oy, some unfamiliar, ponderous, industrial, fanatic music! Kopic blanched. But it played. We’d made a good purchase. Now and then we’d get off the bikes and dawdle around on the sidewalk. Then off we’d ride again, each with a packhorse tied to our saddle. How’s Iltschi? Kopic called out. On her last legs, I replied honestly. Hatatitla’s* barely swingin his hoofs too, grumbled Kopic. We switched to fresh bikes to confuse our pursuers. Sometimes we had to save ourselves … by sacrificing one of the bikes and riding the rest of the way on the better one, each of us standing on one side, holding on to the seat, pedaling in turn … they never did get us. Ah, Berlun, a true sanatorium!
Then I got a job in a brothel. Washin spitoons, takin out trash, sweepin up, I was the spitboy. It’s perfect, the spitboy sees everything, goes everywhere, an he’s lower than the sawdust on the floor of a pub, no one’s gonna usurp him. His rag an bucket make him invisible.
I soon made friends with the whores. There were dumb ones of course, blabbers an screamers an whiners, but some of the girls were great. Fistfuls of Czechs, wagonloads of Romanians, armies of Ukrainians, pastures of Poles, heaps of Hungarians, one gorgeous Jewess, and others. I noticed the movement of nations began in the brothels. One of the great human urges it’s got on its mute conscience: the desire for fresh meat. The Italians an Greeks an Turks bemoaned the loss of their position. They organized an underground. No petitions, just vitriol. It got intense at times. Whores’re a tribe, I guess, like toy makers or gladiators, clans’re a byznys thing. My heart burned for a sister of my tribe. Howdy, whores, I’d say. Howdy, wage slave, they’d reply. Peace and quiet prevailed. I often eavesdropped on their fabled phlegmaticism: You don’t watch out, there it is, turn to the left, there it is, lean to the right, there it is still. Cocks, knives, toyfils, crabs, whatever, it’s all the same.
I taught them the saying: Singelosh, bangelosh, split right through, quality work’s what we aim to do. It had a good rhythm, the girls said it helped em deal with alla those sickening pigs. From time to time they’d express their gratitude, but for real, briskly, in the prenoon hours, before the wheel spun up to full speed. So they weren’t totally wiped out yet. They told me about things I didn’t know. Permutations, combinations, variations, uriny, greasy, moist, an bloody. Some of the girls, the foolish ones, began to get nostalgic here, dreamin about the petroleum ponds and tractor-filled fields of home. They’d come in search of treasure, but it didn’t take em long to rack up a debt the very same size as that chest of sparkling ducats. Housing, heat, meals, makeup, clothes. Protection! The door out of the cage to the golden West slammed shut in their faces. They were under the wheel now. Pieces of meat, not much to look at. Others were smart an strong an didn’t let any drool near their bodies, even if that body was as broken and plowed over as Mother Earth herself. They knew their way around. They knew how to get the cash outta the wild pigs, an what to do with it afterwards … they were the ones the students an the killers fell for. One yep, another nope, you in, you out … same old story. I raced around with a mop, tampons, a broom … set up a little hairpin-and-condom byznys, plus lipstick, least they didn’t have to cross the street. For some of em that street was the only thing they saw on their way to Europe.
Litka was Slovak, or Slovenian, I donno anymore, I took her to the fair. They’re lookin at us, she said in the pastry shop. When it came to sweets, she was like a little girl. No, they’re not, I lied. You could tell. What she was. It was as plain as Mars on fire. Wow, she lit up, look at the swings. She gave em a whirl. The bumper cars too. Another coffee. And then it hit her: we gotta go back. C’mon. Let’s get outta here. Los! Bitte! Wait, I wanna go to the shooting gallery, squeeze off a shot or two first. I’ll shoot your heart out! The way she looked at me, it dawns on me in retrospect, she must’ve been Slovenian. We stood in the amusement park arguing, in Kanak of course. People all around. Bumping into us. They came to have fun. And we were in their way. It was embarrassing. She wheeled around on a high heel and ran off, she thought toward the exit. Ran all the way to the back of the park, I almost couldn’t keep up. Ran right into the fence, stupid whore. Collapsed and began to sob. Her purse spilled out on the ground, she tossed all her doohickeys back in with the mud. C’mon now … Litka! Get up! Finally I got her into a cab. Some date, I thought glumly, all that cash! I looked out of the car at all the people, buildings, machines, phantoms. What else was I sposta do. Didn’t wanna look at her. We rode in silence the whole way back to the brothel, the place where she lived. The place she couldn’t get away from.
But next day she greeted me as merrily as the earlybird. Howdy, wage slave! Howdy, whore! I appropriated that word, I think, in every post-Babylonian tongue. And I was gettin fed up too. It was better flyin around on bikes with Kopic. All the combinations and permutations and multiplications and alphabets were startin to make me sick. Light and heavy private odors. Too many moist things. Sheets, shits. Too many stains. Pubes and hairs. Every dirty line of work’s got its sad or brutal consequences. Their business. But most of those whores were slaves. And a lot of em weren’t there voluntarily, that’s bullshit, and anyone who says so deserves to get his face bashed. Some were obvious victims that would’ve gotten under the wheel anytime anywhere. Some liked it. Some were chasing the golden dream and refused to give it up. They went right on dreaming, eyes shut, taking wheelies for the nightmares. And many were forced into it by slaps, poverty, fear. They’d run away from wars, scary streets, factories. Idiotic dads and dangerous lovers. A couple girls there couldn’t’ve been a day over fourteen. They got old fast. Coke and booze and bed. They didn’t know anything else. And what else’s a slave? The pimps’ mugs were as bad as the spooks’, if not worse. The girls got beatings. Whenever they acted up, and sometimes just for the hell of it. So they’d know where they were and what they were worth. The romantic, picturesque life of the whore was probably dreamed up by some delirious writer as a reward for an unreal amount of pumping, licking, pinching, blowing, and stroking … his nerves must’ve been trembling pretty good … by the time he got it up. Maybe there’s other brothels. But if this is one …
There was one strange thing there that no one ever talked about. And that’s what did me in. I couldn’t even pry anything outta Litka, who’d worked her way up to the bar, and that’s up there in the hierarchy.
This woman dressed all in black, down to the veil over her face. She also had a hat, a very elegant one if I may say so. I was somewhere off in a corner, stationed behind my sword, a.k.a. my broom, dipping a rag into my shield, when she came clattering up the stairs past me like I didn’t even exist. She always went by at the same time. Slicing through the air as she moved, or more like outside of it. I know what a dance is, and this woman danced with every move she made, yet with extreme dignity. In her cold and mechanical movements she was … free. That’s how she wanted it. Any marshal, any statesman that nods to the crowd from a red carpet, could learn a lesson in dignity. To see this … lady walking up the brothel stairs. She had her own room, just to herself. I wasn’t allowed to clean in there. But one day, swayed by curiosity, I knocked on her door. I knew she didn’t have anyone in there. Her door had a peephole, she slid it open. I saw her face, actually just part of it, without the veil, that was enough. She was wearing a black mask, so I couldn’t see even a wedge of skin, only her eyes. Those eyes were naked, like there was nothing behind them anymore. Domineering, icy, very evil. I dropped the rag and stammered something. The peephole slid shut.
I knew what Domination was, what it meant here in this brothel. Whipping, just another one of the numbers in the matrix. Only this was something different. I ran downstairs to the bar and told Litka: Make it a double. An if you got any feelings at all for the wage slave standin in front of you, tell me who that woman is. Ich verstehen nichevo. C’mon, Litka, don’t do this to me. She could see I was a total wreck. And what she told me stuck in my head, my brain translated it from Kanak. You saw her, huh? Yep … the mask, the eyes. Hey, how much does she go for? One trick? Girl behind the bar oughta know these things. She’s not for you … she said a sum that took my breath away. You could get a Rolls Royce for that! Maybe two, said Litka. She started wiping glasses, all at once she had her hands full. You know they always come in the back way for her, through that hallway where we’re not allowed. They built it just for her. Sure I know, I faked. But she takes the stairs. Walks around here like she owns the place, I said. Yeah, she even stops at the bar sometimes. I got a feelin she … likes it here. She gives people these looks sometimes, the girls. They’re afraid of her. She never talks to anyone. An you know what else … the girls say she’s dead. What? No way! The girls say she’s dead … but I think maybe she’s a famous actress, some star or somethin … an guests like havin her here for the atmosphere. Well, Litka, you’re no dummy, kein durak. That’s gotta be it. What those girls said, there’s no way. Then again, you know what the Russians say: vsyo mozhno, anything’s possible … myezhdu nyebom i zemli, between heaven and earth, I added, flipping my thumb up and down. Und under zemliyo, the whore added in Kanak. We laughed. Have another shot on me, Litka. I got a new job. Difrent verk. Luchshi rabota. Grosse marka. Geld. You’re leaving? Varum? It hit her hard, I could tell. There’d been more than one of those shots. She said to definitely stop by sometime … just to say hi. But I didn’t. I knew she was halfway hoping I’d get her out of there. I just wasn’t up for it.
And it was back to riding with Kopic, making merry and whizzing around. I put the brothel out of my mind. Shimako and Chiharu began teaching me words. Omako, they’d whisper, leering. Omako, omaku, omaken, rite nau, Chiharu san, et aussi, Shimako san, heh? Koishii avec moi, yoo super ober lesbien sistrs, ja? Nein, nein, nix omako avec moi, nix omako avec nous! Rien! they giggled, holding each other’s hand. We went for walks through Berlun, alerting each other to landmarks and miracles. One window had an effigy strung up in it. Its face was bloody. Ketchup dripped from it onto the pavement. Nagel für prasident! Any president that’d let this stuff go on’s got some strange ideas about runnin a country, I politicized. Guess they’re just different, Jakob concluded. I went into a bakery to get some rolls. There was a little lake with swans swimming in it. Plus there were like 60 kinds of rolls and not one of em looked normal. I fled. The Japanese Kanaks cracked up laughing and went off to shop on their own. I waited outside, chain-smoking and observing life. When they came out, I carried their bag. They enjoyed it so much, I think sometimes they went shopping just so they could have a guy behind em carrying their bags. It was new for them. They’d look back and giggle. Wave to me every so often. Those two had wads of yen. They were in movies.
I liked their moola, it had holes drilled in it. Reminded me of the shells some of the black Kanaks wore around their necks. Maybe money started somethin like that. People from crustaceans an people’s money from crustaceans’ protective armor. Anything is possible. I pitched yen with Kopic’s kids. They kept winning. Yeah … yeah, I thought to myself, you don’t hafta win every time … looking into the pools of their almond eyes, sparkling as they cleaned me out … just make sure you never lose for keeps, Hansel, an you too, Gretel, be wary on your path in the woods, steer clear of the traps, an torch that monster when it tries to gobble you up.
Chiharu and Shimako were constantly soaking and scrubbing each other. Berlun seemed filthy to them. What snow-white pastures do you hail from, O copper-skinned maidens, golden ones? But they’d escaped them. They knew their way around shopping, the rest of us other things. I was very astonished to hear they thought the salespeople were rude. I always got embarrassed in stores. Exotic-smelling beauties wrapping my pair of potatoes or kilo of milk in silk, tying it up in a bright-colored ribbon, and smiling at me like a newlywed bride. Too many smiles, nothing but considerateness, excessive kindness. But then Shimako san explained that it was just another tribal contract. Dis voman, she pointed a long painted nail at the salesgirl, in Tokyo owt of jop. Imposseeblay to tuch yor noze. Vhen tok to kunden. Before the poor newly unemployed girl could finish blowing her nose, I got it. A smile lit up my face too, though not so my cavity-ridden fangs showed. Oil rite, na ja, panyahtno, honto, tribal contract. And what’s fermenting down there, beneath the surface … I’m quite familiar with that.
I got almost no sleep. But I fell in love with the Carpet Bar. Everywhere else, I’d suffer like an animal. Think strange contradictory thoughts. Get carried away by strong emotions. Just generally be bizarre. But not at Teppich Bar. I’d follow the carpets’ strings and threads as they intertwined in ornamental patterns and then went on to vanish into the inscrutable underside. The top, which was what I could see, was covered with beasts and birds and flowers and people. All gathered together in dazzling colors, and nothing disturbed their peaceful presence. Riders on horseback, falcons on their outstretched arms. An eagle on high. Waiting. Musicians holding their breath, not sending it into their barbaric instruments of twisted wood, a princess in midstride, prepared to dance, prepared to please her beloved, standing full of love, not even stirring. I saw it, it was in the carpet.
