Tubutsch (2 page)

The two cockerels had battled to the last, it hadn't been one of those faked show fights, there was no doubt that it had been fair and square, but not a word! Perhaps for that very reason . . . which should have been precisely mine for dutifully informing every newspaper
in the world. But given the dia
metrically opposed views of the world which separate me from the editors of the popular illustrated weeklies, and the differences in the things which we are both structured to view as important, it was pretty questionable as to whether I would succeed in making my opinion heard. Of course, if the two splattered flies had been the owners of a plum-jam mine, and been called Pollak, or one cockerel had been the Austrian champion, the chess master Papabile, and the other the presumptive world champion . . . then one would not be able to walk the streets without being ambushed every two steps by the everyday faces of these two heroes staring out from the shop windows . . . Better to keep to ourselves and deal with our own affairs. With regard to the cockerels, there was nothing more I could do for them, and anyway as an author it's not in my nature to take sides and forcibly intervene in the course of battle. Just as it is not in my nature to desecrate the slumber of the two flies which had fallen into death's bitter inkwell by exhuming and cremating them . . . I left them on the spot where fate had cast them. Given that the boldest of heroic deeds go unmentioned, who will be surprised at my decision to write my notes as of now in pencil, so, as it were, to make them even more transitory. One could more readily accuse me of egocentricity in my reverential approach to the flies. For what could be better suited to my mood than the smell of their decomposing which other hardier constitutions probably wouldn't even notice?

I have now made the effort and bought myself a street directory. I should have done it long ago. People like myself whose cent
re of gravity lies outside them
selves, somewhere out there in the universe . . . who yield like wax to every impression . . . must continually feed their sensorium, even if just with shop signs, in order to keep from falling into the gaping void.

I travel on a small scale. The Tirol is a pretty land but soon the Baedeckers will start blossoming on the trees, and the majority take their milieu with them when they travel
.
. . in the shape of their relations and friends. In fact it's a matter of complete indifference whence we travel, we always go along quite regardless. Can't leave ourselves at home. This sort of travelling doesn't agree with me. If at all, then through time. I would like to talk with a lord from the 14th century, would like to pay a call on Mr Menemptar, the early Egyptian poet, booming lyricist and world-famous author of the hymn-cycle "Songs to the Crocodile of the Nile," but sad to say I am in such bad shape that I couldn't manage to force the sterling lad to appear in a vision or a hallucination. Technicians! Bring me a tramway to the past. No, not until a conductor — the globe dangling from his watch chain — shouts out: "Cambrian Era! All change!" I won't take part until then. Ah, but not even then, for no sooner has something of this sort come into being than Mr. Pollak is in on it too, leaving his sandwich wrappers strewn around the Cambrian Era. And it really doesn't deserve that. I see now that it's better for me to go for a walk along Linz Street, because it's the second longest lane in Vienna . . . I'd also like to be the second longest lane in Vienna . . . things would be easier then.

What's there to look at? Not a lot. Next to a shop selling umbrellas is a corner shop selling books, paper banners trumpeting the praises of the latest tome, along with others announcing that fresh herrings have arrived at last. Some may like to refer to this as the ingenious arrangement of the non-oriental capital, the rest, more down to earth, go crazy with the disorder. But I myself haven't a clue which are umbrellas, which are books and which are herrings: all the differences swim before my eyes, they have all become too minimal for me so that all I can see within this apparent diversity of objects is insignificant gradations in one and the same material . . . gradations which eternally recur, meanwhile it is simply the human means of expression which changes. And then I say, laying a book aside: "I must have seen this hat somewhere before," or eating a mince-loaf suddenly gives me the idea that I am in fact dealing with a fashionable talent which is at the conceptual and material roots of this sort of mode of perception and remains unchanging, for otherwise the perceptions would be an impossibility. And people think that I am paradoxical? I've simply learnt from a drunk.

It was evening, I was walking down Linz street so as to note the houses in reverse order, when a swaying figure staggered up to me and asked: "Where on earth are we?" I replied that we were at that moment on the second longest lane in Vienna, Linz street. "Linz street, can't be," his voice resounded. "You've obviously consumed rather too much Schopenhauer, my good man!" "You're absolutely on the wrong track there . . . it was Zbblinger Riesling," this unknown portrayer of Toby Belch replied, and I mused as to whether Schopenhauer had not also arrived at his famous theory under Dionysius' sway. Similar to the way in which he had apparently earlier turned Lord Byron into a misogynist. There was something to the drunk's theory, for, quite clearly: if One removed the temporality from Linz street, there would be nothing left but matter which now and then enjoyed transmuting itself from the Cambrian Era into Vienna's second longest lane . . "Where're we now," a voice asked with effort. "On Linz street," I answered, annoy
ed. "Not again!" came the reply
.
It would seem that one has to be pretty full of dry wine to discover the law of the eternal recurrence of the identical. Wise or mad, mad or drunk — what's the
difference? Can it be that the w
isdom of the great philosophers is not so amazing, that the bacillus which brings about wisdom is in the end not so very different from others, less
celebrated
.
. . or are the orphic primal words of the lords of the universe just that much truer because they can flow forth at the drop of a hat from the unrestrained subconscious of a person blasted on wine?
.
. This marvellous stranger stopped and tried to prevent a lamp-post from falling over . . . Fool that I am, I carried on — although I later regretted not having involved myself in an instructive conversation with him, so as to have at least (!) found out how he had come to the assumption that Linz street doesn't exist. At that moment, however, joyful that someone had deemed me worthy of such a conversation,
joyful about, by my standards, a great event, I quickly made my
way home. . .
perhaps because I was afraid of being caught with a drunk by the police and arrested as a thief.

No policeman appeared. Out of prudence. For there were tramps strolling about, brushing against me none too considerately, and since the evening had been bristling with adventures, I had grown accustomed to the idea of a nocturnal hold-up and had already decided to outwit the first threatening figure by voluntarily handing over my wallet and watch, with the request that he should feel free to avail himself of them in the future . . .

It would not have been easy for me to part with my watch, the source of countless small pleasures. How often have I been in a park and grown tired of observing some ageing gent watching the children playing with their balls and diabolos . . . where time has started to congeal and seemed to circle in eternity above; how often have I approached one of the lads and coaxed him with the words: "Do you think you could be kind enough to ask me what time it is?"
.
. . I don't believe one could be politer. The old gentlemen expressed their consternation by waggling their walking sticks, but their conduct didn't bother me in the least, for they were my rivals when it came to offering to tell the time . . . and when a plucky lad fulfilled my wish, which sometimes happened . . . I flipped open the lid and reported with chronometric accuracy just how far the day had progressed . .. and my pleasure was no less than that of a child at its confirmation, who for the first time is able to function as a teller of time
. .
. So, one can see just how unwilling I was to give away my watch, an essential item fo
r the running of my business. .
. Quite possible that the vagrants had absolutely no such intentions: passing street cleaning carts and their drivers, to whom I kept close by, brought me to safety and obviated the execution of my plan. . .

Once a day has begun eventfully, it generally carries on being every bit as lively: sewermen lifted the manhole covers and, herculean, started to
descend into the underworld. An old wound opened at the sight of them, the insatiable desire to be a sewerman's wife awoke in me. The majority of other women commit adultery by day, but they can go about their business at night without fear of being caught. I recommend that our playwrights turn their attention to this theme. Generously offer it to them. In the same way that I am always ready t
o help all our local industries
.
. .

No, the housekeeper who always keeps me waiting so long won't have any more reason to complain about me. Once when he had read what I had written on my registration form: Religion — "Greek-paradox," Occupation — "My desire is to have a small part in the Chorus Mysticus," he apparently broke out with: "Oh, we've not had the likes of that living here in The House of the Three Steeds as far as me and my missus can remember." He won't have any more reason to gripe. With the street director
y in my hand, I am going to pre
pare myself for the cab driver's exam. Or better still, I'm considering joining the ranks of the inventors. What have I invented? I shall patent my inkwell as a flycatcher. I at once told my housekeeper of the change I had undergone. He looked at me drowsily, uncertain, but receiving his tip as he unlocked the door, he actually bade me "Good night!" before hobbling off in his slippers to bed. But written on his thinker's brow was: "What's with you then? Go and sleep it off first!" . . . Inventor? That doesn't exclude the possibility that tomorrow I'll wake up clad in the clothes of a cabby or a Slovakian cauliflower dealer who is out to make the acquaintance of a sewerman's wife and put her marital fidelity to the test
.
. . No, I'd never do that, I no longer feel I've the strength for that. The housekeeper's doubting look has robbed me of all my energy. And as I looked at the visiting card which adorned the door of my one- windowed room complete with separate entrance by the light of the waning wax-candle, and read that I was Mr. Karl Tubutsch, I quietly said to myself, dismayed, no more than: "Not again!" .

I often wake up at night with a start. What's up? Nothing. Nothing! Doesn't anyone want to break in? Everything is planned in advance. Oh, I wouldn't like to be the person who broke into my room. Quite apart from the fact that there is nothing to be had beyond Philipp, my boot-jack, and maybe a street directory, I confess in all honesty: I haven't the slightest clue who the intruder might be, but I have every intention of sending the poor devil to his death. My penknife lies open and ready for murder on my bedside table. Philipp, my boot-jack, keeps watch belo
w, ready to
be thrown.
. . doesn't anyone want to break into my room . . . I'm longing for a murder.

If only I had a toothache. Then I could say "Abracadabra" three times; the holy word "Zip-Zip" would also probably have the same magical effect ... and even if that didn't make the pain go away,
I
still wouldn't go to the dentist, no way, rather nurture and cherish the pain, not let it fade, keep fanning it back to life. At least that would be a feeling! But my health is unshakeable.

If only some sorrow would grasp me in its talons! . . . Others only, my neighbours, are blessed by this rarely appreciated fortune. Here in this house lives a comfort-loving couple, both well off, she is the head saleswoman in a large fashion store, he is the chief inspector at the post office, they have an only child and don't begrudge themselves a thing. Not long ago the man's father died, he had lived with them for twenty years. It happened during their holidays, so they had time to deal with it. And these monsters set the funeral for the morning and get up at the crack of dawn so that they can take the tram to the cemetery before half past seven when it only costs sixpence!

If someone were to die on me, someone who would give me the right to go into mourning, I would allow myself a cab at the very least. But that's the way it is: relatives go and die on people who don't want to go into mourning
.
. . but me . . I'm not allowed to experience a thing, am, as it were, a person who just floats in the air
. .
.

Six childr
en are sitting around, contentedly munching their sandwiches and admiring a pavior busy at work — three to the right and three to the left — I would also like to sit with them, if only to enjoy the consternation and
embarrassment
it would cause the dear old streetworker. Quite impossible. Given the present state of medical science, my very modest pleasure would certainly be interrupted by a small spell inside
. .
.

Every day I eat my lunch in a sausage shop. And more or less the same sharp- cut faces keep coming in, clerks in a hurry, a cigarette dangling from their mouths, milliners in such haste that they don't even drop their handkerchieves at the appropriate moment . . . poor elderly people,
travelers
or strangers, all of them with at least one part of their bodies which has to make regular visits to the hospital . . almost all of the visitors know me know ... all apart from the hunchbacked pedlar who occasionally comes in hawking matches, pencils, cuff-links, writing paper and trouser presses from table to table. As I say, the people all know me, but does one of them think to ask me why I eat my lunch wearing red kid gloves? I only wear them so that someone will ask me why, and I can answer: "I'm somewhat absent-minded and have a tendency to bite my nails, so I wear gloves to stop myself, so that my nails can grow in peace and attain perfection . . ." I've bought the gloves in vain. They all think I'm crazy, or too lofty for them to dare to ask . . . Nobody sounds me out, not even Thekla, the wan waitress with the black curly locks who asks me every day whether I would like gherkins, mustard o
r horse radish with my sausages
. . . Thekla, to whom I always slide a few pennies, not even she lifts me out of my mood by asking such an obvious question, although she is more or less duty bound to do so.
.
.

I'm afraid that I'll come to a sticky end one day, I slip slowly down into even more ambiguous spheres. Naturally, people who are blessed with moral insanity — criminals from that great cannibal Napoleon to the small child who steals a plum and gets chased by the grocer's little son, first shouts "Mother!" and then sticks his booty in his mouth just to hide it — are all of them beings whom nature has rightly favoured and usually protected with an armour formed of a lack of conscience and a faulty memory which precludes regret; also that, which a certain dim-wittedness, which is such a far cry from Darwin, refers to as the Materialism of our times, namely Americanism — even these admirable defenders of the corporate trusts are as morally justifiable as the consumption of oxen and the existence of camel-riders when rideable camels are at hand. But what one cannot defend is stealing other people's precious time and causing harm without personally being able to gain from it. I have gone and applied for jobs advertised by businessmen just out of boredom, so as to be am
ong people and get to know them
.
. . jobs as errand boys, secondary school teachers, bookkeepers, engravers, correspondents, private tutors, valets etc. And after a long and vague to and fro, talking away until the people were totally confused, I always took my leave with these words: "I should like to think it over and perhaps come back for another interview." From a lenient standpoint, one might view this as a harmless prank. But it is far more mean, despicable and insidious to sit deliberately on one of the benches consecrated to courting couples, acting quite contrarily, reading the newspaper if it is still light and compelling the desperate couples to leave . . . hated alike by the league of Czechoslovakian wet-nurses, on account of the limited number of suitable seats, since they only allow themselves to be impregnated on the benche
s along the Kaiser-Wilhelm Ring.
.
. and held in fear by the tall Bosnians from the Votive Park and the Ger
man champions from the Augarten
.
.
. they carry on their games into the depths of the night. Ostensibly so as to collect statistical data on the length
of time between the first kiss and the final embrace
. . .