Tubutsch Read online

  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, annoyed. "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 wisdom 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 for 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 to 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 directory in my hand, I am going to prepare 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 below, 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 children 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 or 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 among 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 benches along the Kaiser-Wilhelm Ring. . . and held in fear by the tall Bosnians from the Votive Park and the German 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. . .

  It may be asked why I don't forget these shallow diversions and indulge myself in something more entertaining? While there is a lot to be said for being a dog-owner, given the great number ff time-filling chores one must attend to, how much more are the simple and harmless pleasures occasioned by the tending of a piteous animal outshone by the company of a woman. To which I might add: when even a Homeric hero can have too much of "sleep and love, song and merry-making," what depths of emotion and exhaustion would the likes of me start to register? My ears are still resounding with the cries of the Viennese ladies, gasping in the moment of rapture: "Ah!" "Oh!" "Christ!" and "Do you really love me as well!" If they were poetesses they would presumably say: "Tandaradei!" ... and I can still hear the "Hoo," "Hah," "Hob" of the Hungarians when I hold my ears. The girl from Berlin says "Hmmm, tasty!" The only ones who didn't say a word were the Gypsy girls; but take my advice, leave your watch at home when making amorous advances to them. . . and call yourself lucky if Trantire and Chnarpe-diches don't name you as the father of their children, who by right should resemble the whole of the officer corps from the local garrison . . . Yes, another one was sensible to hold her tongue . . . Marischa, the wife of the village judge of Popudjin. She made love the same way she would cut herself a slice of bread. Every one of her movements had a machine like assurance. Truly, I shall never forget how we chanced on one another that first time. It was the morning after her wedding, which I was unaware of. She, a stranger to me, was mowing the meadow which glistened with morning dew, her hips swaying as she moved forwards. . . her short skirts forever swinging round and revealing her calves. . . I sauntered past and could not resist leaning over to stroke the blossoming chin and cheeks of such a lovely, fresh woman. She blushed but didn't rebuff me: death stood behind me, the farmer with his scythe. And I just had enough presence of mind to say: "So, my woman, I can come by your vineyard this afternoon and pick up the mulberries." The farmer stared like an ox. She, bending down even further, as if she wanted to help me find something which had fallen on the ground, said yes, and that afternoon there were not just mulberries to be had in the vineyard . . . And later on she informed me that her husband and mother had gone on a pilgrimage to Sassin, and I crept into her room where she lay waiting with her scent of stables, then returned home in the dark — taking care not to step into the dung heap to the right of the yard or fall into the cesspit on the left — to sing the joys of the perilous love between Jehangir Mirza and Maasumeh Sultan Begum. . . But my enthusiasm was soon to become paralyzed by the oppressive conflict between such petty fortunes and the monstrous feelings and imaginings which accompanied them; indeed, in the long run it is an economic impossibility to manufacture ambrosia while having to eat filth oneself . . Apart from which the unfortunate gift of being able to see the skeleton inside even the most beloved woman, which can sometimes make an embrace all the more heart-rending, but in the end I was bound to be cut off from womankind by an immeasurable horror. . . enough of all that love business! I'd much rather have a dog. The housekeeper's childless wife has got one which I think very highly of. A young toy bulldog, it holds court before the children in the yard; if they bring it turnips, calf's liver or sausages, it will answer to Fido, Bonzo, Fill or even worse. But the little devil ignores any name under the sun if you only want to be nice to him, and should one become more insistent, perhaps like an old widow who once wanted to tie a pink bow around its neck, it growls a warning and then snaps. Its limitless power of reaction, its fresh and youthful bull-like charges at any scrap of paper or handkerchief held in front of it, and last but not least its exemplary self-sufficiency, have made it my ideal. It is able to lie about for hours on end hypnotizing the selfsame bone without a trace of boredom, and doesn't see any need for change. It doesn't need any teacher to tell it ironically: "That's going to get you a long way!" — it knows that so deep in its bones that it is no longer conscious of it: one cannot get further in than to one's own self. I, on the other hand, when I find it too dull just being "me," am forced to become someone else. Usually I am Marius and sit among the ruins of Carthage; but sometimes I am Prince Echsenklumm, entertain relations with an opera singer, gladly grant the chief editor Armand Schigut an interview on the trade deal with Monaco, forbid my valet, Dominic — played by my boot¬jack Philipp — to allow anyone to see me except Baroness Toothscale ... And no sooner has this eternal yes your highness, no your highness got on my nerves, than I turn into a celebrated diva, give my miserable director the slap around the chops I had been longing to give him for ages, or set about him with a chair. I was just about to transform myself into the poet Konrad Rare- hammer and silently smoke a cigarette in the Cafe "Symbol" in order to restore myself from these unaccustomed exertions, when my boot-jack interrupted me. He was
fed up with always playing the servants, directors, Carthaginian ruins, and cigarettes, and longed just once to be a prince, a heroine, or a playwright. "Boot! ..." I said to him, "Boot! Pride comes before a fall." "Master," came the answer, "Master, I'm no ordinary boot-jack." "That's perfectly obvious. Any boot-jack in my service is eo ipso no longer a normal boot-jack." "I didn't mean it that way." "Is there divine blood in your fibres? Are you an enchanted princess or perhaps even the boot-jack with which Zeus ingratiated himself with Hera?" "No, no, but all the same, from an old family. Listen: I am descended in a direct line from the boot-jack which Mithridates swallowed in order to immunise his stomach against all poison." "He must have plagued his master as much as you to end up being used like that." Philipp forbade any such allusions to the fates of personal ancestors who were no less illustrious than meritorious. "Or else I shall be ruthless and hand in my notice. Not for nothing am I being considered for the presidency of the forthcoming First International Boot-jack Congress in America. Roosevelt will personally . . ." "Roosevelt?" "I mean Roosevelt's boot-jack. We call him Roosevelt for short . . . has invited me to preside . . . and just because of my position as the descendant of a famous. . . or do you think that Mr. Tubutsch's boot-jack . ?" "Yes, well, how are you going to get to America, oh boot-jack of my soul?" "My body, my mean form, will remain here, while my spirit soars up, flies off, crawls into a power line and is over there in a jiffy. In the old days it was a lot more bother. You couldn't always find a bolt of lightning and there was no relying on that vagabond of a wind, it would always set us down just where we didn't want to be . . . on Lake Tanganyika or the Fiji Islands . . . where there was not a fellow soul to be found far and wide . . ." I felt flattered to be in contact with an entity which in a way put me in very close contact with the President of the United States, so we made a pact whereby from now on we alternated the lead roles. He was the grocer who said: "Today we've gotta luvverly cheese from Prims!" I was the customer who tries a taste with a shrug of the shoulders. Then again I was the elephant baby . . . running around in circles. . . and he the child shouting: "Oh! How sweet!" Finally he was the tree trunk with a hat on one branch, coursing down the Danube to the Black Sea, and I was the oarsman who had fallen into the water and was cursing him, the water rat which resided between his roots or the otter checking the validity of the tree trunk's ticket. Until my fun was spoilt by the impossibility, even with the greatest exertions of my will, of transforming myself into Prince Echsenklumm or the water rat sufficiently so as to be externally visible to myself and others. "Philipp!" I said, "come here." Philipp came, if somewhat reluctantly, as if he sensed the worst. I wrapped him up carefully in brown wrapping paper and went for a walk. But none of the passers-by wanted to ask me what was inside my little brown packet. And I had already prepared a short speech; "Ladies and Gentlemen! Here you are looking at something quite out of the ordinary! A talking boot-jack! He is descended from the boot-jack to his Asiatic Majesty, King Mithridates of Pontus . . . he will preside shortly at the First International Boot-jack Congress. Roosevelt himself . . ." Nobody showed the slightest curiosity and I didn't want to be pushy . . . That I remained unquestioned might still have been tolerable . . . but Philipp went into a huff because I had been so faithless, had sought to profane his secrets . . . his soul had emigrated to America for good . . . I was alone again. . .