For some time, then. . quite a while now, and increasingly in the past year or so. . I’d noticed signs of dissatisfaction on Feuerbach’s part. But perhaps I was confusing things, and these signs were in myself, and arose from my own dissatisfaction with Feuerbach’s behaviour. . when I thought about it, it had started when Reader’s first readings attracted our attention. I myself had discovered the ‘phenomenon’ and — albeit belatedly — brought the news of it to Feuerbach’s desk. I had first heard Reader while trailing a young woman — a student, I guessed, who cropped up at most literary events in the so-called Scene, and had caught my eye because she was constantly writing down reading dates in a tiny notebook — of whom I’d then lost sight again.
Literature, literature! Feuerbach exclaimed after hearing my report to the end. . I’d delivered it orally; realizing immediately that I’d caught him on one of his nervous days, I kept it as brief as possible, forgetting to mention the student. . and he exclaimed it in such a tone as to say: Can’t you think of anything better than to keep coming to me with literature! Then, a bit more calmly, he said: Literature’s always got surprises in store, even here. And Beckett, you said. . his texts are like Beckett’s? I still maintain that that Irishman ruined the isle’s literature. And probably French literature too. And the same thing’s going to happen here. That was a bad idea, these texts à la Beckett! But what can we do? I for one don’t like Beckett’s stuff at all. .
Again I’d thought I heard a tiny noise. . directly behind the wall something must have gone out, something had silenced a machine, a complex of machines, a ticking, and in that silence I’d started from my sleep. And one of those rare moments came in which I perceived, with full awareness, where I was — I stared, revolted, into the dim desolation around me. How could I stand it down here? Before me a grimy passage vanished into the dark, the walls casing this tunnel seemed already to have run to rot, noxious liquids trickling down and draining off in unseen places; they seeped down into the city’s cloacae whose bitter fumes sometimes swamped me. Those were the moments when I took flight, overcome by loathing, and swore never to descend again. — And as I fled towards the exit, I had to pass a partition that blocked off a side passage. It had been added later, you could tell. . which was why it was even more rotten and crumbly than the rest of the masonry: a section of bricks was breached, and this hole in the wall — behind it was the densest, most noxious darkness — filled me with a special dread. I couldn’t explain why, but I hardly dared to approach this stretch of wall; only now and then, when my curiosity got the better of me— taking cover below the hole, as I feared an instantaneous gas explosion — I’d tossed some burning newspapers through the opening. They didn’t fall far; the air in the hole was so poor in oxygen that the flames couldn’t catch. There was nothing in there but stench and putrefaction. . The coal! I said to myself. Coal, when it reaches the stage of decay and disintegrates, gives off this veritably organic smell. Only far to the back did I seem to see a dull red gleam. This, I surmised, was the glimmer of the dilapidated red foam-rubber armchair I’d once placed by the concrete wall at the end of the passage. For comfort’s sake I’d transported the prize through the basements in a gruelling effort; it was purloined just a short while later. — I was being frequented down here, from that day on I could doubt it no longer. Whoever was sniffing me out, they wanted to chase me away. . everywhere I wasn’t alone, I felt chased away. And down here was the last place I’d been alone with myself. There was one single character who had to reckon with surveillance down here: I myself. . surveillanced by me myself. That was a thing of the past now.
When I’d passed this partition, I had to walk back quite a way to the first door that opened onto basement stairs leading up and out. Here I had always taken particular care that the door remained unlocked. . only once, I recalled with dread, had it been closed, blocked from outside by junk dumped in front of it. I had an appointment, no time left, and I lost all sense of direction; I spent half the night blundering through the passages in a panic and swallowing sedatives. . now the basement door was open. Standing on the street, I was astonished to see that it was already broad daylight. Like a blinded bat I peered into the winter morning light which dazzled me, though it was cloudy and a few snowflakes fluttered through the damp cold. Traffic noise surged around me, the stores were already open; as usual at this early hour, clusters of shoppers had formed in front of the bakeries. I had to pass them, bleary-eyed and pale, feeling filthy and foul; all I could do was walk down the street with head held high and ignore their gazes.
Down on the main thoroughfare I recalled the little cafe where I’d waited for Feuerbach many times before. It was more of a dive — and the first lieutenant was inconsiderate enough to call it that — tastelessly decorated and not always clean, but it was open early and thus one of the few places in the capital referred to as a boulevard cafe. The decor, later redone, consisted of bare plastic furniture in artificial, long-dingy trend colours, with a relentless proliferation of unsightly black marks from the cigarette butts stubbed out on the flesh-coloured curves of the chairs and tables. Once it had been a non-smoking cafe; the pictogram meant to convey this dictate had been hung in an awkward location and covered beyond recognition with cryptic dates and addresses. Now people smoked here all the more, using the saucers of the coffee cups as ashtrays; when there was a fastidious phase, or a fresh start — unlike the staff, the cafe manager was constantly changing — these saucers were no longer served; now you went to the bar yourself and fetched a saucer from the leaning stack. The counter was screened off by an ornate iron grille, at its foot a growing pile of newspapers, several weeks’ worth; the grille also provided a place to hang up coats, with the disadvantage that the barman was usually invisible, and the guests were invisible to him; if you didn’t want to shout for the waiter, which was frowned on in the cafe, you had to make your way around the grille, where the waiter was almost always hiding, if he was in the cafe at all.
I’d stopped wondering whether to find it odd that you rarely saw two people at one table in this cafe, though this behaviour changed over the course of the evening. . and so it was usually very quiet inside; it did happen that one of the waiters, if he was new, would slide a cassette into the recorder, the current hits would blare out, one of the guests would make his way to the front to complain about the noise, and the cassette would be ejected — it was clear that people were working in this cafe. Each of the exclusively male individuals at the tables — all were about the same age, in the indeterminate years between thirty and forty — seemed intensely self-absorbed, none seemed to know the others but all were on a first-name basis with the barman. And nearly all of them drank that peculiar beverage, far too expensive for me, which was known as a champagne shandy and was concocted from a beer. . it was crucial to use a Czech pilsner, which had become a scarce commodity, or, better yet, one from Radeberg near Dresden; Berliner Pilsner came in for regular disparagement. . and a mini-bottle of champagne. I stuck to coffee and schnapps, even in the summer, as multiple mini-champagnes in the morning hours still struck me as a luxury. Out of habit I took my place at the window. . which the others seemed to avoid now that I’d occupied it several times. . where I sat hidden from the outside world by the grey — yellow curtain — it held the nicotine of years, as curtains in a non-smoking bar didn’t need changing — with a good view of the street, and the pedestrian traffic right before my eyes, since the window ledge was almost level with the pavement. And if two people stopped outside to talk, I could even hear what they were saying through the big window.