Finally, my arm finds the hip of the Fallada fan. Finally, something to hold onto on this noncommittal evening. In the cinema I have heard it as often as I have forgotten it in real life: The one sentence that says it all. That is reassuring and at the same time dangerous, direct and yet discreet, and it tends to mention “your eyes” or “your radiating smile.” In any case, it is mostly just a sentence, a main clause without branches, in between the first glance and the first kiss. Only those who take the narrow strip of the first encounter with momentum have a chance.
I ask her about lust. About the words, the smells, the colors she associates with it. About the images. With a smile she brushes my arm off her hip and starts talking. Of Spain, of a bull fight, of a lavender field under the stars. Lust to her is the spring in their steps down to the lake, when they both know that in a moment all clothes and inhibitions will fall. Lust is the jump into the dark water, the first touch underneath the surface, the quiet whisper, close to the ear, she says. Resistance to her would be futile.
She smiles rakishly. Is that an offer? An invitation to continue? “And what about you?” she asks. I tell her about Rodin, about the bronze statue in Paris, the naked girl gathering her hair. Arms crossed overhead, back straight, chest out. Her eyes are closed. She dreams of a tender, tight embrace, coming out of nowhere and leading to nothing. She longs for Kleist’s “Oh!”. Romanticizes innocently and knows nothing of Freud and his demystifications.
I put my arm around her and tilt my head back. I used to button my shirt low, hoping I looked like James Dean. How he would walk on the dusty desert path in Giant, drunk and disgusted with his own life, the future bust, the end in sight. And then his shirt is unbuttoned by the wind. That, too, is lust, I say: the sweaty, dirty chest of a beautiful man. Sweat as a real promise, not the fake product from the gym.
She turns away with a smile, disappears into the bathroom. I stay behind and reassure myself: this is the intimacy I’m longing for, my wish for free lust within immediate reach.
The bed is the last space in which there are no rules, no conditions. You can devote and abandon yourself until the church bells ring and the bread and soft cheese arrive at the front door. Jeanne Moreau, the cigarette afterward, those were victory signs from a world in which you could be sure that the sun was the only witness.
“What do you miss?” someone once asked Beckett. His answer was: “Beauty.”
But going for a walk in Hyde Park on a sunny late summer day, a journalist with him exclaimed how beautiful the day was and what a joy it was to live that precise moment, and Beckett supposedly said: “No sir, I wouldn’t go that far.”
Between beauty and despair there is only one word: lust. It cannot be provoked. Decorating the bathtub with tea candles and dried lavender doesn’t help. Being naked doesn’t prompt it either. Beautiful breasts can be cold. Strong arms can feel hollow. Those who intentionally search for lust will not find it. They will have to make do with a bit of greed, a bit of instinct. It doesn’t come to the shower in the drunken morning hours when four friendly strangers are rubbing against each other. It doesn’t come to palm trees or DJ rigs. Let alone roulette tables.
But then at the end, when everyone has left, removed their masks, somebody rubs my back with a warm hand. The girl from the milk glass window at the reception has waited for me, a stranger’s soul in a dark forest. Two who got away, now lying next to each other among the shattered wine glasses. The dreams had all crashed. But then she entered through the door, turned off the light and dispelled the shame. Those who are found by lust won’t be helped by velvet or exotic fruit. They are led away defenselessly. And won’t be released from it easily. No matter how often the phone rings upstairs, no matter how heavily the branches beat against the window.
VII
IRA
ANGER HAS DIRT UNDER its fingernails. It scratches the varnish, scratches and tears until the skin opens, until nerves are raw and exposed. Sitting at the stone table, playing cards? That is an image for later days. Before then, at twenty-five or twenty-six or twenty-seven, you have to talk big. Otherwise, you’ll always speak in a whisper and the cards will never be reshuffled.
My mirror self sits next to me in the car. Not a friend, not a stranger. A man in between. The handshake has gotten agreeable over time. He briefly looks me in the eye, then past me, into the distance. He’s not quite there yet, or a step ahead, already on to the next job, the next deal. He holds the steering wheel like a young entrepreneur, with one hand, as the left one hangs nonchalantly out the window.
Cars are not a matter of perspective. They’ve always been dirty, much too big, and there’s never a parking spot nearby. Little Tree air fresheners sway from the rearview mirror like nasty traitors. The backrest leans too far back. The seat is scalding and the seatbelt warning chimes every second. The tank is almost empty and there’s spilled milk in the trunk again. The car offers a refuge only for old men who like to spread their legs. Those who feel bossed around, constricted and emasculated by the current conditions. Those conditions have changed, worsened. Even secretaries are no longer what they once were. Only behind the wheel does the world still belong to those who once conquered it.
Our pockets are full. We share cars and points of view that we never longed to have, hurry from one late-arrival to the next—always with an excuse, a little one-liner—we’ve always had the feeling of being on the right side and will never understand how important it is to do the wrong thing first. To go full sail in the wrong direction, against the current, against the wind.
That’s our misfortune. That we never knew how to start the day without a bowl of muesli on the table. Without wanting to please anyone. Without any tobacco that we can roll to prove to the world how basic we live. Natural smoking now means to sit cross-legged and to lick creased papers. The days of Marlboro cowboys riding without saddles are long gone. Their lassos are gathering dust in the stable. These days, they use electronic voice boxes.
When we met for the first time, one afternoon during the week in a cafe, the tension was palpable. He spoke fast and much and we immediately started dreaming together. Or rather: pretended to dream. Of an honest, sparking life. Of time. Of time we would use together to work on a blueprint, a manifesto. Nothing ever came of it. Not even a few lines in double-size font. Instead, many evenings when other things were more important. We held salons, threw parties, invited friends, introduced each other, talked, emptied other people’s glasses. At the end, when we were each tucked into our freshly washed bedding, we sent each other a short text. Reassured each other that the real task still lay ahead, that we’d start working on it soon. “The age needs us,” he once wrote. “Who if not us?” And I answered him, like Schiller would answer Goethe: “The last companions on a journey always have the most to say to each other.” The only thing that offended me was that he always signed with his last name.
In the meantime, the others presented their books. Read at book launches in the sunset on roof decks. Described their everyday lives, their pain, their suffering and fake companionship. They found their own writing so funny. Had to giggle at every word, every syllable. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Everything is encased in the bulletproof glass of irony. At these readings, we shot each other quick looks, convinced that our words would matter more. But we never wrote on these nights. Just that message again, the promise: More later.