And then, at the prompting of Associate Judge Ulla Witzlaff, Ms. Schonherr, the presiding judge, suggested a compromise for which my Ilsebill might have voted, since it promised to satisfy both wishes, the wish for harsh punishment and the wish for prolonged expiation. She proposed that in the Flounder's presence, under his obliquely set eyes, impossible for him to ignore, at a long table — which would make it necessary to remove three rows of seats from the former movie house — at which the associate judges, the Advisory Council, the prosecution, the defense, and a few representatives of the public would be seated, an ostentatious, memorable, ritual, solemn, and grandiose flounder dinner be held. Ms. Helga Paasch undertook, through her connections with the Berlin wholesale trade, to deliver the required number of flounders to the kitchen of Therese Osslieb's restaurant, where nine or, when Erika Nottke expressed concern that nine would not be sufficient, eleven good-sized specimens ranging from four-and-a-half to nine pounds each (at wholesale prices the bill came to 285 marks) were promptly saut^ed in tarragon butter, deglazed with white wine, covered with stock, simmered, seasoned with dill and capers, and finally, along with the roe and milt, which are well developed in June, placed in preheated serving dishes, covered with aluminum foil, and (along with boiled poatoes and cucumber salad) conveyed to Steglitz by cab.
In the onetime Stella Cinema the table, forming a horseshoe around the Flounder in his tank, had been festively set. Candles had been lit. Lemon slices had been bedded on lettuce leaves. Chilled Riesling stood in readiness. The steaming
dishes were brought in. The Womenal seated itself. After a short but, despite the solemn occasion, whimsical speech, Ms. Schonherr served first the court-appointed defense counsel, then the prosecutor. The flounder dinner began.
I had better explain how I came to have the honor of attending, although, so soon before her confinement, I should have stuck it out with my Ilsebill. The representatives of the public were chosen by lot. And when I drew one of the lucky lots, giving me the privilege of being the only man present among fifty-four women, Ilsebill had no objection. "Don't miss it on my account. I'll be all right. It's sure to be a couple of days more. I'll send you a wire if necessary or get someone to page you in your harem."
I sat between an old lady, a librarian by profession, and a young schoolteacher who refused to touch the milt though I called it a "delicacy." She said she abominated male organs but would like some of the female roe. I was glad Ulla Witz-laff was sitting across the table from us, with her head slightly tilted. (She took some of the milt.)
Far away, behind the convicted Flounder's tank but recognizable, sat Griselde Dubertin and Ruth Simoneit. Hage-dorn and Giillen were also provocatively present. I was so excited I made faces. (Let's hope they don't start fighting.) So be extra gentlemanly. Bridge gaps in the conversation. Help to carve and serve the flatfish. How easily the white flesh let itself be removed from the backbone. Deftly I served the ladies. "I recommend a few drops of lemon juice. The cheeks, I assure you, are delicious. Would you care for a slice of the tail piece, Ms. Nottke? Just a little more broth and some capers? How strikingly the dill enhances the taste. And don't forget to save the boiled white eyes. Flounder eyes bring luck and make all our wishes come true."
So I made myself useful to the ladies. I refilled wine glasses, filleted deftly, offered "Another potato?" and even called the girls of the Advisory Council by their first names. I joked with Ilona, smiled at Gabriele, had a kind word for the always gloomy Emma, and was almost of the same opinion as Alice. I livened up the conversation by dissecting a turbot head with anatomical acumen and cracking jokes, but always at the proper moment resumed the gravity required by the
solemn occasion. I praised the wise verdict, called the Flounder's peroration "artfully forthright," characterized the Wom-enal as an epoch-making institution, quoted from the well-known ancient Greek feminist play, spoke in passing of my Ilsebill's impending confinement—"She wants a boy so badly!" — but added at once that I, the father, would be equally overjoyed with a girl, distributed good-luck charms — fisheyes— raised my glass in a toast, and, when nothing remained of the flounders but eleven sets of ravaged heads, fins, skin, and bones, took the liberty, as the very onliest man present, of making a little speech.
Witzlaff laughed encouragingly. Erika Nottke begged me to make it short. The old lady on my right turned the hearing-aid button behind her left ear. When I tapped my glass with my fish knife, the young schoolteacher hissed, "Some nerve!" But Ms. Schonherr, from the center of the horseshoe-shaped table, nodded a friendly permission.
I first thanked the assembled ladies for the honor of letting me attend. I praised the culinary art of restaurant owner and Associate Judge Therese Osslieb. A little joke about Helga Paasch's expense-saving connections with the wholesale market. Then I came to the point.
In owning that the Flounder's admission of guilt and antiwar speech had moved me deeply, I gained my first opportunity to introduce myself in my changing time-phases. "As early as the Neolithic…" I said. "When we were finally converted to Christianity. ." "There can be no doubt, to cite Friedell, that some good came of the plague…" I quoted myself as Opitz from his "Poem of Consolation Amidst the Horrors of War." I was at Kolin, Leuthen, Hochkirch. I opened the door when Comrade Bebel came to see me and my good Lena on Brabank. To spare Sieglinde Huntscha, I made only the barest allusion to the Father's Day death of poor Billy. Then I went into current politics: "Even now it's as if the canteen cook at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk had been turned to stone. They shot Jan in the belly. Yes, the police fired on the workers. And that in a Communist state. Yes, wherever men have their fingers on triggers. And that's how it has always been. The language of arms. Mechanized warfare. Attack to defend. Scorched earth. The Flounder did that. His advice was: Kill! His word sig-
naled violence. He was the source of evil. We are gathered here to punish him. Here, Flounder! Here! Look and see what's left of you. You dealer of death, you enemy of life!"
I lifted up a bare backbone with the ravaged head attached and showed it to the Flounder in his glass tank. Whereupon Griselde Dubertin and Ruth Simoneit, Hunt-scha and Paasch, but also Elisabeth Giillen and Beate Hage-dorn, who had hitherto been silent, obstinately silent, each grabbed a backbone, and other women grabbed the remaining bones, heads, tail fins, and showed them to the Flounder, so that he was forced to see. And several women cried, "You're mortal!" Others went further. "The fact is, you're dead!"
I was overcome with rage. I went to him and threw a backbone down on the platform in front of his tank. "There!" Without delay the women threw down the remaining bones, heads, and fins, until all eleven carcasses lay in a heap and the Flounder was forced to see what was left of his fellows. "There! There!" And we all wiped our fingers and tossed our paper napkins onto the pile. And we all spat on the bony garbage, in which crooked mouths gaped in sightless heads.
But the pallid Flounder, who seemed to have been blown from glass, remained in his hovering position and did not take refuge in his sand bed. Ah, how grievously he suffered. Ah, how right it served him.
Then Ms. Schonherr said: "Punishment has now been dealt. The day after tomorrow the Flounder will be set free to expiate his guilt. All arrangements have been made for transportation. The Womenal is therefore disbanded. Sisters, I thank you."
With that the dinner party broke up.
On M0n