Early Years

Memory, even and especially deliberate recollection, is seldom true—it creates the illusion that something is behind us and is over and done with. But as our horizon broadens, so does our suspicion that time is not something that moves. Rather, all time is at the same time, which is probably correct for the very reason that it is beyond our understanding. Who knows, perhaps at this moment the Middle Ages are happening somewhere in the dream-deeps, the ancient world, a future in machines made of mental power and light. At this moment a midge bite makes me itch, while Plotinus scratches himself and someone transfers his software tome with a wink. However that may be, memory is certainly not the means of making a work of art out of one’s own life. For that it lacks completeness.

It’s different with love. It began hesitantly with them, almost a classic example—the author and the bookseller. He had just published his first book and been awarded a year’s bursary in the Sauerland for his poems and a short story. It included a flat in a villa which also housed the town’s registry office—marble staircases, spacious rooms, large, oval windows with a view of hills and forests. It rains and snows a lot here, almost uninterruptedly, there are always wisps of cloud among the tops of the huge pine trees and the only bright spot is the main shopping street down in the valley. But the stream of glowing light is deceptive. The people dress in grey or beige, or both. Even their shoes are grey or beige. And naturally he takes the discontent on most of their faces personally. He’s getting vast amounts of taxpayers’ money for a few poems which don’t even rhyme and they have to count their coppers in the cheap stores. A man, a blue-collar worker, pushes his shopping trolley against his heels, several times. He should move forward, nearer to the checkout, and when he eventually does so, though under protest, the other says, ‘There you are, you can do it.’

He puts on a show of being brooding and industrious, talks about his first novel, when in fact he’s just lying on the sofa staring at the grey sky, for months. Not much is expected of him. He has to read from his work now and then, at the local Rotary Club, for example, in the lending library, in the cultural centre of the neighbouring town, a former watermill with the clatter of the wheel. Despite that, his depression is often so paralyzing that he finds it difficult to raise his teacup to his lips. Since childhood writing has been a delight, despite the effort it takes. Being a writer, on the other hand, is hardly bearable, at least in public. That he’s supposed to have something to say beyond his writings he finds unreasonable and when he can only stammer a few words, it tends to encourage his own suspicion that he’s not a proper writer. The brewery-owner points out a questionable use of the genitive, the high-school teacher’s read everything anyway and his wife asks if he knows that poem by Schiller that begins ‘Higher you too aspired . . .’ while her husband mutters something about Hölderlin. They watch with interest as he signs his book and promptly his fingers tense up so that he doesn’t finish his signature. If, however, he tries to avoid that by beginning with a flourish, with large first letters, he doesn’t have enough space to finish. The mill wheel clatters and the organizer looks at his watch. He runs a mail-order bookshop next door with a considerable theological section that also includes devotional objects. He doesn’t sell much contemporary literature, gardening books go best. There’s an audience of seven and he has another appointment, so he introduces him to the trainee at the table with the books for sale. ‘She’ll take you home afterwards.’ She gives him a nod, seems embarrassed, but her hand is warm and soft and pleasantly dry. She wears her full red hair tied at the back, in her soft voice there’s something that reminds him of meadow-grass and asked about her unusual first name she mentions a Latvian great-grandmother. She has a well-thumbed copy of his poetry book with her and when she asks in for a dedication, he writes, ‘All the better for seeing you.’

The readings held on the first floor, in an absurdly large hall. She dims the light and sits down in the front row, the only person in it, the cash-box on the seat beside her. A white-haired couple have brought a dog, a huge, shaggy dog that lies down beside the radiator. There’s no microphone, fighting against the emptiness brings him out in a sweat, his glasses steam up. ‘Louder, please,’ one of the audience shouts from the back and he clutches the pages and reads more quickly to get it over with. Since he’s depriving the words of breath, the magic’s lost and even the funny bits are lame. But when the dog yawns now and then, giggles can be heard, a snort of laughter. When the applause finally comes, hesitant, thin and yet with an echo that makes the hall seem even higher, the animal jumps up, barking, and can’t get to the exit quickly enough.

Later, over wine with a gallery owner, the man- ager of the cultural centre and the pharmacist, the fair. The readings held on the first floor, in an absurdly large hall. She dims the light and sits down in the front row, the only person in it, the cash-box on the seat beside her. A white-haired couple have brought a dog, a huge, shaggy dog that lies down beside the radiator. There’s no microphone, fighting against the emptiness brings him out in a sweat, his glasses steam up. ‘Louder, please,’ one of the audience shouts from the back and he clutches the pages and reads more quickly to get it over with. Since he’s depriving the words of breath, the magic’s lost and even the funny bits are lame. But when the dog yawns now and then, giggles can be heard, a snort of laughter. When the applause finally comes, hesitant, thin and yet with an echo that makes the hall seem even higher, the animal jumps up, barking, and can’t get to the exit quickly enough.

Later, over wine with a gallery owner, the manager of the cultural centre and the pharmacist, the fair maiden is mostly silent, playing with her car keys and looking dreamily out of the windows, bulls’-eye windows. In vain he tries to see what her figure’s like under her fleecy pullover and wide jeans, probably dungarees, at least they have a ruler pocket. Her shoes look sensible, too, and she’s not wearing any jewellery, the holes in her ears are empty. Her curly hair glows with a halo from the candles on the window ledge, the skin of her neck is disturbingly white and Wolf, whom the pharmacist has just told he’s a ‘Goethe fan’ and goes to Weimar every year, takes her hand, her restless fingers, and quietly asks her if she’s bored and would rather go home? But she shakes her head, a lock of hair falls down over her forehead and her smile seems to him both hesitant and mocking at the same time. A disturbing smile, since she actually only moves one corner of her mouth, she raises her upper lip a little and her canine teeth can be seen in the flickering light, their shining enamel. She gently withdraws her hand.

This extract has been taken from the book Fire Doesn’t Burn by Ralf Rothmann