The Brooke-Rose Omnibus (54 page)

— Au revoir, madame bon voyage, drum bun.

— Mulţumesc padre, la revedere.

— Excusez-moi madame, si vous désirez apprendre, il faut dire părinte. Padre non, părinte. Et pour grande politesse, cuvioase părinte.

— Cuvioase? Cuvioase părinte?

— Dévoué père. Mais cela n’a pas d’importance madame je me permets seulement parceque vous desirez. Enchanté madame de faire votre connaissance et au revoir.

— So now you know everything.

— Er, where did you say you came from?

— I live in Italy but—

— Please, could you repeat your name?

— Ah yes, very difficult madame, Boleslaw Czeszczyk CZE, SZ, CZ, YK.

— Oh. Er, enchantée monsieur. Mille excuses.

— I understand madame, people always say why you have so many consonants together in Polish? But it all depends on the habit of the eye. I live in London many years and every day of my life I see KNIGHTSBRIDGE. All those consonants together, GHTSBR, very terrorising. Also KN, DG, ten consonants three vowels. You know London madame?

— Yes.

— Oh but of course in your fascinating work you travel much.

— Well, not so much these days, most conferences take place in the main western towns except for fringe activities like—

— Fringe?

— Oh you know like the Shakespeare centenary and cultural exchange with Eastern Europe.

— Ah, you joke. Yes, good. I would not call Petroleum Engineering fringe. We must help these people you see to free themselves economically from Russia, they have so much petrol and great modern methods but not enough, and this conference ah, but you understand, I see while I speak, you in the glass box you translate, into what language madame?

— German.

— Ah.

The expression stiffens imperceptibly but feeling sure you translate excellently madame with many thanks for the German delegate Herr Ingenier Erich Osterbach he
felicitates
me. From West Germany of course. Yes madame in politics as in technology every solution creates new problems which makes one very sad.

And as for China well my card Bing-Song the problem looks more simple than it appears between the earphones and the mouthpiece through the neutralised transmitter in the brain, the hands quite still on the desk, forming a squat diamond space with the thumbs pressed together towards the body, the fingers touching like a cathedral roof, never seeing the gestures, the eyes closed to watch the words as they pass through the distant brain way up, steadily in phrases
well-formed
almost in advance to hit the German nail on the French pinpoint. Unless alternatively concision shrinks the statistics like angels to a pinhead and the pinhead pricks the Gallic nuance which escapes like gas and lingers far behind the inklings of the few depending on the speaker’s nationality in French, Italian for instance, Polish or verbose, depending on the theme the time the place the climate, whether
canyons
create new problems as in politics and pamphlets full of Kulturstätten—Places of Cultural Interest—Curiosités Culturelles—Curiosità Culturali—Centros Culturales.
Archives,
Libraries, Memorial Rooms, Museums, State
Apartments.
Tabak-Museum IX Porzellangasse 51. Technisches Museum für Industrie und Gewerbe XIV Mariahilfer Strasse 212, Uhrenmuseum der Stadt Wien, 1 Schulhof 2. Monuments and Fountains. Sakrale Bauten. Churches—Eglises—Chiese—Iglesias. Opera Houses and Theatres. Privattheater. Teatros particulares. Aber Sie wissen alles gnädige Frau.

— Could you repeat your name?

— Doktor Friedrich Sachs.

— Oh yes. You made a very good speech today.

— Ah, gnädige Frau, demography produces nothing but despair. Populations multiply almost by geometrical
progression
gnädige Frau, in simple terms two times two equals four, times two equal eight, times eight equals sixteen und so weiter ad infinitum consuming the world’s natural
resources
which soon will not suffice. In thirty years we shall have lost the food and birth control battle for ever. And the world talks and compiles statistics and does nothing except build more satellites more missiles ad infinitum yes, nothing but despair.

Uw zwemvest und so weiter ad infinitum which makes one very sad. And in your journey through Rumania you will meet modern comfort, the proverbial Rumanian hospitality, gaiety, dynamism and the creative spirit of the Rumanian people. You will meet Mr. Bryan Crisis. And if you look up crisis in the dictionary you will find the new face of the country whose economic power has increased thirteen-fold, the new aspects of towns, the more and more frequent silhouettes of industrial combines, the lively rhythm of a prodigious development representing only some of the accents of the renovating present. And did you enjoy the bus-
excursion
to Battalha senhora? Ah, you have seen it before, you know Portugal well? You like? Muite obrigado senhora what a charming compliment. Yes, I prefer Evora also.

Where the aqueduct walks from the wilderness on
innumerable
brown legs, pierces the citadel and collapses, not too far however from the secret mysteries of Diana in broken columns coloured bronze mark you in the sunset and surrounded with white palpitating stags, unless animal organs not to mention the cross on the curlicued façade so much taller than the small church behind it. But stones do talk. Statistically, into microphones. Du Witzling.
Witzling-Schmutzling?
Ein bisschen. Well, the gods have left this land but we shall honour our obligations towards them all from Apollo to Allah, with plaster images and a Renaissance chapel plonked in the middle of the mosque looking obscene
according
to the time the place the theme the climate and whether canyons create great holes of air that leap into the
mouthpiece
two channels keeping the mind alert not to say three the eyes the hands the voice and more than the five senses in a flow of rash enthusiasm about ideas not one of which deserves a moment of allo? er, dígame? Ah, muchas gracias. You like your work señora? Oh yes, very much. And what do you like most about it, the travel or the translating? Well, the ideas transmitted, at least—Ah yes, you must know everything by now. Your name, could you repeat your name? Cano, señora, Esteban Cano. Encantada. Lo mismo señora, lo mismo, encantado to see that you have not lost your enthusiasm for ideals, so many people do. And where do you go next?

I luoghi: La Francia e soprattutto la Germania über alles then unter where the tannoy voice fills the large wooden hut calling out ranks with names attached and even faces over uniforms grey-blue dark olive-green khaki that wear a listening responsive look for the Dakota aircraft about to take off from Frankfurt airport for Hamburg. He stands tall blond and Aryan in British battle-dress dyed greenish-black and eyes too close together above a slightly broken nose and thin mouth saying I heard your name saw you at Headquarters loved you from the start no he does not say that. So you have got on to the same bandwagon. How come so young to work to fly on allied aircraft unless perhaps how come he sits so close on the long metal bench fixed to the curved metallic wall inside the fuselage the round ribs all exposed as if inside a skeleton chrysalis like paratroopers about to jump
descending
on the rectangles of agriculture brush-stroke size the forest blobs the thin white lines meeting at pimples cancerous growths that make up an abstract study of the late
Mother-country
in brown and green.

— Yes, well, every solution creates new problems and one did what one could to make it work to get things going again such as the sale of goods and normal life love ambition culture why, and he talks, discusses things ideas not one of which has lost validity for him in the administration re-education tact resentment humiliation self-recoil revenge understanding distribution black-market fraternization sex. And so you work in the French zone? Rejoice Fräulein that they do not put German employees in uniform although clothes create
problems
one gets so tired of women in uniform as if at his age what twenty-two twenty-three he had had mil e tre per annum per square metre of Lebensraum for nineteen hundred and forty six years and plus. Not that the girl officers so thoughtfully provided by the occupying allies to prevent fraternisation don’t look glamorous mind you but not for us. Besides, the French call theirs Aspirantes. Not lieutenants mark you but Aspirantes. What do you suppose they aspire to? Do you aspire to anything? A change of zone for instance or come climb on my bandwagon and have a love-affair. And have a Bruderschaft. Well you’ll have to wait Fräulein if you’ll forgive the intimacy they have no lavatories on these Dakotas only a tube over there in the tail strictly for men only, visible to all and you’d miss wouldn’t you. As a
translator?
How very interesting what a coincidence and where? What do you mean only documents? What difference does it make? Accuracy, precision, nothing else matters. Oh yes and speed natürlich but all that comes with practice. They’d send you on a course anyway and besides they’d have to give you a denazification screening first. Things have changed
however
since the early occupation days and I will take you under my wing.

Everything comes with practice. Loyalty change of zone speed rash enthusiasm in the precision of translation at
nineteen
and plus. Plus what exactly? Ah so you had reached the age to help the German war-effort some while before it collapsed. What did you do? You will excuse these questions Fräulein but in view of your nationality we must make sure of your undivided loyalty total ignorance dissidence change of heart let us see now until the age of sir, at that age one has no loyalties. No? One does a job any job to the best of one’s ability. Yes yes of course we understand but one does one’s job, also, as an instrument. Had you thought of that? In view of your French upbringing however and the strong
recommendation
from the plane as it leaps up and down the holes of air wind storm that lurch into the mouthpiece the passengers in grey-blue dark olive-green and khaki hold on to the metal bench or each other not to get thrown across the fuselage to the opposite metal bench with passengers in dark olive-green khaki grey-blue the round ribs all exposed as if inside the skeleton of a dark olive monster. Du liebes Kind have you not flown before, there, komm mal her his arm right round a little storm only a little storm soon landing outside Hamburg as the plane lurches down the steps of air above the squares of grey façades so much less squat than the rubble behind them. You don’t mind my calling you Du liebes Kind Fräulein? His arm right round a hole of air his nose long slightly broken and the mouth quite thin which says please call me Siegfried.

Everything comes with practice. Living in the
requisitioned
room in Hanover sparsely but better than others having access to allied goods sold at a profit. Catching colds in open jeeps with Flight Lieutenant This or Captain That and
sometimes
also Siegfried according to the type of prisoner
interrogated
and curing colds at the unpressurised height of two thousand metres eardrums blocked from any voice offering anything not ordered half-desired feared or longed for on the way to München where die Alte Peterskirche barely stands in stark broken façades around its rubble heap and on to Dachau full of German civilian prisoners or the Schloss
code-name
Dustbin outside Frankfurt full of ex-high officials who can help reconstruct the history of devastation Dorf by Dorf day by day from the enemy point of view.

Diversion. Umleitung. Achtung Road Repairs now
entering
the British Zone with a flow of rash enthusiasm speed change of loyalty love hope so much less squat than the collapse behind it. Well but you see, sir, reading English newspapers at the AA, the A.A.? sorry the German Foreign Office one learnt to follow the war from the enemy point of view. The enemy. Ah yes, you mean us. And did you also learn to adopt our point of view? Bluffing a little, looking up unknown words in the dictionary hidden inside the drawer to hide the fact that one had merely passed a test in English learnt at night in Köln air-raid shelters in order to obtain the Dolmetscher Zulage which means that you may now draw 80 RM extra per month on your salary as Assistant Censor. Mes chers parents. J’espère que vous allez bien. Lieber Hans, lieber Helmut, lieber Horst. Sehr geehrtes Fräulein.
Dienst
verpflichtung
.
Which means that you have obtained a transfer to the Auswärtige Amt in Berlin, Presseüberwachungsabteilung Ausland (PA) Auslandspresseländergruppe Nord where you will work as wissenschaftlicher Hilfsarbeiter and read about the shelving of the plan to dismember Germany into the smallest possible pieces based on the old principalities and dukedoms in favour of four zones, the Battle of the Bulge, the five hundred sorties by Flying Fortresses hardly encountering any defence from the remains of the Jagdruppe belt scattered in Central Germany dropping their load vertically down despite the anti-aircraft vertically up making no
difference
upon Cologne Berlin Hamburg Kassel Dresden Leipzig Nürnberg where the old wooden houses by the river burn like ideas none of which deserves a moment of validity in revenge resentment humiliation pride of conquest über alles and longing for the end.

Founded in 1040 by Henry III Duke of Bavaria and Emperor of Germany, Nürnberg, made a free city of the empire in 1219, retained its independence until 1806.
Destroyed
in 1127, rapidly rebuilt, it lay on the great European Trade Route to the Mediterranean and grew in importance. Here Wallenstein defeated Gustavus of Sweden in 1632. Nürnberg also produced the Hohenzollerns, one of the ablest families of Europe. As Burgraves of Nürnberg they had thrived in the imperial favour and on the customs dues of a prosperous city. Today it has become the centre of the National Socialist Party and has given its name to the famous Nürnberg Decrees of 1935. The Fuehrer held a most important rally here last year. Natürlich you have passed. I always knew you would Liebchen, congratulations.

In the imperial dukedom of Bavaria and near Nürnberg die Baronin sits by the narrow darkening window of the Schloss overlooking the Pegnitz. Dankeschön Tante Frieda and in French too, top marks. Ah well that need not surprise us Liebchen and no doubt it will come in useful but German history, well, what a triumph. After all your father, wherever he may have vanished, did come from Bavaria, like so many good things these days, our good government for example began here as you know.

— Yes, Tante Frieda.

— Well now we’d better get back to Schiller. You have not yet satisfied me that you understand the Swiss and Austrian political background of Wilhelm Tell. You should feel
grateful
my child that I take so much trouble with your German education now that you cannot go back to France.

— Yes, Tante Frieda.

— And incidentally I heard you mispronounce Heil Hitler when we met the von Berlinghausens in the Marktplatz the other day. You said Hell Hitler. Now if you meant hell bright, the witticism, though ungrammatical, can pass. But I suspect that now you have started English at school you meant
something
quite different. And if you did you might get it correct for in English you would have to say To Hell Hitler which might not pass quite so easily even as a so-called witticism would you not agree?

You must forgive these questions Fräulein but in view of your French upbringing we must make sure of your undivided loyalty let us see now until the age of Herr Oberstleutnant at that age one has no loyalties. Ja-ja ich verstehe and your father you say disappeared? You don’t know? You never really knew him? Hmm. However you lived with the Baronin gut-gut until you went to University on a scholarship last year and ja, you selected to study French, French and Provençal? Now why did you do that? You must have realised at the time that it could hardly come in useful in the war-effort. Hmm. Yes well I see you joined the Bund Deutscher Mädel at fifteen gut-gut. And I assume you have not heard at all from your mother in France Fräulein even through the Red Cross? Now how do you feel about that? Herr Oberstleutnant one must do a job, any job, to the best of one’s ability. Man muss? Do you feel so impersonal Fräulein about the Vaterland?

But where have all the fathers gone?

Scott! As the boy flashes past on his bicycle down the road curving round the castle to the village and gone. Helmut the young Baron in Lederhosen and brown shirt who bicycles all the way to München and says komm mal her I’ll show you something walking hand in hand into den Alten Peter for a frail skeletal nun in a glass case. Heilige Munditia. Patronin der alleinstehenden Frauen. Corpus Sanctae Munditiae Martyris. She looks a bit like Mutti sehr grauenhaft nicht wahr? I like her. But natürlich you will never need to turn to her will you. French girls never stand alone besides I’ll marry you when I grow up. Says Helmut the young boy Baron who yesterday climbed the cherry-tree in the garden of the Schloss and down again with a felt-feathered hat full of cherries stuffed into two mouths that spit the stones and
d
ark-stained
kiss first time ever as he fumbling unbuttons the dirndl top begging only to see the small bare breasts now unsupported by the tight corsage unbuttoned, his hand pushing up the fresh white blouse only to see and touch a little under the cherry-tree. Ich hab noch nie ein
französisches
Mädchen geküsst. As if at fifteen he had collected nationalities or kissed a whole Bund Deutscher Mädel begging only to see if they too have breasts comparing measuring perhaps weighing found wanting a little with Grüss Gott and gone.

Yes yes of course we understand but one does one’s job, also, as an instrument. Had you thought of that? Everything comes with practice. Love loyalty change of zone speed rash enthusiasm in the precision of translation bluffing a little with a dictionary hidden in the drawer to hide the fact that General Patton sweeps through Bavaria into Bohemia out of which Wallenstein drove the Saxons and stops, waiting for the Russians to arrive and divide the spoils into old
principalities
and powers with eardrums blocked from any voice offering anything not ordered half-desired feared or longed for. Ask him please what happened to the statistics of
bomb-damage
per town per night which his department looked after. He says he doesn’t remember exactly sir. Ask him again, he must remember unless as boss he deserted the sinking ship. He says sir that he thinks they may have obeyed his orders and evacuated all the files from Berlin to Jena. What! Jena sir. They would. In the Russian Zone. What crass stupidity didn’t they see the way things damn. Do you believe him? Yes, sir. Test him ask him why Jena what kind of thinking lay behind that decision. He says sir that we should have joined forces together against the Russians that every German secretly wanted that and yes well we have not come here to find out what every German secretly wanted. Or yes well if every German had openly declared what he now says he secretly wanted we’d have a very different Europe and this interrogation would not take place. But then such conversations never quite occur in such frank facile terms expressing falsely something there no doubt through the bluffing of the mouthpiece to prevent any true exchange of thought love desire or mere curiosity under the cherry-tree outside the Schloss posh dining-club for officers in grey-blue dark olive-green and khaki who smooch around with glamour girls in grey-blue dark olive khaki thoughtfully provided by the allies to stop fraternisation in slow fox-trot to a slow fox-trot band of accordeon-violin-piano-drums and gonna-make-a-senni-menn-al journey. Gonna set ma heart at ease. Gonna make a senni-mennal journey. To renoo ole me-e-mo-ries. You can’t bring her in sir. No fraternisation here. Fraternisation! My dear fellow I’ve only just met her give me a chance. That makes no difference sir. Right, well, thanks for putting ideas into my innocent head we’ll fraternise elsewhere won’t we Fräulein my sweet? According to the legislation into effect you may not sentimentalise ole memories out of the non-existent country. Somewhere in Bayern still however die Heilige Munditia the skeletal nun lies in some dark cellar safely evacuated out of the Alte Peter Patronin der alleinstehenden Frauen undamaged unconcerned.

Everything comes with practice. Seeing the war from the enemy point of view for instance and the damage done by the V1’s, by the V2’s on Deptford or Gravesend some shot down in mid-air and the first list of casualties in Normandy although the enemy lost more. Catching colds in open jeeps and getting smuggled to this party or that given by the Royal Air Force in Hanover or the American Army Intelligence in Hoechst with Flight Lieutenant This and Captain That who hoots pedestrians off the street impatiently, and sometimes with Siegfried to a slow fox-trot band in Schloss Dies or Schloss Das unless Dustbin full of ex-high officials who can help reconstruct the history of devastation Dorf by Dorf day by day from the enemy point of view which positively grovels and I must say I enjoy that. In a requisitioned flat the English Captain says I like eating in the Officers’ Mess at
Headquarters
the I. G. Farben building you know and bitteschön they say to not a single thank you and hat’s geschmeckt? But Captain excuse me German waiters have said bitteschön since time immemorial and hat’s geschmeckt. What, with OUR food? My dear mamselle don’t you defend the swines that occupied your country AND you didn’t defend it then what would you have done without us to liberate you so now you jolly well occupy them and enjoy seeing them grovel positively grovel all the more so because they have no food and live in cellars on the black market while we occupy their few remaining flats, and serve ’em right they serve us, we help ourselves to anything we may find for a change such as this, look, Schiller, Goethe, nicely bound editions as he slides the glass-front left to right along the low bookshelf varnished in dark brown I think I’ll liberate these. I like German
culture
. But they belong to the owner of the flat you can’t just take my dear young lady, I’ll liberate you if you go on defending the swinish Hun why, no wonder you frogs all collaborated.

Kein Eintritt. Bright girl, she translates brilliantly don’t you think? Says the new Boss in Paris new department of simultaneous interpreters for the advancement of cold wars hot peace intercontinental missiles. Meaning come live with me and adorn my gracious Regency London house with your charming French accent or cuisine your German super-lithe Fleissigkeit as well as your elegant cosmopolitan ways.

Such conversations however never quite occur in such dishonest terms expressing falsely something there no doubt in the bluffing of the mouthpiece in order to belong perhaps, to acquire a change of nationality unless of zones lying forgotten under layers of thickening sensibilities or to prevent any true exchange of cultural curiosities under the cherry-tree in
Rothenburg
gem-city undamaged by a miracle between the sheets and the tumbled eiderdown dein Bein dein Brust dein belly oh Christ and hats geschmeckt amid the central heating and the wood-panelling on account of mulieris simulationis all the way along the Romantische Strasse from the cherry-tree near Nürnberg to the war-crimes revealed in Bavaria where all good things come from nowadays our good government for example began here as you know. Grüss Gott and gone and hat’s geschmeckt? Und haben Sie noch einen Wunsch?

You must forgive these questions Fräulein but in view of your French upbringing we must make sure of your
undivided
loyalty let us see now until the age of kissing the boy Baron at that age one has no loyalties. Ja-ja ich verstehe. And I assume you have not heard at all from your mother in France now how do you feel about that? Man muss? Do you feel so impersonal Fräulein about das Heimatland? About das Vaterland? Translate and comment on the gender of ma douce amour die Heimat nearly always represented as feminine Athena for example Rome Germania Marianne Albion depending on the time the place and whether some languages divide their genders into animate or inanimate while others less primitive into andraic and metandraic which covers objects animals of both sexes and women. Mais la langue peut se contenter de l’opposition de quelque chose avec rien, the unmarked masculine for example deriving from the marked feminine by subtraction, by an absence which signifies eine Abwesenheit die etwas bedeutet. And where has all that absence gone? Non si ricorda esattamente into what rectangles of agriculture brush-stroke size, the forest-blobs the metallic lakes the thin white lines along the pimples cancerous growths that make up an abstract study of some desolate goddess or god perhaps aghast at the
catastrophe
she or he has provoked as the dark handsome Viennese leans across from the left to photograph the Rhine yellow from der Luft and gone the Tour Eiffel für die Kinder with a tip of nose in the foreground to prevent any true exchange of thoughts above the close breath and the pressurised
excitation
saying in der luft gibts keine Grenzen. Ah but airports have frontiers still. And travel-talk ensues with Herr Helmut von Irgendetwas who travels in textiles as others travel in simultaneous interpretation. You will find your life-jacket under your seat. To inflate jacket pull red toggle (1). To top up, blow into the mouthpiece (2), obeying the innumerable instructions that translate time speed height mild desire into locality and channel and the slow descent into old matter.