Peter Kurzeck

October again. You come out of the house. In the morning, still early. The street is wet. You come out of the house and have to stop and stand still, the smell of autumn is so strong. Fallen leaves. Just a moment ago you still knew what you’d dreamt in the night, and now it’s gone. You can still feel it moving away. A draught, a curtain moving. Wings stirring slightly, the shadows of wings, and then it’s gone. Gone for ever. The door slams shut. Out of the house. Life is strange. Where’s the night gone? Carina once asked, one morning outside the front door. And ever since then the same question in my memory every morning. Stopped walking to work in the second-hand bookshop in the morning, walk with Carina to nursery. And want to take our time on the way. The way takes its time. Tell me a story, Carina says to me just outside the front door, and has to tug at my hand. Tell me a story! Or else she’s already started dawdling and dreaming quite independently on the staircase. Jordanstrasse, Mertonstrasse, Dantestrasse. Saying come on every now and then, come on! Want to walk across the campus, my child and I, but past the Bockenheim Tower too. Best of all both. You can too. You can go along Homburgerstrasse and Adalbertstrasse to the Tower and then onto the campus, or first along Jordanstrasse to the university and then across the campus to the Tower – just can’t go both ways at once. Wind on the campus. The fountain gushes. Drops spray. The wind carries the drops along with it. A taxi rank at the Bockenheim Tower. Tram stops. A throng of trams. You’re not wearing a watch, you haven’t worn a watch for twenty five years, and yet – clocks look down at you on all sides. Newspaper sellers. The present day. Book stalls in front of the university. A flower lady from the Wetterau. An Indian man setting up a jewellery stall. He’s been saying good morning to us for a year and a half now, and maybe we’ll buy two children’s earrings from him some time. In front of us on the pavement the town pavement pigeons with clockwork steps. Shall we walk along Bockenheimer Landstrasse now (our minds on other things) or past the black stones of Christ Church and through the morning peace of Schwindstrasse as if a share in it were ours by right. As if entitled to that share every day. Or are we still standing outside the front door, wondering what we’ve forgotten. To nursery every morning as if struggling to forge a path through your own head over and over again. A few years of walking to nursery and a few years of walking home again.

Three baker’s shops on the way. Croissants and Karlsbader horns, currant buns, apple puffs and vanilla rings. We don’t strictly speaking buy ourselves anything at the baker’s so soon after breakfast. Certainly nothing sweet. You can’t always eat just cake. Wouldn’t want to eat on the street either. Walking along. Not when nursery is waiting for us. Think of the cost too. The money. And the principle of it. For No-account then, says Carina. Maybe imagines No-account as a grey man, round as a ball, who sometimes manages to take something good away from you quickly, before you’ve even had it. For No-account then, says Carina. And knows what’s what. But then sometimes after all. Have to say Just-this-once every time. And then begin to save money in earnest straight away, as soon as you’ve made your purchase. Already chewing by that point. Carina knows croissants from France. Have to say Do-you-remember and make a list of all the best ones. In Marseille, in Martigues, in Barjac. In Arles and in Saintes-Maries. There are lots of best ones. The mornings in the south in the summer. Still early and the dogs walking across the market. Walk all through town and look into the bars to see if there’s anyone in there they know, man or dog. And if anyone’s dropped any sugar lumps. If it’s the wrapped-up kind they like to eat the coloured papers as well. Have a Karlsbader horn too! How could I eat a Karlsbader horn without thinking of Karlsbad, of Franzensbad, of Marienbad and of myself as a child and of my mother. Have to tell Carina (with my mouth full) and can’t be bothering about the crumbs. We really ought to go there now, I said to Carina. First fetch Sibylle quickly and then set off straight away! It’s not right not to go now. Liked apple puffs even as a child. Have them in lots of countries. Different from every baker. That’s why you have to keep trying them everywhere and remember which is which. The shop door chimes in the bakers’ are always different too. The loveliest shop door chimes are in Holland. Especially on an autumn morning like this when the air is cool and damp, the cobbles are gleaming, and the day doesn’t really want to begin (doesn’t know how to begin), that’s when the bakers’ shops tempt us most with their honeyed light and the warmth of baking cakes, and with their good old childhood smell of fresh bread and cinnamon and vanilla. A clock on the wall in every bakery. Morning streets. The autumn air. A morning full of clocks and shop door chimes.

On the next corner our morning postman. Always obliging and friendly. And who is that standing there with him? Two respectable widows from the Jungstrasse. One of them with an expensively coiffured little dog. Is the dog alive? The dog is alive. The other one with her helpful and trusty companion, a sturdy little shopping trolley. Both ladies in hats. Going shopping on the Leipziger Strasse. Out early. Life has taught them. Hat, silk scarf, handbag, perfume, pearl necklace and fur jacket. The one with the little shopping trolley keen to tell us about her blood pressure. At length. Blood pressure, heart, circulation, and what the doctor has to say to it all. And the one with the little dog about her engagement. Got engaged in May 1928. Engaged for a respectable three years, then the wedding. They don’t have weddings like that any more. But now they are standing here in the cold, damp, grey present with the present-day morning postman. Neighbourhood news. Economics, sport, world politics. The postman knows all about all those things. And doesn’t like being interrupted. Not by anyone. Regulation cap. Eagerness. Stands on the pavement with his legs apart. At the very spot the warm morning sun reaches at this time of day in the summer from May to September. Not any more though. Regulation cap tilted back. A Frankfurt postman and sportsman – can go without a coat all year round. Stands and talks and spreads out his arms as if he were in a book where quite simply nothing can ever happen to him or to the world or to the people, not ever. What’s the matter? I said to myself. Why do you suddenly jump like that? When you’re walking here with your child! Good morning to the postman as if nothing has happened. Now you can see that the trolley isn’t a shopping trolley after all; it’s his official postman’s trolley. No post today! Who knows what he has in there, what he pushes around with him in his official trolley? No sun here on the corner of the town pavements every morning, not until May now.

Sometimes Sibylle part-way with us in the mornings. As far as the front door. Says goodbye at the front door, and then on with us to the corner of Homburger Strasse. Walking with us, and then waving, then running up to us again, and then on with us to the next corner. Or else already on her bicycle. Carina in the child’s seat (a special child’s seat that took us a long time to find – the only right one!). Sibylle sometimes takes Carina with her on her bicycle anyway. Fast as the wind, Carina says with enthusiasm when that happens. But watch her throat and ears. Anorak, scarf, woolly hat and hood. Her anorak done right up and her scarf tightly round her hood. And whatever you do, don’t go too fast. But now because autumn’s come so early this year and Carina’s only just been ill, now we’d rather just push. Have to take especial care in Frankfurt that the children don’t have colds half the winter. Sibylle pushes, the hubs whirr. Carina silent and rapt high up on her magical bicycle with bell and silver spokes. Dreaming a path through the day between sun and moon. And Sibylle and I next to each other all the way to nursery and have to talk to each other all the way. Have to look at each other as if we’ve only just met, as if we’re meeting all over again, or as if we’ve met again unexpectedly after years. Autumn. An autumn morning. With or without bicycle past the BockenheimTower, and the jewellery-stall Indian is pleased to see us all together again. Happy to show us his jewellery. Any time. No obligations of course. His whole collection. Even if he knows from the start that we’re not going to buy anything from him for the time being. His stall is a pasting table with a cloth over it as black as the night. But for showing his collection he has an extra length of collection-showing velvet of midsummer night’s blue. Half the size of a tabloid newspaper. Plenty of enthusiasm too. Even if the very earliest we might consider making a purchase is in several years’ time. Two children’s earrings, or even just one – he sells them singly too – a solitary single one is really very stylish. An Indian with a turban and a calculator. Showing us his wares he becomes a magician. You can buy the earrings from him just as you like, with a pin and butterfly or with a handy clip. If you haven’t had your ears pierced yet. He shows us both. He likes showing us the magic pliers too and how it works, clip or pin, it’s up to you. Silver pins. Silver is good for human ears. Clip or pin, you can make up your mind at the last minute when you buy. And have it changed afterwards any number of times. In several years’ time then. Until then we’ll find him at his stall outside the university every weekday. He’s always glad to see us. We can come back at any time. And if in future, in some distant future, we really do happen to buy an earring from him, or a chain, an earring, a chain, a bracelet, a ring, a brooch, or even just a little solid silver heart for an already existing chain, then he will of course knock something off the price for us, because by then, in this distant future, he’ll have known us for years.

And then onto Bockenheimer Landstrasse. Either all three of us or else just Carina and I. Still the same morning. A weekday, dull and grey. Autumn leaves, conkers. Cars on all sides. More and more beggars too, beggars, drunks and tramps. At the Bockenheim Tower, on the campus, on Leipziger Strasse. In front of the department stores. In the entrances to Plus, Penny, Aldi. At all the beer and schnapps stands. More every day, or does it just seem like that to you because you’ve started to notice them? Because you too have lost your job? Because you walk along here all the time, every day, several times a day? My first glass of wine at fifteen and then not sober again for twenty-one years. And even now, although you haven’t drunk for a long time, a drunk who’s stopped drinking, even now you still see yourself in every one of them. See yourself standing with them and drinking and staggering (the ground spinning) and holding forth in a drunken stupor, because when you’re drunk, you’re always right, all your life. One bottle. Another hip flask at least. The last drop. Brandy, corn schnapps, blended rum. And then the next bottle. Stopped drinking four and a half years ago and it doesn’t yet seem so long.

Still the same grey autumn morning. First the beginning then the middle of October. And now Sibylle says to me: I can take Carina with me again in the mornings now too, you know. Almost the same way and you’ll have more time to write. Or else she was saying it to me as early as August and September and has been repeating it every day in my memory since then. No-no, I said quickly to Sibylle, even if she isn’t walking next to me any more. No, let me do it! Have to get out of the house in the mornings anyway. Have to feel the weather and taste the air. Have to see what’s become of the town and me and the beggars, drunks and tramps. And into the day every morning with Carina and carry on the stories we’ve begun. And see what other stories join them and where they take us. And now Carina has woken up beside me. Woken up walking along. Come back from her morning ponderings. Takes my hand and says: Tell me a story, Pe-tah! Tell me about when you were little and fetched the apples home! And because, I said to Sibylle in my head (and see myself as a child again, walking across the field in the twilight. Towards the village. The autumn before the currency reform). And because, I said to her and to myself too, because I always had to go to work in the mornings. Ever since I was fourteen. Earning money instead of being alone with myself and writing. How long have I known that the nursery is one of the nicest places in the world, and yet whenever I get here, I’m in a hurry. But I still want to get here, over and over again, so that later on I’ll know that I’ve been here. So that I can at least find it again in my memory. Do-it-yourself. Illegal. In Frankfurt-am-Main in Westend, a nursery in a squat.

Just a second ago only just half past eight and now it’s getting on for ten. Through the morning, Carina and I. Very close to nursery now, it’s coming towards us. Take note of every patch of colour, the children, the woolly hats, the jackets, the date, the toys, the day, and what you thought when you saw them. Don’t tread on the tennis balls lying around all over the place here! Is the heating on? Does the heating even work? Thick yellow paint on the walls as if it were still summer. Can you take off my jacket? Milena says to me. The zip doesn’t undo and my mummy’s already gone. My mummy won money, Meike says. David isn’t here yet. Domi shows me a brown Playmobil horse with a saddle. October. A weekday. Tired children who’ve had to hurry in the morning. Hurried, tired parents. Child minders, role models, the list of parents’ duties, the list of cleaning duties, the Who-hasn’t-paid-yet lists for August, September and October. Soon be ten. And the way Carina waves to you again and already knows what she’ll do when you’ve left. You take all that away with you in your head. Nursery with Carina, drop her off and then quickly home. Cigarettes, notes, biros. Start writing going along. Lots of voices in your head. A clock strikes. Either St Mark’s two streets away or the old stone-faced clock tower of your childhood in Staufenberg. Ten o’clock in the morning. Cars hooting. The air is cold and damp. You can feel the autumn on your skin. Just because there was nothing in the post doesn’t mean you’re saved. Not even for this one single day. Home and carry on writing straight away. My third book. Unemployed. Started to work at fourteen and now unemployed for the first time. Never been so gripped by the language as with this book – or is that what you think every time?