I Sleep in Hitler's Room (30 page)

Play over, the fans pack the streets, their cars and the trains. In the train I’m on, a group of black-clad young men pick on a fellow passenger and are about to start a fight. I am not sure what this is about, but one side is neo-Nazi and the other is not. The black-clad recognize this guy from a demo in Bochum, where he was part of a counterdemo, and now they want to exact revenge. A woman jumps and stands between the warring sides, in the style of: Hit me before you hit my man. How did this Nazi thing come up again in my presence? Can’t we have a rest from this?

This is Germany.

The shouts and threats finally calm down when the train comes to a stop. Both sides get off. What follows, I don’t know. Don’t want to know.

Germany won the game, but the real fight looks to be still on.

Off the train, I go to meet Rolf Dennemann, artistic director of Hanging Around, in a local café. I listen to him.

“I love the Ruhr area more than the rest of Germany,” he says. “The best. At the same time, I hate it, this is the worst place to live. I love the humor of the people here, but it’s very provincial. The projects I’m doing, I prefer them to be shabby and emotional, rather than clean and politically correct—and I can do this better in the Ruhr area than anywhere else in Germany. Here, the down-to-earth person is at home. This area was never a place for the bourgeois, where you pay three and a half euros just for coffee.”

I don’t know if you noticed, but this is what my small Coke costs, right here.

He looks at me.

What’s the amount of money you raise a year, lowest and highest?

“Sixty to a hundred eighty thousand euros.”

What are you trying to do with your work?

“That’s my life. I have to do this. It’s a silly answer, yes. I prefer to work in the open area, I want to breathe, not be in a black box.”

What do you really want to achieve? Just to breathe?

“I did a work in a cemetery. Theater and dance. People come to the cemetery, they have to walk between the graves, and in each place they meet different dancers, different theater pieces, two graves were talking to each other. This is very good. People who usually don’t go to theater do come to see this. And they never forget the experience.

“This possibility, to give people art and have them experience it, makes me feel good. The people who attend my productions are not your average theatergoers, the ones who come to the theater and then talk about the last time they saw the play and compare between what they saw in Paris and what they see now.”

Are you doing your work for yourself? Or for the people?

“I can’t do it without them, and they wouldn’t have it without me. I do it for both of us.”

How many people show up for your productions?

“For this festival we thought we would have five hundred people, but only twenty came.”

So, let me understand: You go to the mayor of Dortmund and say to him, Give me a hundred eighty thousand euros because I have a plan to put on a performance for twenty people. Is that it?

“There’s no law in Germany that specifies how many people are to attend. Money is awarded for creativity. That’s the history of this land.”

Isn’t this fucked up?

“No. I think it’s absolutely important. Thinking only of money, of commercialism, kills art. All over.”

What is important?

“I would like to sit and watch people eating, walking, drinking. And I need money for this.”

Charles Schumann: Meet your partner!

Let’s see if I got you: You want the city of Dortmund to pay you money so you can look at mouths and legs of people?

“Yes.”

Really?

“Yes, because this leads to some creative work.”

That’s Rolf. He understands zero in p.r. and can hardly handle an interview, but his ideas, I vouch to you, are always refreshing and brilliant. His country has still to discover him, and it’s sad that German critics haven’t found him yet, that they’ve been too lazy to come over and see this man’s work for three decades going. It’s their loss more than his.

Rolf’s Public Thinking is about to start. And these are the rules of this game: You come in and a young girl asks you what you want to think of and about. You can choose from ten topics, or make up one by yourself. Chairs are spread all over in front of a former factory, and you choose your chair and Think Publicly. Which means, in this case, when others like you also think about their choice topics. In other words, this is something like a
Verein
, a
Verein
of people who come to think next to each other. In Germany, if you didn’t know by now, we like to do things in groups.

Perfect. I participate and make up my own topic: soccer. This, of course, exempts me from thinking. I look at the sky and at the clouds moving slowly. (I learned this trick from Arab merchants in East Jerusalem. On tense days, when commerce is zero, they sit in front of stores, smoke their shishas, and watch the sun move. Try it. It’s nice!)

How many show up for this Public Thinking? It doesn’t really matter. I lie down, for about an hour, and think of “soccer.” I have the time of my life.

In front of me is an exhibition hall. Years ago the building used to be a factory, but now it’s used for art exhibitions. In New York, old factories are being converted to flats for the richest stratum of society. Here they turn into art centers. I like it.

The people of steel fathered stubborn children, no doubt, who demand their right to create. It’s nice. They should put a big German flag on top. This country deserves it.

At Dortmunder U, a museum and culture center, not many show up either. And this building costs millions. I go there after my Public Thinking.

Today’s exhibition is about political provocation. It’s called Agents Provocateurs. Here you can see all kinds of political demonstrations and actions through deed, word, or image. Pictures and videos are presented to demonstrate the issue at hand. To my right side is a film about three beautiful women. They are in a pool, camera capturing them in the water—which adds a beautiful layer to the images. They undress each other, slowly and sensually, and then dance-swim in the nude. It is an erotic film, and I think Holger Franke will love it. On the opposite wall is a video of a man walking with his clothes set on fire and a photo of Milica Tomić strung up on a lamp post, as a reference to Nazi troops hanging antifascists in Belgrade.

For the artists who have created the pieces in the exhibit, every one of them must be loaded with meaning: historical, political, cultural. What I see here is an exhibition on the theme of Sex and Death. Again.

The Ruhr area has begotten quite a few interesting children. One of them is Helge Schneider, whom I go to visit in Mülheim. First thing the man says to me is:

“I wanted to come to New York but they have 110 volts, and my organ is for 220 . . .”

This man is a famous comedian, piano player, entertainer in this country, but I don’t know him. So I ask him: Who are you?

“I have lived here since I was born, fifty-five years ago. I never went away.”

But who are you?

“I am a male citizen of the Ruhr area, and I want to remain a male citizen of the Ruhr.”

Why?

“My place of residence is now on the passport, and it’s too complicated to change it. But I’d like to see other cities, like New York.”

OK. Let’s try the question once more. Who are you?

“A male citizen. A piano player, naturally. What else could I be?”

More specific. Who are you?

“I am a piano player who is interested in people. And sometimes I try to make people laugh. Since I was a boy I’ve been working at it.”

How do you do that?

“It’s my special way of movement, perhaps my face.”

You have a funny face?

“No.”

Why are the people laughing?

“I don’t know.”

Were they laughing when you were a child?

“Yes. And when I come on stage, they laugh.”

Helge contemplates: “This is my last interview. Ever. No more talk shows. No more interviews. And perhaps I’ll change my name.”

Helge Tenenbom?

“Perhaps.”

Some say that Germans lack a sense of humor. What do you think?

“We live at a time when it’s fashionable for ladies not to smile; they think it will give them wrinkles. When people lead hard lives, they laugh more.”

Let’s try the question once more: Do Germans lack a sense of humor? Yes or no?

“I don’t think that Germans lack a sense of humor. When I go to Switzerland I think they’re not funny, but they think they are.”

The Swiss think they’re funny? Be serious!

“I can’t say anything more about the Swiss!”

What makes humor?

“Often humor comes from sadness. Like when somebody died. If you go to the funeral of an old person and somebody laughs, you’ll see that the others join.”

So, what is it that makes us laugh?

“I don’t think about these things. Humor is much more complicated than aggression. It’s a basic part of being human. For me life consists of three things: Birth, humor, death.”

Are you thankful to Germany for being so successful in it?

“No. If I feel thankful, it’s to my destiny. Not to a nation, not to a country. I didn’t study anything, I don’t even have Abitur. I just play music. I’m under no pressure to think about how Germany was so high, so low, and now high again.”

Helge tells me he doesn’t care who wins the WM, the World Cup. He’s for everybody. Helge must be very PC. Or, as he puts it, “I am a ‘nationalist.’ To me, all of us are the same.”

I have no idea why, maybe I’ve had had my fill of PC people lately, so I give it to him. I tell him that, yes, like all those artists anywhere and everywhere, he is a peace-loving man, a make-love-not-war sort of a guy. And then I go on to tell him that I too have heard this slogan in the artistic and academic world for as long as I can remember. Yes, all of us in theater, music, and dance are good people. Not one of us is bad. And now, how surprising, he repeats the same tired slogans. Wow. But does he know what? I don’t buy it. Can’t he be more refreshing, please? Let’s face it: Aren’t we all big bullshitters? The artists’ community likes to preach against war, hate, racism, discrimination—as if we were the only good people in an ocean of depravity. Isn’t he, am not I, and isn’t everyone in the Arts—aren’t we all just little supremacists thinking we’re better than everybody else?

“We all are big bullshitters. That’s true. Cross out what I told you just now.”

What’s your dream, Helge?

“I have no dream. I live. I want my thoughts to be free, but I have no need to have a dream. Martin Luther King had a dream, but when [German chancellor] Angela Merkel says she has a dream it sounds like comedy, like a comedy on German TV. On TV, I like only
Columbo
.”

What do you think of now?

“About my baby. About the wash in the basement. About my next show in America, if it’s too early or too late to call the United States. I think about the news, about the newsmakers who make up the headlines. About Israel and Palestine.”

Another German and his Mideast . . . But I don’t say this to Helge. I just ask him, What do you think about Israel and Palestine?

“For example: I heard about the ship that came from Turkey. And I imagine how it feels to be there. Israel, the ship, Palestine. I think that everywhere you are is shit. I have an interest in politics; sometimes I think about Ahmadinejad, about Iran, the Middle East.

And then I think: Should I go there and talk to the people? Tell each of them to apologize?”

Great idea! Why don’t you do that?

“Maybe one day I will.”

Like Rudolf Hess?

“Who?”

You know. Hitler’s deputy who flew to Scotland on a solo peace mission. Don’t you remember?

“Oh, him. Yes, yes. Am I like him?”

I am ready to go with you to Gaza next week. Deal?

“I would like to go by myself.”

OK, before you go, let’s try to imagine you’ve already arrived in Gaza.

I point to Helge’s manager, Till, who sits with us, and say:

Your manager is the Palestinian and I am the Israeli. Make peace between us!