Indigo (42 page)

12.
The Most Intolerable Thing in the World

– Forget her! The most intolerable thing in the world is pretty women, said the teacher, waving his hands in the air as if he wanted to dispel an unpleasant smell. I'm telling you, the most intolerable thing in the whole wide world is women who are so pretty that all men turn into slobbering, floundering, undignified idiots, who are constantly trying to make the women laugh with their foolish clowning and writing sonnets or rock ballads for them. No, at some point that has to end! If you ask me.

The math teacher grasped Robert by the shoulders and shook him gently.

– If you ask me, he went on, men should pay absolutely no attention to any of the pretty girls of this world for several years. Yes, indeed, for several years pretty young women should be totally taboo and strictly ignored. That would be the only right thing, the only realistic way out of the whole misery. But unfortunately, unfortunately, I know of course as well as you do that it's not that easy, because the young fellows with their energy can't even help it, they're simply programmed that way by nature, and obviously there's nothing anyone can do to change that, or else all humanity would die out. So what else can be done? Well, not much, but maybe a certain shift could be achieved—hold on, you can protest later, first let me explain what I mean by shift. Okay. I mean that an energetic, lively, sexually active young man—like you—should focus first and foremost on women who are considered not-so-pretty or mediocre, because—hold on, wait, you'll get your turn in a moment—because that way all the women who are pretty as a picture and preferred completely unjustly by all influential men would finally recognize how undeserved their power, how translucent and fragile their dignity, and how empty and boring their oh-so-interesting life really is. Don't get me wrong, I don't want people to make life difficult in any way for other people, whether male or female, to torture them or even treat them condescendingly, no, what matters to me is merely that women who are always regarded as interesting and clever
only
due to their appearance no longer—hold on, hold on, well, all right, all right, I've spoken long enough, now you may speak. Go ahead.

– I just wanted to ask whether you're still eating this here?

– Excuse me?

– Whether I can have the rest of the rice. Or are you still eating it?

– No, no. Of course, young man, please help yourself. Are you really so hungry?

– Yes. I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday.

– Ah, yes, the torments of love . . . It shows, probably . . . Those dark rings under the eyes. And you're so pale that you could easily attend a carnival celebration as a glacier.

Robert, who didn't know how to respond to that stupid joke, began to shovel the rice, which had meanwhile gotten cold, into his mouth. The teacher waited until he was done. Then he stuck a spoon in his mouth and patted his jacket down for a lighter. The gesture looked ridiculous, as always when older people imitate the habits of young people. In the restaurant it was very quiet, they were alone in the large room. Due to the mild temperatures, most of the patrons sat outside in the garden, and their excited voices penetrated inside only dully, like the soft evening music of tropical insects.

Robert regretted having talked about Cordula in the first place. He had actually wanted to speak with Herr Setz about the two folders. But in a subclause he had mentioned that his girlfriend had left him.

– Love is nonsense, said the teacher.

– I wanted to ask, that is, your wi—

– Love! Setz broke in. Love is nothing but a virus, brought into the world by young women who want to have power. You should steer clear of it!

He crossed his arms over his chest and thrust out his lips in an angry way. He looked like a grimly determined frog.

– I'm not planning on it, said Robert. But your wife, how—

– Steer clear of it! You should wait until the feeling that overcomes you is no longer so amorphous. You have to wait until you yourself have matured, have matured inwardly . . . and . . .

He looked up, put a hand on the table. He seemed to have forgotten why he was here and not at home behind his desk.

– Got it, said Robert. But what about your wife? She's pretty and—

– Don't talk! About things you don't understand! the teacher suddenly shouted at him, jumping up. Things you have absolutely no idea about, Robert . . . Herr Tätzel! What do you think, Robert? My wife, that's something entirely different, so, please, Herr Tätzel, don't talk such nonsense! My wife, of course that's love, we've been together for so long, many years, without her, well, without her I would be long—

– I apologize, I didn't mean to—

– Without her I wouldn't even be alive today! Where did you get the idea to compare that with . . . with . . .

He made a peculiar gesture with his hand, as if he were flicking coins across the room.

– I'm sorry.

– Real love, said the teacher. Well, I don't know why you're starting on about that now, but if you really want to know, then I can tell you: You have no idea what that is. You're still very, very far away from it. At least two yards.

Robert looked up in astonishment.

The math teacher was still shaking his head.

– I didn't want to start on about that, said Robert. I actually wanted to ask you about Brussels.

– You know, in my library, the teacher suddenly began. In my library, there's an old lightbulb burning, maybe the last of its kind . . . in any case, an endangered specimen. It looks like a transparent egg with a little twirled wire inside, which is stretched between two poles like a rope that only a spatially distorted tightrope walker could cross.

He moved his forefingers in circles around each other.

Robert tried to picture the bulb.

– And when the power is switched on, this wire glows brightly, the lightbulb immediately becomes burning hot, and this wonderful . . . golden . . . dust-repellent light pours into the room.

Herr Setz sighed in a melodramatic way, as if he were inhaling the light.

– In recent years, he said, pointing with his finger to the ceiling of the restaurant, in recent years, well, actually in recent decades, we've had to witness a really terrible process, a scandal, which is terrible, truly terrible . . . the gradual dying-off of all lightbulbs. And this one, which hangs in my home in the library, is the last one I own. No one knows how long it will hold out. I mean, yes, its light is still strong and unadulterated, it probably regards itself as immortal.

He coughed. It was loud and rattling. He covered his mouth with his sleeve. His face turned red.

– Once, he went on, on a winter day about two and a half years ago, it began to flicker a little . . . and I was already expecting the worst, my God, I didn't even dare to turn the light on, just sat in the dark, for several days. But it was only a loose connection, and I fixed the problem simply by screwing the lightbulb tighter into its socket.

The teacher laughed and took off his glasses to clean them.

Robert asked:

– When exactly were you in Brussels?

– My God, said Herr Setz, what beautiful and comforting inventions they were, those little magic bulbs! Nowadays, these energy-saving and, as if in mockery of all older people, pacifier-shaped lamps hang everywhere with their passionless, harsh, hospital-room-white light! Or those stupid blinking eyes. Ridiculous. You know, in my youth, it was still possible and conceivable that a lonely man in a poorly ventilated room could entrust his distress to a bare lightbulb, which hung radiantly from the end of the electric cord sticking without adornment out of the ceiling. And when he opened the window, then it swung back and forth . . . like this . . .

He demonstrated it.

Robert sighed soundlessly. This here was no conversation.

– Its light plunged everything into a dark golden urban melancholy, a distant atheistic, if you like, hahaha, yes, an atheistic relative of de Chirico's saffron-colored eternal light of Italian plazas and statues, you must know those paintings, right? It's your area of expertise, isn't it?

Robert nodded.

– Even if the light fell on pizza scraps in a box full of star-shaped pizza cutter scratch marks or on a collection of empty whiskey bottles next to a perpetually cold heater or on a few boxes of frozen chocolate cake scraped down to the last bit. Hm . . . yes . . .

– Herr Setz?

The teacher tilted his head a bit, but it wasn't entirely clear whether he had heard the question. Robert wondered where on his strangely unproportioned body he should touch him. Perhaps he would begin screaming loudly, right now—

– No wretchedness in this world, said Herr Setz, was too great for a true lightbulb, no spectacle too unworthy, it bathed everything without exception, gave it reflection and shadow, it was connected with its environment in a way that almost nothing is these days, that little, floating, warmth-giving ball of energy in the middle of the room.

Were there tears in the eyes of the crazy teacher? Robert tried to take a closer look, but Setz turned his face away.

– In contrast, these new lamps, an improved generation of which supposedly comes on the market every year, display a downright absurd indifference. (He blew his nose noisily in a handkerchief.) Their light concerns itself with absolutely nothing! Neither with us nor with other surfaces, nor with the shadows it creates. They're clueless and without sympathy. Ill-bred, inhuman robots! How will the human soul change when in the lamps of the future no incandescent filament will be visible? Soon the last classic lightbulb shape in my vicinity will be the head of that awful man, whose framed portrait hangs over my desk!

– Herr Setz, I'd like to know, in that folder you gave me—

– You know, I was particularly sad recently about the news that the lightbulb that had glowed since 1901 without interruption died. It was, I think, employed in a fire station in California. It . . . it was a gift from the manufacturer to the owner of the fire station at that time. Yes, back then . . . in the year 1901, a lightbulb was still something you could present someone as a precious gift. I think the name of the lamp was Charles. Or George. Something like that. I'm sure lots of people still have some old lightbulbs at home, but how they are taken care of, how their life is extended and their burning-out staved off for as long as possible, is unknown. There must be techniques, I mean . . . it can't be that difficult. Still, these days we stand at a loss before them when they suddenly stop shining, or when they flicker or when they emit a dangerous buzzing as if insects were trapped inside them, the way people used to stand before a syphilitic . . . they couldn't help him, only record the stages of his decline in drawings and descriptions.

– Herr Setz?

– Hm?

Robert cautioned himself, now that he had gained the man's attention for at least a moment, not to speak too fast.

– You gave me your notes on Brussels, remember?

The math teacher nodded in bewilderment. It evidently wasn't clear to him what this question had to do with the subject of lightbulbs.

– When was that? Do you remember?

– What?

– Your trip to Brussels.

– When?

– Ah, said Robert. Forget it. Forget it!

He stood up, held out his hand to the teacher. The man took it, shook it amiably, and patted Robert encouragingly on the shoulder, so that he winced and had to restrain himself from punching the teacher in the face.
You have no idea
came into his mind. He had said the sentence to him once before. A long time ago, telephone card, booth, the system had been unknown to the young tutor. Back then they were all still young, inexperienced. And now this here, this acquitted wreck. With his lightbulbs. He blew his nose again in his handkerchief. Gazed politely, but helplessly. And inhaled and exhaled.

– You don't have to leave yet, the teacher suddenly said.

– That's okay, said Robert.

He buttoned his coat.

– You're safe, Herr Setz said softly.

– Excuse me?

– You're safe. Nothing can happen to you. I made sure of that. A long time ago. Not only for you. Also for other Ind . . . for other Dingo Baits.

He said it in an ironic tone. Robert laughed.

– Did you read everything? asked the teacher.

– No, only the typed notes and the copies, the handwritten pieces of paper interspersed with them, those are hard to decipher.

– Yes, I know, the teacher said dreamily. My block letters.

They were silent for a while. Robert stood there with his coat half buttoned. Then he sat down again.

– I've made sure, said Herr Setz, that things will be quiet for a while. And paid for it, as you can see. But of course it will immediately grow back. The name is always the same, the bearer someone else. They have in common only that lightbulb-like head and the thin stature.

Robert suddenly saw before his eyes the meadow in the Helianau yard where they had played the zone game. Arno Golch with his fingers that smelled like saliva.
Do you know what I wish? That he gets you, the Ference. That he gets his hands on you. What will you dress up as, hm?

– I inflicted incredible pain on him, the teacher said very softly, even though no one else was in the room. Incredible pain. Are you familiar with those wretched dolls, Herr Tätzel? Those Elis products? They all have a zipper on their back, so that you can turn them inside out. And the inside-out form then has a different character, a different facial expression. They've been making those dolls for more than a century. Some time ago I visited the workshop. Everyone there still works by hand. And they give every single doll a name. They think up the name themselves.

Robert waited for the teacher to go on. But nothing more came. For a while it remained silent.

– You know, I once knew a rooster, Robert began. I gave him a name. Max.