New Lives (13 page)

The stereo system was stupendous; we were standing in the middle of an orchestra, it was playing Handel.

“Damn it all!” the waitress said, who had evidently been standing the whole time in front of the mirror puttering in vain at her hairdo, but now, tossing her head back and forth a few times, sent hair cascading down over her shoulders. She extended a hand to each of us; her smile squeezed her cheeks into little hillocks behind which her eyes twinkled. Her white blouse hung loose, but this could not disguise how deeply her skirt's waistband was cutting into her flesh. I recognized her from somewhere, but couldn't place her.

Barrista admonished us not to just stand around—there was so much to do yet. And so we sidled along the old-fashioned chairs as if playing musical fright
⁷⁶
and tried to decode the names scribbled on place cards.

“Let us drink, drink; champagne must be enjoyed ice cold.” After a brief toast to our common future and a successful outcome to our plans, he lifted his glass to each of us. When it came my turn, we gazed into each other's eyes longer than normal—that is, I gazed into a vast darkness floating behind his thick lenses.

My dear Jo, if only you could have been there. Just that first sip of champagne—how ridiculous to call it effervescent or bubbly. Oh no, no sooner had this liquid touched the palate and tongue than it evaporated into something lighter still. What a shame, I thought, that was it—and only then did I feel an unfathomable coolness deep within, yes, for a moment I myself was nothing but an icy pleasure. As if examining myself under a microscope I perceived with perfect clarity how this elixir diffused from cell to cell.

It was as quiet as a prayer meeting. A raised eyebrow, a connoisseur's smacking of the lips, even a word of praise would have been silly, would have been a sacrilege. Barrista likewise surrendered to the mysteries and hearkened to some inner voice. And for the first time I understood why someone would smash a wineglass. Forgive me the pathos—but already the second sip had a soupçon of the mundane.

I used to want to be able to describe pleasure in all its nuances and hues. I am now content to have experienced it.

The waitress placed a silver bowl in our midst, and from its center a glittering dolphin leapt up out of a sea of ice, on which—or so I thought—lay twelve black wrinkled mussels, plus lemon slices and another smaller bowl of sauce. The waitress gave my shoulder a pat, as if she were the hostess.

The baron began his lecture, using an open hand in lieu of a pointer. At first there was something touching, if not almost absurd, about the earnestness with which he provided us the names of different kinds of oysters, their origins and characteristics, But that impression quickly vanished. There were various species—Pacific oysters, Atlantic oysters, Antarctic oysters, oysters from the north of France.

“And now proceed as follows.” Barrista brandished a curious little fork. “Separate—lemon—sauce, not too much—slurp!” And he actually slurped. The liquid in which it floated was, he claimed, still seawater.

No sooner did I have the slippery stuff in my mouth than he cried, “Chew! You have to chew, chew, and do you perceive it?” It had the odd taste of something that isn't really food and yet has a flavor, a little like nuts. I paid no attention to the others—Jörg later admitted he would have loved to spit his out—and reached for a second. The oyster experience was the opposite of that of the champagne. I truly enjoyed the second one.

Barrista raised his glass again. White wine, he said, clarified and enhanced the taste. I slurped a third.

“Evidently they've lighted a fire!” Barrista clinked glasses with me and divided the rest of the oysters between us.

He had driven to West Berlin at six o'clock that morning and shopped “in certain specialty establishments.” This was a treat for him more than anything else. He had refrained far too long and was happy to be able once again to enjoy himself in our company. We should not imagine that first-class quality was easily obtained, one often had to journey far to find it. One could depend only on one's nose. Which was why he traveled with just one small suitcase, and why most of the space in his car's trunk was filled with coolers and his portable infernal machine. The waitress stepped to one side and gestured with both hands toward a two-burner stove.

“Avanti!”
Barrista exclaimed. “Steamed scallops!” We were each served just one, garnished with herbs and a dark sauce, a Chinese specialty.

“You will be amazed,” Barrista said, announcing the next course. We need not take fright, this was not a dessert, but a mere nothing, as he liked to call it, a nothing that would give our taste buds a chance to recover, a kind of peppermint ice cream. (It had another name and wasn't really ice cream.) He then passed around cigarettes, in a pack that reminded me of our Orient brand.

“The hereditary prince,” the baron commenced, “sends his warmest greetings. You should perhaps know that the prince draws only a small pension, the lion's share of which is withheld to defray the cost of his lodgings. The moment you have made his acquaintance you will want him to be your friend.”

He went on to say that beyond his chambers, His Highness—that being the correct form of address—had no assets, nor did he lay claim to any, having, it should be noted, no right to do so in any case. And yet it had always been his dream to be allowed to return to the place from which he had to depart more than seventy years previous. He, Barrista, was saying this not so much to allay any possible suspicion, but rather he feared that there might be certain expectations and hopes attached to the person of the hereditary prince that he could in no way satisfy, however much His Highness himself might wish to do so. “We therefore have,” Barrista said in summary, “only money to lose.” Here his English accent reasserted itself. “You, of course, have nothing to lose,” he remarked, raising his glass. “I am responsible for the loss of moneys. Your responsibility is to assist me in that.”

He paused and smiled at his aphorism. “You will have exclusive rights. That is all.”

“And what does that mean?” asked Georg, who had suddenly grown quite calm and relaxed. Obviously glad that one of us had opened his mouth, Barrista turned slightly to get a better view of Georg and explained in his hyperbolic fashion how it was through us, the
Altenburg Weekly,
that the city and region of Altenburg would learn of the prince's visit, it was to us that politicians would come if they wanted to know something about it, through us that people would first be informed of the events surrounding the visit—and even be provided with a quick course in proper court etiquette, although the hereditary prince placed no exaggerated value on that. Although people should at least make some effort. At that moment the waitress arrived with four globes of lettuce—iceberg lettuce, Barrista explained. These were accompanied by a plate of sliced gingered duck and two small bowls of a special Chinese sauce. The baron peeled away a leaf of the green iceberg, slathered it with brown sauce—which was, he noted, the very best quality—and, using his fingers, wrapped the leaf around two slices of duck.

“If you knew how long I've waited for this! There's nothing finer,” he said, and took a bite. “Absolutely nothing,” he whispered as he chewed. The sauce dribbled on his napkin.

Among the loveliest surprises of his expedition was the discovery of decent meats in the East, including mutz roast—he mispronounced “mutz” with a short “u”—which was a first-rate delicacy. And who knew what all might become of it, for what was offered in gourmet temples from Monaco to Las Vegas was in large part simple peasant food ennobled by sophisticated preparation. At which he took his first sip from a new bottle of white wine—drawing it through his teeth with a hiss, pursing his lips, shifting them from side to side like a miniature elephant's trunk—culminating, then, in a brief smacking sound. We toasted home cooking.

I took advantage of the silence as we set our glasses down to finally ask him what his profession was. I had no idea what it was I had done. His entire body recoiled from me. He wasn't joking when he said, “Surely you're not asking to see my tax return?” I assured him that, for God's sake, I wasn't trying to get personal. “Leave God out of it!” he barked at me even more sharply.

“Is it customary,” he said, turning to Georg, then to Jörg, and finally back again to me, “for you to ask someone his profession?”

I could only reply with a perplexed yes.

He had never presumed to ask such a thing except when conducting job interviews. Of course it was of interest to him—we shouldn't take him wrong—of burning interest how someone earned his money, since a job was often the only thing that wasn't ridiculous about a person. “Then perhaps I can parry with the same question to you later?”

One could, “simply and cogently,” term him a business consultant, which was the simplest euphemism for what he did and did not do. And yet his “interpretation” of his profession differed somewhat from the usual definition. He made investments of his own at times, in this and that, since in his eyes it “made sense” not only to provide his clients the necessary trust in his recommendations but also to supplement their investments with his own capital—for he could never offer anything more than recommendations. To him it seemed immoral to take money from his clients independent of their success or failure—as was the preferred practice of banks or his special friends, lawyers. He did not wish to comment on his own profession, since all too often the results were those of the fox guarding the henhouse. He fell into a study for a few moments, muttered something, and then apologized for his inattention. He would gladly, he continued, subject all professionals, including physicians—them above all—to such a law of success. He could only say that one's own interests were always the best councilor—not only for oneself, but for the community, for mankind. Of that he was profoundly convinced.

We were now offered toothpicks from a shiny golden tray. Barrista took a good many and, leaning back, tipped his chair. As if pitching back and forth in a rocking chair, he went on. If there was one thing he did not understand about this world it was the regrettable fact that there were hardly any people of his stamp. Why did people constantly get involved with crooks? That was the question he put to the world. Several years previous he had written a little book on the subject,
⁷⁷
in the hope of finding adherents to his method, indeed he had secretly—and he jabbed at his teeth behind a hand held up to his mouth—dreamed of being
called
to a chair at a university. We needed only look at how the Nobel Prize was awarded to the wildest economic theories. Nobel Prizes for theories that when applied plunged entire nations into ruin. One of his few dreams still left unfulfilled was to become a university professor.

“Ah,” he exclaimed, “a chair for poetry!”

As if he hadn't noticed our astonishment, he put the screws to us like a real professor.

“What comes to mind at the mention of 1797?” he asked.

“The year of the ballads,” I said.

“Hyperion,”
⁷⁸
Georg said.

“Very good,” the baron said, “but this is not a literature class.”

“Napoleon,” Jörg shouted.

“Napoleon is always right. But this is about England, an achievement for which the entire civilized world is indebted to the Empire. On February 24,
1797,
a law was passed that allowed the Bank of England to refuse to offer coinage in exchange for paper money.”

We stared at him.

“And what, gentlemen, happened next?”

“Inflation?” Jörg inquired.

“No!” Barrista cried. “Just the opposite. Exchange rates rose. One sees what a dubious figure Napoleon is, because besides other mistakes, he believed this would mark the end of British stability. Meanwhile Napoleon, the stupid magpie, was hoarding all the precious metals he could. But by April 1797, French
assignates
were worth only one-half of one percent of their face value. Just imagine! Even though they were backed by all that ecclesiastic property. From which one draws what conclusion?” We were silent.

“Where something is, nothing comes of it!” he gloated. “And where nothing is, something comes of it! If that isn't poetry, then I don't know what poetry is.” His final confession, that he loved dealing with money because nothing is more poetic than a hundred-dollar bill, even sounded plausible to me.

The baron
⁷⁹
tipped his chair back upright at the table and shook his head.

He had grown accustomed, he said, to being a voice crying in the wilderness, and was grateful for other gifts that fate sent his way instead of fame. “Doing good business is so easy. Today, however”—his right hand traced a semicircle, as if he were admonishing us to be silent—“today we have other things to talk about.”

The baron called the waitress over. She had been kneeling down beside Astrid the wolf, stroking its coat, which looked almost mangy against the universal glow of honey gold light. The waitress hurried over and
⁸⁰
began to clear the table. Tugging his napkin from his shirt collar, the baron stood up, and cast a searching glance around the room. He was handed a basket, the contents of which were hidden under a white cloth.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have taken the liberty of bringing along a little present for you. It took some effort”—he lifted the basket briefly, as if to imply he was speaking of its weight—“but I hope that my inquiries haven't led me astray.” He stepped back a little—I thought I spotted something stir in the basket—and flung the cloth aside. Dust rose. And revealed dark bottles with mottled, tattered labels.

As we could see, the baron instructed, the authentic hallmarks of age had been preserved. His gift came with one modest request—that we invite him to partake of only a half glass of each.