“What do you do when you can’t manage to write a book? I’ll tell you: You make little notes, observations, anecdotes, sketch individual scenes. And then? You piece them together indiscriminately.” Thus wrote one irate critic of The Stain, the Jacket, the Rooms, the Pain—but they were wrong.
For this week’s Translation Tuesday, we bring you an excerpt from Wilhlem Genazino‘s mid-career masterpiece, translated from the German by Charlie N. Zaharoff. Here, the superficially aimless wanderings of our unnamed protagonist give way to a complex pattern of references and emotional resonances, his catalogue of observations accumulating into a vivid psychological portrait. What results is not a traditional dramatic novel, but rather, a powerful meditation on memory and loss. Writes the translator: “I had to make peace with the fact that I was doing a sort of violence to the text by snipping threads—visible or invisible—where they were not meant to be snipped. It felt worth it to give readers a sample of Genazino’s work, which with the exception of one novel remains untranslated into English.” Read on!
© 2023 Carl Hanser Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, München
I step into the Rialto, the second-largest Italian café in town, and take a spot at the long counter, which reaches from the depths of the room up to the glass doors in front. I ask for an espresso and the telephone and dial Gesa’s number, although I’ll hardly say a word to her. The call is just a pretense. Gesa picks up. I say: I’m in the Rialto, do you want to hear Italy? She says: Yes. Then I am silent and hold the receiver towards the counter. From time to time, when she is sitting alone in her room, Gesa wants to be interrupted by the sounds of an Italian bar. She loves the quick setting of espresso dishes on the glass counter, the clacking of cups on the saucers, the laying of spoons beside the full cups, the snapping of the ice-cream scoop, the light sputter of the fruit press, the skating back-and-forth of metal ice-cream bowls on the counter, the pressure of freshly uncapped bottles, the opening and closing of heavy fridge doors, the clicking of ice cubes in slender glasses, the impact of a bottle opener on a marble slab, the hissing of the espresso machine, the dumping of coffee grounds into wooden trash bins. This is what she wants to hear: the sound of a more distant life that infiltrates her own for one minute, like a promise. After a while I ask: Is it good? Yes, it is good. Gesa laughs, and from her laugh you can tell that her life has rotated once around itself. I say: See you later. We hang up, I give back the telephone, pay and go.
*
The U-Bahn bowls along. A girl of about ten is sitting across from me playing a new harmonica. Beside the girl is a young woman, most likely the mother. With her protective gaze she indicates that the child belongs to her; at the same time there is something withdrawn and painful concealed in the way she is sitting there that forces her to live in an unfathomed solitude. The incorrect and yet delicate tones produced by the girl go well with the exhaustion of the passengers. Several of them turn towards the girl and recall with beautiful, tired expressions the youths that lie so far behind them. It is clear the harmonica has just been bought for the girl. Lying in the child’s lap are wrapping paper, receipt, proof of warranty and a box. Every so often the child touches the packaging, too, and is delighted by its newness. Somehow the woman cannot take part in the child’s enjoyment; this is strange and seems to puzzle the woman herself. The way she looks at the child is watchful and yet empty, critical and yet indifferent. For a second time now I imagine the opening of a story: The pain of the woman emerges from the fact that she has to work every day and put the child in the hands of strangers; and when she meets the child in the evening, it only ever comes to a sad reunion, never to a shared life. Suddenly the woman directs a sentence down into the neatly middle-parted hair of the girl: Gisela, stop it, you don’t know how. The sentence works like a spell. Instantly the child takes the instrument from her lips. She looks first into the mother’s face and then lets her eyes drift silently around the U-Bahn, much as the other passengers do. This surprising onset of general observation must signify the moment when a person is cut adrift from the world. I consider whether to change seats; I do not want to be present when Gisela’s wandering gaze becomes the uninhibited gape of a lost soul. But no such transformation occurs. Gisela’s eyes stay glued to the damaged, hole-ridden spot on my pantleg. I flex my leg a little so that the fragile weave opens up over the knee, which is a first for me too. Gisela’s face is moved by a wonderful urge to laugh. The mother takes no notice of our game. That is just fine by Gisela and me; it means I can repeat the little routine. Gisela is already lifting the instrument to her face. She presumably wants to shield her enjoyment from the looks of her mother. But we have to stay on our toes. The mother is cold and lonely and, as an observer, wary and quick.
*
In the hour of self-constriction, when I am driven by sensitivity into isolation and by isolation into arrogance, I go to Café Heimatland and watch the waitress go about her work. The woman is unaware that she brings me back to life or that this is the only reason why I come to Café Heimatland. I think she has not even noticed that I am one of her regulars. Indeed, her most conspicuous feature is her faulty memory—or is it rather her inattentiveness, which is no less impressive to me? In any case she cannot keep in mind who has ordered what from her, even at moments when only six or seven people are in the café. She comes as always with a little notepad and a ballpoint pen to my table. I order an espresso and a grappa. But she takes no notes; she lays the notepad within writing distance in front of her, looks me in the face, nods and comments on the order, sticks the unused notepad and pen in the pocket of her apron and walks away. A while later she stands at the counter with two glasses of wine, a minestrone, an espresso and a grappa and looks into the room like a child who is told to carry out an order for the first time in her life and fails at doing so. She stands at the bar, looks around at a loss and waits for a customer to raise their arm and say: The minestrone is for me! And for the couple at the window to call out: The wines over here! If no one speaks up, she will bring all of the orders around the room and ask the customers one by one. I watch, electrified by the ability of the woman to turn her problem into the problem of others. All it takes is two or three minutes and, unbeknownst to her, she has pulled me across to the life of brazen disregard. Then I remember that everything that happens is allowed to happen. For the latter part of an afternoon, at least, the waitress has given me back my vitality. I didn’t place this gigantic order—how could I?—but I thankfully accept it anyway. I raise my arm, and only now does she realize, with her characteristic delay, that she has seen me here from time to time and that my order, too, an espresso with grappa, is a familiar one. Relieved, she sets down the tray on my table, smiles, slides the grappa in front of me and even opens the little milk container. Then the mishap occurs: She pulls the tab with too much force and it rips too deeply, sending a squirt of light cream onto the dark sleeve of my jacket. The waitress winces and apologizes. She looks around for a napkin, but she sees nothing and finds nothing. She darts back to the bar without a word, probably to look for a rag or a napkin. But I am already sure that before she has reached the bar, she will have forgotten why it was she was rushing to get there, especially because at this very moment two customers are trying to get her attention at once. And indeed, this is what happens. I am left alone with the cream stain. I look down at this round and bright, I daresay this powerful spot on my sleeve. And at this moment I know: I will do nothing about this stain. The stain is the record and the sign of my return to the present day. I watch as the cream seeps into the fabric. The stain expands a bit in the process. After a while the waitress returns from the bar. She is glad that I have my espresso and my grappa and gives me a smile. The stain has slipped her mind entirely.
*
I pass by a junk- and debris-laden dumpster. On top lies an old photo album. I pull out the album and open it up. It is pasted full of family photos from the thirties and forties. They are small, neatly pasted black-and-white photos with jagged edges. Beneath most of the photos are handwritten entries: “Gustl in Bad Kissingen 1941” or “The unforgettable May Wine at the Greiners’.” In the back part of the album I find vacation pictures. “Madeira 1939” is written underneath or “New Year’s in Bad Tölz.” Though I’m embarrassed by the photos, I find the album touching. For thirty or forty years someone has stored and preserved it; now it winds up in a pile of filth. On page after page a Karl or an Emilie or a Käthe with her grandchildren Sybille or Hannelore or Ulrich make an appearance. The narrow conventionality that radiates from the pictures is old and German and still in force. Nevertheless, I increasingly feel the need to save the album. I would like to carry it someplace where it will be safe for another forty or fifty years. One day a Sybille, a Hannelore or an Ulrich will appear and want to have it back. I clap it shut and take it along. It is nice to stand in the street with an old photo album and to sense the utter lack of a foothold in life. But sadly there is no government office that will preserve an old photo album till the day when someone knocks at the door and wants to have it back. I lay the album on a bench where the foot traffic is heavy and observe from a distance what happens to it. Many people notice the album, but they show no interest and continue walking. Only a girl of about twelve sits down on the bench, lays the album in her lap and turns one page meticulously after the next. She appears to be studying each individual photo. I feel myself becoming envious of her peaceful way of looking. I shouldn’t have given up so quickly! I should have found myself a place to sit; I should have given myself a great deal of time and devoted myself to the pictures. Now I know: I want the album back after all. Once the girl is done leafing through, I will take it home, make myself a cup of tea and look at the pictures in peace and quiet. I watch the girl and wait for her to finish. She appears to be clever. She keeps looking up to compare the appearance of the people living today with that of the people photographed. One couldn’t possibly think of a better use for a stranger’s photo album! Suddenly the girl stands up and does not put the album back on the bench. She holds it carefully in her left hand and walks away. Incredible, she is making off with my photo album.
*
The cream stain on my jacket sleeve, which I owe to the forgetful server at Café Heimatland, is not large. It fades, but it does not disappear. One look at the stain from strangers is usually enough for them to label me an outsider. A look delivers the quickest verdict; its production requires no more than a second’s time. I have only had the stain a couple of days, but already I have learned: there’s a great number of highspeed judges out there. As soon as they lay eyes on the hardened wet spot, a chilliness goes through them like a little jolt. One can clearly see them shrink back a few millimeters. I don’t speak about the stain; I give no explanations; I don’t apologize for it; I don’t remove it; I don’t conceal it. The impression arises that the stain and I live in total agreement, and it is precisely this that people seem to find unacceptable. On some afternoons I am rejected in passing by so many people in the street that I get a bit dizzy. Then I almost start to second-guess the stain. And yet the stain is only there to remind me of my mission: to live without the judgments of other people. One must go through the world as through a lonely wood.
Translated from the German by Charlie Zaharoff
Wilhelm Genazino was born in Mannheim in 1943. Among other works he wrote twenty novels, which feature unexceptional but quietly eccentric protagonists who walk aimlessly through city streets observing people and animals. Genazino dropped out of high-school in 1959 to start a commercial apprenticeship. This culminated briefly in a job as a forwarding agent, which he abandoned for a career in journalism. In the early 1970s, he moved to Frankfurt am Main and worked there as a freelance author. His literary breakthrough came in the late 1970s with the Abschaffel trilogy. Subsequently, at the age of 40, he finished his high-school exams and enrolled at Frankfurt’s Goethe University. The 1989 publication of Der Fleck, die Jacke, die Zimmer, der Schmerz roughly coincides with the end of his studies. Genazino went on to win the Georg Büchner Prize in 2004 and continued writing until his death in 2018.
Charlie Zaharoff is an editor and translator from Oakland, California, who works mainly in academic publishing. He holds a B.A. in journalism and German studies from Northwestern University and an M.A. in history from Freie Universität Berlin. His first literary translation, “The Loden Cape” by Thomas Bernhard, appeared in asymptote in 2022. He is a longtime resident of Berlin.