Can You Hear Us
Herr Kublig who do you think you are living alone at your age don’t you know better we’re here to help you won’t you let us help you
doesn’t respond
doesn’t hear us
Herr Kublig listen to us if you can don’t open that door (does anyway) what do you see Frau Fulesco waltzes down the hall her lips pursed into a tight O as she glides by not wanting to disturb you Herr K she knows you’re ill or grieving or whatever it is you do in your rooms she doesn’t really care one way or the other just so long as you don’t bother her no one wants to be bothered by the likes of an old widower like you Herr K you with your headaches your constant headaches no one can treat
of course you should go back to Dr. Tutlich you said you would but you haven’t yet preferring we suppose to imagine rather than know what’s wrong with your head
lots Herr K lots you can believe us on that if you can hear us your brain is possessed with all sorts of grave decrepitude that afflict the species we can’t do anything about but we can watch we can hum and we can hope which is better than being hopeful that you hear us and follow us out the door no not that door the one you can’t see O.K. call it a transom that’s fine with us as long as you can imagine it which it doesn’t seem he can he’s still here so are we we’ll try again
imagine a door you can do that you can if you see it look at it it’s more solid than bone a handsome Jugendstil door the iron that weaves around the handle forms a pattern we gaze at for hours or some of us do while others frolic on the curtain rod or in the cupboard or cellar or wingtip shoe no end of places and designs to inhabit if you’ll only follow our example Herr K but instead of seeing the door you see only yourself in the oval mirror spotted with age above your chiffonier your jowly muzzle rheumy eyes morose disposition no wonder the neighbors avoid you all except for your landlady Frau Vercelli no wonder the shopkeepers don’t ignore you we mean look more closely Herr K the door is viewable within if you’ll only look harder just this once start with the handle the grain of the wood Herr K don’t turn away Herr K
didn’t work can’t imagine the door
is that our fault
won’t you speak to us Herr K or at least acknowledge what is right here beside and within you
O he’s too busy already plenty going on inside him that he can’t make out his head his neighbors even the building’s custodian Stamatov who bows when Herr K walks in shaking off the rain that may or may not be there his greeting to the custodian a rattle of umbrellas and canes in a bucket by the door his smile as if detached from his body his teeth of another dimension though his shoes are tied and his glasses are clean he cleans them unconsciously with his mesh undershirt he leaves dangling outside his pants for this purpose
Herr K’s brain’s sparking all right sparking misfiring misloading misfiling and mismanaging everything that comes into it he thinks his landlady wants to marry him he believes she wants his money but he has no money or not enough anyone would want to appropriate the effort not worth it but still she hangs outside his apartment shaking her ibuprofen bottle as if it were candy for you Herr K we’d watch her carefully if we were you maybe she wants to move into your rooms herself maybe she’s found a renter for her own apartment and this way she can add a few hundred euros to her monthly income we don’t trust her Herr K you might want to think about doing something about her while you still have time
if he could sleep his headache would lessen become more a background noise not this bad dream he can’t wake from the tram ride that doesn’t stop documents found on the floor of the tram that he had lost and now must place in the proper authorities’ hands Liliana his late wife is worried that he’s not yet home but he can’t phone her the tram won’t stop won’t stop keeps running through flooded Ulm nothing any longer where it once was the bakery a bank the dentist a delivery service where workers stack unaddressed packages ten twenty feet high and he watches the documents float out of the tram’s windows
Herr K what a dreamer you are decades since you and she lived in Ulm
now he’s pacing up and down his room again with his head in his hands his hands in his head his shins bumping into a stack of books on the floor a strange green light filtered by the clouds from the streetlamp on the corner of Königstrasse and Lieferdammweg he can hear the clouds nagging him but not us he can hear even the tapping of a neighbor’s heel on the floor to the tune of Ellington’s “Take the A Train” the flush of a first-floor toilet the creaking of the stairs though no one is on them so why can’t he hear us
with a key she opens the door and in comes your landlady don’t look surprised she stinks of gin and burnt toast she’s a harridan with a gleam on her teeth and in her eyes “what’s wrong Herr Kublig” “Gar nichts nothing at all Frau Vercelli” that’s right lie Herr K now pick up the cane “you haven’t left your room in days Herr K” “I’m fine Frau Vercelli I’m preparing a new study I have my work I must think the clouds outside the window I must think” “yes it’s been a long winter Herr K if you need me” “natürlich Frau Vercelli I thank you for your concern”
masterful masterful we admit but next time use the cane beat her pummel her it’s always a solution when all else fails and so much has already you might as well be prepared to jiggle your eyes before her eyes that’ll get her out in a flash
perhaps he doesn’t want to
doesn’t want to be prepared
here’s a question for you Herr K are you worthy of living a serious question isn’t it whether you’re worthy of staying alive you know what they say don’t you are you part of the problem or the solution but what if you’re neither isn’t that right Herr K we mean your wife gone no she’s not with us not part of our group not that we can answer for other groups or zones so if you’re not part of a solution to a problem whether inner or outer-directed then why not die we mean look at us we’re here aren’t we and we’re neither part of the solution nor the problem that is the general the universal problem and the general the universal solution but we are part of your particular solution to your particular problem or problems if you’ll listen to us keep focused for a moment can you do that can you stay on the point
doesn’t appear so
the accommodations seem to change every day sometimes by the minute now where did he put his glasses this time
he dreams of aerial bombardment the suicide of his mother at the sound of the bombs she slits her throat the child is listening to her tell this story but how since she’s dead but of course I’m dead she says and she recalls her days as a child on the rubble the rolls that tasted of ash and stuck to the palate and tongue O gorgeous times won’t you join me
poor Herr K
he stumbles awake
Frau Vercelli must take him for a lamebrain a Schafskopf she’s back in his room primping at his tarnished mirror fingering her yellow curls puckering her lips as if she were in vaudeville “your headache must have rattled your marbles Herr K you should remarry” “no no Frau Vercelli no no I’ve already been married you know that” then in three strides she’s crossed the room backing him against the wall and whispers in his ear A wife would feed you hearty meals and read you your favorite bedtime stories. Then you won’t have to plead every night for me to read them to you, I who do not even know your old man language, who has enough on her hands to sweep away the desiccated insects that accumulate in thick dusty piles beneath your bed. Won’t you leave your rooms today, Herr Kublig, at least long enough for me to give them a thorough scrubbing, the kind only an angel can give? her breath so light in his ear he’s not sure he’s heard anything
that’s not good Herr K you shouldn’t’ve have listened or imagined listening to her don’t you know better at your age rules must be obeyed even by the best of us and that includes us who watch over you we don’t make mistakes anymore we listen to one another we follow the rules that no longer exist and we follow you we want you to think about the door imagine its thickness its weight its smell put your nose to it Herr K lean against it go ahead
doesn’t hear us
the ravines he must cross every day a cluster of heads on the stairs the heads of his fellow tenants nodding like flowers in the dark
are you asleep Herr K or only dreaming
what can we do with such an old widower with a mind filled with voices that interrupt us voices not at all like ours Herr K which you don’t seem to hear but nonsense voices hallucinations dream shreds
why not listen to us instead are you deaf or dumb down on your luck adrift adream
doesn’t hear us
won’t ever
then why are we
and when are we
and where
what good are we if can’t engage even him
what good are we
old man his knees to his teeth his toes horny his eyes from years gone by can’t even sign can’t even croak can’t even remember his wife’s name from one second to the next or site the source of his pain
and yet we stay why do we when we know he won’t or can’t hear us
why concern ourselves about this sagging bone sack skin a crumpled paper bag
can’t even count the teeth in his head or hands
can’t even
somewhere there’s a song if we could sing it he would hear if only a memory of
like the scraping of the shoe she wore after her stroke she couldn’t lift her foot any longer he could hear its steel tip as it scraped on the sidewalk down Seyfferstrasse the year before she died and even then he couldn’t speak but he could hear her her he could hear but not us the last of what’s left no matter what we say