Jakob Arjouni: More Beer

The coffee was weak and the soft, moist cheese sandwich must have spent many days in the refrigerator. I tore chunks off it and washed them down with coffee. The sticky counter smelled of beer. Two meters to one side, a rumpled man dozed over his corn schnapps. From time to time he blew his nose, then wiped his mouth and forehead with the same handkerchief. He was staring at the framed verses above the sink: A FEW BEERS A NIGHT, THAT’S QUITE ALL RIGHT-A SCHNAPPS AT DAWN, YOUR HANGOVER’S GONE. I glanced at the sports pages next to his elbow

“How did Gladbach do?”

“Lost, two to zero,” he mumbled, without raising his eyes.

I rapped on the counter.

“More coffee. A little stronger.”

The proprietress pushed through the brown bead curtain, took my cup away, and brought it back with a refill. Her ample bosom was swathed in a ball gown from which her arms, neck, and head protruded like sausages. Her rear was adorned with a purple satin bow, her wrists with fake gold bracelets. Her hair had been dipped in liquid silver. Hertha was the owner of Hertha’s Corner-open twenty-four hours. The place was large, dark, and empty. The dusty bottles behind the bar were lit up by fluorescence. Raindrops rattled against the dirty windowpanes. In one comer stood the table reserved for regulars, with its wrought-iron emblem, a wild sow waving a beer stein. Hertha was rinsing glasses. A fly landed on my mutilated sandwich. I lit a cigarette and blew smoke rings around the fly.

Time passes slowly in these early morning hours. It was eight thirty. My court date was at nine. I went to the john. The latch was broken, and the flushing mechanism leaked water onto the floor. When I came out again, the radio was playing “Oh Schnucki, oh Schnucki, let’s travel to Kentucky …” Hertha swayed in rhythm with the tune. The guy at the bar used his snot rag again. Then he grabbed his glass with both hands and knocked back the schnapps in one go. He slammed the glass back onto the counter.

“Hertha! One more.”

“Now, now, Karl. You’ve had enough.”

Karl pulled a wrinkled fifty-mark bill out of his pocket. “You think I can’t pay? Is that what you think?”

“Put your money back.”

Hertha arranged the rinsed glasses on the shelf. Karl lit a cigarette. After a while he glanced at me.

“Gladbach, eh?”

I nodded. He scrutinized me from head to toe. Then he turned away, growling, “Well, this is Frankfurt.”

The radio was playing “When Heidi and her Hans, tah-rah, tah-rah …” I picked the newspaper off the rack. “FRANKFURT TRIAL BEGINS WITH EXTENSIVE SECURITY MEASURES. The trial of four members of the Ecological Front begins behind closed doors.” It was a quarter to nine. I paid and left Hertha’s Corner.

Outside, the wind was driving the rain diagonally across the street. Fall. I pulled the brim of my hat down, dug my hands into my coat pockets, and stayed close to the wall. At the intersection, the furious rain whipped my face, and water began to slosh in my shoes. Everything looked gray. Only a few neon signs interrupted the dreariness of the concrete wasteland. Empty cans, milk cartons, cigarette butts, garbage floated down the gutters and got stuck in the drains. There were streaks of dog shit on the sidewalk. People with umbrellas charged past me. Women stood chatting in the doorways, waiting for the rain to let up. I could feel my coat getting drenched. A taxicab splashed puddles onto my pants. I kept going, slipping on cartons and vegetable refuse, until I reached the courthouse steps. The door fell shut behind me. Like a leaking bucket, I left a wet track on the stone floor.

“Halt!”

Two cops barred my way. I pulled out my private investigator’s license.

“I have an appointment with Dr. Anastas.”

“We don’t know him.”

“He’s the defendants’ attorney.”

“Unh-hunh.”

A squad was pacing up and down the hall, submachine guns at the ready. The cop looked up from my license.

“Your I.D.”

I showed it to him. His companion scratched his chin, raised his walkie-talkie, and recited my I.D. number into it. After he received the all clear, I had to spread my legs. They didn’t find anything. “Upstairs, second door on the left,” they told me. A bunch of journalists were lounging in the waiting room, which smelled of cold tobacco smoke and wet clothes. They were all chattering away with supreme self-importance. A pretty thing with long dark hair sat down next to me.

“Cold, isn’t it?”

She sniffled.

“Sure is.”

She snuggled down into her fur coat.

“What paper you with?”

“My Wife and Your Car.”

“I see.” Pause. “Don’t know that one.”

I lit a cigarette.

“May I have one?”

I lit it for her. We smoked for a while. What did that attorney want from me? Why had he asked me to be here so early? She was studying my profile. I leaned back and closed my eyes.

“You’re not a journalist.”

“Right you are.”

“I can tell.”

“I see. How?”

“Well, you have no camera, you don’t talk, you don’t know anybody, and now you’re taking a nap.”

She smelled nice. Something heavy, from France.

“Nonsense. I’m a Turk. That’s how you can tell.”