H. Adler - Panorama

Josef bows lightly and wants to head through the door into the foyer, but Rumpler takes a stack of papers and says, “Take these to Herr Krupka, he needs to have a look at them. No one knows what to make of them, but he’ll know. He should be ready to report back at the staff meeting tomorrow. Note it, Doctor, note it, you’ll never remember it all. You need to write it down! Where would we be if we never wrote things down? You just need to head over there, even if Herr Krupka is not there when he should be there, or he’s settling accounts with someone, and before you know it the appointment with me is indeed forgotten. Or you tell someone else, who then forgets to arrange for it to happen. But then you have paper and a fountain pen, although it doesn’t write because you’ve no ink at home, and you’ve forgotten your pencil as well. Then here, take a pencil. What’s that, it doesn’t write? Aha, no point, then get a pencil and a sharpener from Fräulein Grenadier! I want to help you, Doctor. Make sure to come to me if you need anything, or if you hear something, sense something, even if it’s something small and particular, and make sure to write it all down! Well then, off with you now, go and tell Dr. Horn that I need to see him, he should stop in!”

Josef opens the door to the secretary’s office as if entering a dream, weighted down with papers for Herr Krupka, stammering a goodbye as he leaves, though the Professor is no longer concerned with Josef, who simply wants to close the door, which slips from his hands and slams behind him. Josef sees Dr. Horn, who lights a cigarette with a still glowing butt. “Herr Doctor, the Professor would like to see you.” Dr. Horn doesn’t take his cigarette out of his mouth, casts a scornful look at Josef, and says through his teeth, “I’m still hard at work, young man!” Josef steps farther into the office and encounters glances that are part mistrustful and part ironic, as someone asks him where he’s headed with the stack of papers. The Professor gave him these to bring to Herr Krupka. “That’s fine. Just head on in, Herr Krupka will be pleased.” Josef enters the business office, Fräulein Auer is still bent over her receipts, though she really isn’t paying attention to them, but instead lights a cigarette that she then unconsciously lays on the table, which already has plenty of burn marks, as Fräulein Auer sits with a bottle of nail polish in front of her and paints her nails. “So you want to work with us? Great idea! Are you related to Rumpler?” Josef says no. “Well then, I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s nice here. You’ll see. Do you need something from me? You can see that I’m busy. I can take down your information first thing tomorrow.”—“No, Fräulein, the Professor asked me to bring these papers to Herr Krupka.”—“Then bring them over!” Krupka, who has just taken a bite out of a sausage sandwich, calls to Josef, “What a lovely heap. What am I supposed to do with it? What did the old man say?”—“Herr Krupka, I’m afraid I don’t know. Professor Rumpler said so much, I can’t quite remember it all. Something to do with having a look at these and a staff meeting tomorrow.”—“Well, thanks then. When are you gonna start?”—“Tomorrow.”—“Aready tom’w? You’re in quite a hurry to join our cultural bordello! Well, I wish you a lot of luck. The old man seems to like you. He never took a new guy on a tour of the office before.” Josef has nothing else to say, so he takes his leave of Krupka and Fräulein Auer, though she tells him that she has only one cigarette left and is wondering if she could borrow three from the Herr Doctor, she’ll return them tomorrow, though Josef has none on him. Then Fräulein Auer complains that she won’t be able to smoke anymore today, for she had lent some cigarettes to Dr. Horn, who either gives them back too late or not at all, and tonight she has evening duty, so Josef should do her the pleasure of going to Frau Lawetzer and seeing if she can send over a couple. Josef doesn’t know who Frau Lawetzer is. That’s the woman in the ticket office in the vestibule, and all Josef needs to do is head over and say that Fräulein Auer sent him.

Josef goes down to the ticket office, but Frau Lawetzer is on the telephone taking a ticket order, two people also standing there waiting. Frau Lawetzer has tickets for the cinema and other tasks in front of her, and she’s nervous, saying that she can’t take an order by telephone right now, there’s a long line of people waiting and she has to take care of them. “What, you want tickets for next Wednesday? There’s plenty of time! Why are you ordering them already today? I don’t even have the tickets for then yet, ’cause the tickets for next week come on Friday.” She cannot take an order that far ahead, she’s sorry, she has to hang up now, goodbye. Then she takes care of a man who wants two tickets for the cinema that evening, but good seats in the middle, he asking if the film is a good one, for he had heard it was miserable, though all he knows is this is where his wife wants him to take her tonight. Frau Lawetzer says she has good tickets in the middle, but they are the last, and the film is certainly not miserable, for Herr Klinger books only good films. Then the man asks who Herr Klinger is, and she says that’s the man who orders the films for us. And is he not capable of making a bad choice? Why would he book a bad movie when there are good ones, though Frau Lawetzer has not seen the film herself, she hardly ever goes to the cinema, because she doesn’t like how the movie flickers. The woman standing behind the man then begins to ask about tickets, but Frau Lawetzer says, “I get dizzy so easily.” The woman says that she can’t stand around forever, they should get on with it, but then the man says that he doesn’t want to buy a bill of goods, so if he’s going to go to the Bio the film must be reputable. The woman says she has absolutely no more time, for her time has been taken up already, she is due to play bridge at the Café Conti, she’s needed as a fourth. Then Frau Lawetzer declares that the man should decide, but he has to think it over some more, so he lets the woman go first, he needs to look at the seating plan more closely, he asking the cashier for the seat numbers as he stands to the side and buries himself in the seating plan, the woman stepping up, but then the telephone rings again, Frau Lawetzer making a face as she says, “You see, my dear madame, they are always after me, and for this I’m hardly paid anything!” She has nothing but hassle, she should have quit long ago, except that she needs the work so badly, but the woman says that she should pick up the receiver, the ringing of the telephone is enough to do anyone in, so the cashier picks up the receiver and says, “Hello, Frau Lawetzer here.” This time it’s the in-house telephone, it soon becoming clear that Fräulein Auer is on the other end, as the cashier states that she can’t be disturbed right now, her hands are completely full, well then, fine, the Fräulein should come down and help her if she believes that working the ticket booth is such a piece of cake, Frau Lawetzer would be just as pleased to loll around upstairs, reading newspapers and gabbing away. What? Cigarettes? A new employee? No, no one had spoken to her, there must be a mistake, but then Josef calls out that he’s the new employee, and Frau Lawetzer says into the telephone, “Leave me be until I have time to speak with the new employee.”

Frau Lawetzer sighs as she lays the receiver back in its cradle, but it rings again right away, and the cashier answers, “Hello, Frau Lawetzer here … ah, yes, my pleasure, Professor … yes, I always say ‘Cultural Center, Ticket Sales’ … Tickets for the Auchlicht lecture? … What’s the name of the lecture again? … ‘The Role of Hormones in Our Life’ … I have no tickets for a lecture on hormones here … I can’t, Professor, I have people waiting … Yes, later … also the Red Cross … I’ll call you back … Yes, goodbye.” Frau Lawetzer shakes her head doubtfully. “There you have it, my dear madame, the old man does that to me all the time! How am I supposed to sell tickets? Well then, what can I do for you?”—“I actually want tickets for the Auchlicht lecture.”—“Auchlicht? Auchlicht? Oh, the one about hormones! Wait, let me have a look.” Frau Lawetzer looks for the tickets but can’t find them. “I don’t have any tickets for it down here. They must still be up in the office. Now I remember. That’s the block that still needs to be stamped, Fräulein Auer must have them upstairs. If you just wanted to head up to the office yourself.”—“But for the last three days it said in the newspaper that advance sales are available. This is outrageous! That’s always the way it goes at the Cultural Center!”—“Please, my dear madame, I just work here. You need to bring it up with the old man, tell it to Professor Rumpler!”—“I’m not going to your professor. I want the tickets, and right now! It says so in the newspaper!”—“But, please, don’t get so upset. I can only sell what I have here in the booth. If you want, I can make a note. I’ll reserve some for you. How many do you need?”—“Normally I wouldn’t go to a lecture on hormones, but Dr. Auchlicht is a cousin of my sister-in-law’s. So I have to. I don’t want to cause you any trouble. But do you have any tickets or not?”—“I don’t have any. I already said, I can make a note, or you have to go up to the office.”—“Well then, for God’s sake, make a note! Four tickets. Good seats. Will there be slides?”—“How am I supposed to know? Under what name, please?”—“Weislicht. Why don’t you know if there will be slides or not? Do you know anything at all?”—“Weislicht. Please, with a round ‘s’ or sharp ‘s’?”—“With a round one. But I want to know whether there will be slides.”—“You’ll have to ask about that upstairs.”—“Well then, four tickets for Weislicht to see Auchlicht.” The woman leaves in a huff, then Frau Lawetzer sticks her head a ways out the window. “So then, have you decided, my dear sir?” He has decided and wants the seats, the cashier ripping the desired tickets from the block, the man wishing to pay with a large banknote, though Frau Lawetzer hasn’t enough change for it, and asks for a smaller bill. Unfortunately, the man doesn’t have one. Then Frau Lawetzer calls to the new employee, but he can’t change it either, so she asks how well he knows his way around the building. He knows only where the office is. To that Frau Lawetzer says that’s all he needs to know, and would he be so kind as to pop up to Fräulein Auer and ask her for some change? Josef is ready to do so, but asks if he couldn’t take along the cigarettes at the same time. No, that won’t do, first she has to see if she has any, and Fräulein Auer should let her be, there are people at the ticket booth, business has to be taken care of first.