Thomas Pletzinger - Funeral for a Dog

Are they fucking? Kiki Kaufman laughs, and Lua is sleeping with a heavy head on his remaining front paw, he knows Felix’s and my stories, he knows my questions and Felix’s answers,

they’re fucking, said Felix, yup. Couldn’t Bryan Adams be Keanu Reeves’s father? It didn’t matter, the two of them were fucking. We laughed and clinked our beers, Tuuli sat on the edge of the roof and watched the ambulances on their way to Manhattan. People were jumping out, she said, a little boy next to me on the roof saw people falling onto the plaza, he asked, “Why are the birds burning, Mom?” Probably, said Tuuli, jumping is faster than burning, probably when it comes to dying, speed matters. She was done with the joint, Felix lit it and smoked between index finger and thumb, as if we were soldiers on watch, as if we had to conceal the burning tip, as if weapons were pointed at us, as if we were being observed, no open containers, no animals, no weapons. Then he leaned his head back and exhaled. Jumping is always better than burning or drowning, said Felix, he’d once fallen out a window himself, dislocated his shoulder and broken his tailbone, had he ever told us about that before? He’d told us, but when one of us is talking, the others can be silent, so we didn’t interrupt him. Felix sat down on the edge of the roof, smoked and talked to himself. Down in the apartment the answering machine was recording messages again, someone wanted to know whether we were still alive. We lay on the roof as if in the beyond and listened to the voices from the other side of the world. We didn’t answer, we couldn’t move. Tuuli held her belly as if she had pains. I touched the back of her sweaty neck, her neck hairs were sticky. I thought you were dead, I said, and Tuuli bent over the edge. What are you guys talking about, she asked, and her voice sounded faded like the voices on the answering machine. Maybe that had to do with the fact that, a few seconds later, she puked very softly off the roof. Tuuli stood up and spat, we’re done for, that was it, she said. I could have wiped the dust off Tuuli’s face, given her clothes that fit her, declined the next beer and filled up Lua’s bowl maybe, I could have offered her my toothbrush and my bed, myself too. I should have told her to get some sleep, tomorrow this world would definitely look different. But I waited too long. Nothing better occurs to you? Lua asked me. Tonight your words mean the exact same thing as your silence, he said. Felix brought a guitar up, he played something by Johnny Cash and pissed off the roof at the same time. In front of Corner Store Oscar’s corner store the Colombians were drinking and singing their laments on Skillman Avenue, aah, more beer for the angels of Lorimer Street, said Corner Store Oscar, with his half-shot-off lower jaw, people are drinking today like there’s no tomorrow. On the store’s steps one of the Colombians was drumming on plastic paint buckets, the guy in the Argentinian soccer jersey was banging two beer bottles together, a Cuban regular was playing ukulele, Corner Store Oscar was shaking his keys. He was out of Rolling Rock, Budweiser, Coors Light. A six-pack of Pabst, I said, and Lua next to me ordered the same. Maybe so Corner Store Oscar wouldn’t have to go for the beer twice, because in summer it’s very warm even at night in New York. We and the beer brands are going downhill, said Lua, and when I returned to the roof, Tuuli looked up from Felix’s mouth. We’re not alone, she lied, we’re three. I turned around and climbed back down to give word of our survival. The lines were finally free again.

Kiki is smiling, she knows those moments, the talking just to keep talking. What this or that person said when no one knew how things would go on at all. She strokes Lua’s head. The rain is now running down the large windows of the SoHo Grand Hotel, Kiki puts her black shoes next to my white ones on the armchair and signals to the waiter for the bill. Stop? I ask, but Kiki says, keep going! Your story is a good story, still no flags or structures or morality, just uncertainty and clarity, it sounds like something out of a book. Lately, I say, I haven’t been sleeping much, lately I’ve been waiting for the appropriate words. Then I finish my drink and pay the whole bill. I hold on to Lua’s leash as we drift along Canal Street in the greasy Chinatown rain, from shop window to shop window, from awning to awning, plucked and smoked chickens on display, electrical appliances and videos, as we lean on garbage cans, as we look into Kiki’s camera and then end up in Kiki’s hotel room, where we take off our wet clothes and hang them on a few hooks. Where we don’t touch each other as Kiki takes pictures of us under the fluorescent lights, the green paint of the walls behind our pale bodies, the light on her sad breasts, on my tired cock. And finally Kiki tells me that this hotel was once the flophouse on the Bowery where Hurstwood suffocated himself out of hopeless love in a gas stove at the end of Sister Carrie . Then she takes Lua’s head in her hands and he closes his eyes. Animals are the hearts of people, I say, Lua is breathing heavily, and I can go to sleep.

(Ping-Pong)

Dawn lasts forever (the house drags itself into the day). On the narrow mattress in the corner of Svensson’s study I’m trying to distinguish between sounds and thoughts: the wooden beams, the bedsprings (the ivy is growing). Actually my work could have been done a long time ago, but yesterday toward evening Svensson set plates and glasses and a candle on the kitchen table and between his words and his chewing left no room for questions. He talked about the village on the other side of the rock shelf (Osteno), about the water and about the mountains. He was busy with a knife in the candlelight, I sat at the table and searched for somewhere to start while Tuuli spoke Finnish with the boy. Svensson boiled water for noodles on a gas stove and explained that he’d had no electricity since Friday, a tree had fallen on a power line. There was only water and leftover wine, he wasn’t prepared for guests, not for a personal visit and least of all for journalists (why am I here?). Svensson cooked a tomato and sage sauce, he served an earthenware bowl of radicchio and white beans (his laugh conciliatory). The boy grimaced and dropped his fork on the floor, under the table the dog panted. Svensson, said Tuuli, cutting the noodles into little pieces, no child can twirl spaghetti and no child eats radicchio (not conciliatory). Yes, he knew that. I ate silently and therefore too much, drank some red wine and tasted Elisabeth in it. Tuuli ate and smoked, the boy on her lap fell asleep (half a tomato in his hand dripped on her leg and fell to the floor). As Tuuli finally put the child with his smeared mouth to bed, I remained seated. For a few more minutes I tried to start a conversation with Svensson, but because he was speaking incessantly without talking about himself, I excused myself too (fatigue). Elisabeth’s annoying assignment brought me as far as his kitchen, and I didn’t manage even to ask the routine questions. For the interesting things there was no time (the owner of the suitcase, the boy, Svensson and Tuuli). Later I sat in Svensson’s study and heard Tuuli’s voice in another room singing a Finnish lullaby. I pictured her sitting on the edge of the bed and brushing the boy’s hair from his forehead, I tried to write, but lost my image of her in my words. I fell asleep on Svensson’s mattress and didn’t wake up again until late at night. The cicadas were noisy. I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know where the others were sleeping (I didn’t know who I was).

Lugano — Chiasso — Malpensa

Now it’s Sunday morning, a rooster is crowing, scattered birds and insects. I wait for the dog’s coughing and the boy’s crying. Nothing. I’m still in Svensson’s house, but no one seems to be aware of me. On the Swiss side of the lake I could have woken up in my own hotel bed, a Sunday newspaper on the terrace, the first game day of the Bundesliga soccer season, etc. My return flight to Hamburg leaves today in the late afternoon, I have to go back to Milan (Lugano — Chiasso — Malpensa). Elisabeth would have tried to discuss my leaving with me, but I’ve made myself unreachable. I should notify the hotel, but I remain lying in the half-light of the study and don’t touch anything (journalistic scrupulousness). I’m expecting Svensson’s footsteps, I’m expecting his knock at the door. Apparently the only way to leave this place is with the boat. Svensson is a mysterious man: he wouldn’t live alone at the end of the world and not want other people around him for no reason. Svensson must not like people. I sit back down at his desk and take notes, so as to retain the important things (the slosh of the water against the dock).