Thomas Pletzinger - Funeral for a Dog

research

On the refrigerator door hangs another Polaroid. I recognize Lua, I recognize Tuuli, her face on a white sheet, framed by her long hair (when did she cut it off?). On her right lies Svensson wearing a fur cap, on her left a blond man with a few days’ growth of beard, he’s holding the camera. On the lower edge of the picture the black Lua, forced into a blue hooded anorak. All three are looking into the camera (three mouths and a shared smile). I put down my notebook on the kitchen table and notice Tuuli’s cool beauty, I wonder how her hair smells this morning. Is the second man next to her Felix Blaumeiser? On the white strip under the picture in thin handwriting with a ballpoint pen: Shitty Paradise City 2000.

my wet feet

Bring back whatever you can get, Mandelkern! Elisabeth ordered on Friday. We can’t send a photographer, so you should handle that yourself. The passing thought of taking the picture from the fridge and pocketing it. Svensson wouldn’t notice before my departure. The image tells a story: Svensson can laugh, Svensson wears funny fur caps, Svensson has good-looking friends, Svensson’s success is justified (such assumptions, such connections, such ideas). Readers want to recognize themselves behind the facade of strangeness, says Elisabeth, and I recall a sentence from my dissertation: “It is of foremost importance that the methodological approach of participant observation seek a ‘perception with all the senses.’” I actually hold Tuuli’s picture under my nose and inhale deeply, but then she herself is standing there in the light in front of the window, holding the boy: Good morning, Karvasmanteli , she says,

Is this what your research looks like?

The peculiarity of this situation: I’m standing in a puddle of water on the floor in front of the fridge, a small, pretty woman in a short green nightshirt is making coffee, and I’m watching her. What order do these pictures belong in? I ask, as if Tuuli should know such things (her bare feet). The passing thought that I won’t fulfill my assignment in such a naïve manner (the contents of medicine cabinets, the smell of Polaroids). Tuuli doesn’t answer, instead she sets the boy on a chair, opens cabinet doors carefully and closes them loudly, until she finally finds an espresso pot. She cleans it, searches for coffee, opens the fridge (another flood of condensed water on the tiles), then she pours some spoiled milk into the sink and curses in Finnish. She lights the gas flame. I observe her without saying a word (I never gave Elisabeth an answer either). Tuuli’s fingers are not at home in this kitchen and in this house, she keeps returning to the boy and reaching into his hair as if she doesn’t want to leave him alone here. I’m fond of her delicate movements, her tentativeness, her care (she and the boy belong to each other). Only when the coffee is on the stove does she turn to me. On the table in front of Tuuli her cigarettes are still lying in the same spot where she was sitting yesterday evening (I’m still standing in the same spot where she found me a short while ago). She takes the picture from my hand and hangs it back on the fridge. She lights a cigarette and tosses me a dish towel (her breasts under the green nightshirt). Dry your feet, Manteli , she says, wet feet make you sick.

The Hotel Lido Seegarten is beautiful

It’s the subtle condescensions of Elisabeth the successful journalist that I can’t bear, her didactic interjections and motherly comments on consistency, discipline, and tallying expenses. Elisabeth will stand up from her seat at the conference table and say loudly and clearly that she is responsible for the department, including the budget for freelance writers. We shouldn’t forget that (by which she means me). She will rebuke me professionally for the fact that the booked and prepaid stay in the Hotel Lido Seegarten has elapsed, and above all she will take it personally (then she’ll later want to forgive me my transgression).

Interview (Tuuli & Manteli)

MANDELKERN: Do you like the pictures?

TUULI: I don’t know these pictures, I’m seeing them for the first time.

M: You’re in the Polaroids yourself.

T: Felix just snapped the shot when he thought the moment was perfect. It’s not art.

M: I like them. Have you known each other long?

T: Yes. Have you said good morning yet?

THE BOY —

T: Would you like to go out? You can play with Lua if you want. Lua is a good dog. I’ll be right there, annas kun keitän nopeasti kahvit. Coffee, Manteli ?

M: Yes, please.

B: I’m going to play with Lua now.

T: Yes, as long as you’re careful.

B: And brave?

T: Yes, älä pelkää .

B: Minä en pelkää, Äiti .

T: And there’s no reason to be, Samy. He says he’s not afraid.

M: You just said his name for the first time. Samy.

my main informant

Tuuli’s smoking and looking at her toes. We’re standing barefoot by the large windows and watching the boy, we’re drinking coffee. Tuuli’s leaning casually against the pane, her toenail polish is chipped. The boy circles the dog, occasionally he shouts something I don’t understand. Elisabeth polishes her nails only in spring, she’ll be in the office now and will be asking whether I called. It must be about eleven in the morning, I have to leave in three hours at the latest, my questions are waiting, 3,000 words are waiting, my superior is waiting (the airplane won’t wait). Tuuli is breathing directly on the glass door, on her right and left the cigarette smoke is shining in the sun. She comes much closer to me, her hair still unwashed, the imprint of the pillow still on her neck and left cheek. For participant observation, it’s necessary to use all the senses. We observe the boy: he is now kneeling next to Lua in the grass. The dog has stopped coughing, he’s twice as big as the boy (Samy). The child touches the animal with all due caution. Is the boy not afraid of dogs? I ask, are you not afraid for Samy? Tuuli doesn’t answer, the dog doesn’t move. She stubs out her cigarette in the window putty. I’m sorry, Manteli , she says, turning to me. She looks up into my eyes and smiles (the last of the smoke in my face; it’s impossible not to notice her nakedness under the nightshirt, her small breasts). She’s sorry that she’s interfering with my work. Tuuli puts her hand on my chest. The boy is now playing with the chairs by the shore, he’s kneeling in front of the broken printer. No, I say, I’m sorry, if someone doesn’t belong here, then it’s definitely me, as a journalist and ethnologist in this private milieu I’m a foreign body. I just have a few brief questions for Svensson, as I’ve already mentioned, it’s about Svensson the man against the background of the children’s book (I’m talking too much). Tuuli’s reply: Poppycock. She takes a step past me and sits down on the large table in the middle of the room (I could have moved). She crosses her legs, takes another cigarette out of the pack, and lights it with a match. Then she undoes a hairpin and puts it down next to her on the wood (golden for blonde hair). Okei , she says, what do you want to know, Manteli ? Well, I say, but then words fail me. Karvasmanteli ?

Manteli/Karvasmanteli

Tuuli’s not the first. I’ve gotten used to comments and jokes about my name. My father was from Prague. My mother didn’t choose the name Mandelkern until after his death (patrilineality, matrilineality), otherwise I would have been born and entered in the records as Daniel Mandler. I’ve looked myself up: To treat epileptics in the first half of the previous century neurologists removed the amygdala (the Mandelkern ), the part of the brain responsible for emotional attachment to things, people, and situations, but also for fear and panic attacks. The amygdala is almond-shaped (the Greek amygdal means almond, just as my last name literally means “almond kernel”). My father was a lawyer in the Ruhr area. When the first Carolina left me, Pfeifer laughed and said: What a kick in the nuts for Mandelkern! The otherwise unimaginative Hornberg insisted for years on my resemblance to Marc Almond, he spoke of separation at birth (the idiot still sings “Tainted Love” whenever we meet). My mother’s mother is named Röther, she was born Hülsmeier and is from Hamm, in Westphalia. My pediatrician laughed as he diagnosed me with inflammation of the amygdala when I was sent to him with my first acne ( Mandelkernentzündung ). Karvasmanteli means bitter almond. Elisabeth thinks that only characters in novels and journalists should be named Mandelkern. The name sounds like it means something special, she says, your name leaves tracks (I have to disappoint her).