Зимон Штраус - Seven Nights

I’ll appoint animals to maintain order. For demonstrations and riots, May Days and search warrants. Preferably pandas and zebras, but sometimes, when things get really heated and dangerous, giant tortoises and dromedaries. The mere presence of exotic animals would reign in even the worst offender. Their mysterious aura would intimidate him. Much more effective than any water hose. Humans are more ashamed in front of animals than their own kind. They’re even shy about peeing on a tree in front of their dogs. Under my leadership there would be a close cooperation between the police and the zoo. And prison cells would get relocated to the giraffe enclosure.

I’ll start academies that research emotions, not theories. Where you don’t leave your heart on the cafeteria tray, where you’ll feel pride in the old secret way that combines reason with emotion. Just this once, feeling would assert itself, wouldn’t have to slouch off to extra tutoring, ridiculed by the rationalists, just because once again it didn’t understand what the great theorists wrote about love. This would be an academy that emphasizes sensuality. Where you can drink red wine in class and write a manifesto as a final thesis. A place where you learn how to make a fire, not just how to fold the fire blanket.

On top of that—and first and foremost—I would forbid certain things. Ruthlessly and without mercy. Senior citizen travel groups, for example, who inconsiderately barge over anything in their way. Who block the most stunning views and ruin every spectacular painting with their walkers and crumpled faces. Also on the list of things to abolish: rolling suitcases being dragged down the street at 3:30 a.m., early morning chain-smokers, car alarms that go off for longer than three seconds, cryptic announcements concerning the ordering of train cars, cheerful melodies when on hold with a telecommunication service provider, cash-only restaurants, energy-saver light bulbs, adjusted opening hours, the “Classic Bell” ringtone. And much more: exorbitant prices for razor blades, printer cartridges and grapefruit juice. Oktoberfest imitations playing sing along classics, bad breath at the breakfast buffet, hair removal in the sauna and coffee stains on newspapers. There is so much to do. The world needs me, urgently. I’d just have to get into power.

The night traffic has died down. Every five minutes a car pulls up and disturbs the dark. A few sparrows have settled next to my pedestal. During my speech they plucked each other’s plumage. Now they’re probably having a heated discussion about my program. Most importantly, which role they’d assume in the animal security service. I hop off the pedestal and call a cab. Leave the sparrows behind and hope for a wide distribution of my ideas.

On the way home I do a stopover at the night cafe—well heated, as always. I receive messages. “Don’t have time,” I write back. “Very busy.” Outside, life goals are rushing past. To be a pioneer, that would be something. Who would succeed at a thing like that—cutting a path into this world—if not me? A thought, a speech, a call. While still in the slipstream of youth. Before things get really serious. You’d just have to conquer your fear of sounding overdramatic.

Maxims could be thrown onto the table, banners unfurled: Risk, risk anything! And we’d start a union for aesthetic goals. Today all I did was to jump off a skyscraper on a leash. That’s not enough.

I skulk home. Another day without action. Once again, only dreams of conspiracy, secret society and heroism. In Schiller’s Fiesco there is a warning: “Our best seeds for great and good things are buried under the pressures of bourgeois life.” In Bruckner’s Pains of Youth, Desiree says: “Bourgeois existence or suicide, there are no other choices.”

Out on the street I see the generations run into each other, hear their grumblings. Their hellos and goodbyes, light kisses on cheeks, as if it were nothing, as if by their mid-twenties everything was already over. And yet, this is moment to yell, “It can’t go on like this!” To return the old, fiery rage (not the new, dull one) to their glazed eyes. I could be an instigator. Could stand at the podium and speak about what really matters.

Every night, on my way through the dark streets, I rehearse my speech on the abandoned pedestal. First, I let the people wait. Letting them wait is the most important thing. And then, after about half an hour, just as the mood is about to swing, I rush to the front, without a manuscript, with a half-open shirt, ready to give it all.

I have a dream. Down in the crowd I see fired-up faces. They follow me, spellbound. Cheers erupt. I turn to the side one last time, building momentum, drawing a breath. Then I face the crowd. Raise my left hand. A short murmur, then silence.

The world needs me. I’m ready. I have jumped. I have rehearsed everything.

NEW GAME, NEW CHANCE.

The wind picks up. Plastic bags slap against advertising columns, table cloths flutter, outdoor benches creak and wobble, water slushes from manholes.

The others drive by and send hatred. From their polished folding bikes, their convertible rental cars, their colorful strollers. Hatred. Scorn. Bitterness. A man in a wheelchair, without legs, pushes the hand pedal. A blouse dress, short with green stripes, swerves out of the way and crosses the intersection. Quickly out of here.

Women in headscarves, their white faces neatly cropped, sit in an old Ford smoking cigars. Small children with helmets squeak and dally past. People pass by, their mouths covered in masks to guard against bacteria. And no one, none of them, look me in the face. Don’t let their eyes stray, don’t smile at me.

I’ve just sat down and already the waiter lays out the goods: truffle salami, beef tartare and John Stone filet carpaccio on Icelandic river stones, half-pound Pomeranian East Coast Entrecôte (Delta Dry Aged) with chanterelle mushrooms and Lecsó, third-pound Freesisch West Coast roast beef on sunchoke salad and stewed cucumber. Accompanied by a bottle of Philip Kuhn’s Mano Negra, two glasses of Saint-Émilion and with the dessert of the day a clear apricot brandy. What would it be like if lust, desire and abundance ruled our lives? Instead of depression, caution and acid-reflux pills.

To casually play down the Michelin Star they got last year, the owner put up beer benches that are supposed to bring the status-conscious guests closer together. Silly idea since a beer bench is the least sensual of all seating options. Without a back to rest your arm on, without chair legs you can push back in anger during a fight. Forever trapped in the collective: as soon as one side gets up, the other falls off. Tumbles onto the ground and breaks their bones. But I am here alone, have to hold down the middle, am the sole one responsible for equilibrium.

A girl stands behind me. Skinny and dainty, large sunglasses. “Just a glass of still water please!” she calls. Her gaze is practiced, her smile deft. No carbs after 6:00 p.m. she declares, and definitely no beer or wine. Let alone Averna, the viscid remnant of German longing for Italy. Her mother is from the north of Spain, acting is something she picked up in school and now she writes novels. The first one was two years ago. Since then she’s been suffering from tendonitis. And yet she tries again every morning. The taste of toothpaste in her mouth, she sits at the kitchen table and sharpens her pencils.

“Are you writing anything important?” the writer Shalimov is asked in Gorky’s Summerfolk . I ask it, too. No, too little time, in Copenhagen she just did a performance in an old police station. She slept with and among the audience members there. Totally crazy. Free at last. A steady stream of words from a pretty mouth.