Funeral for a Dog: A Novel (22 page)

Is that so, Elisabeth?

The screams startle me, but the boy is unruffled. He’s still kneeling on the floor of Svensson’s study and drawing pictures only he comprehends (I can’t interpret children’s pictures). The sun, he says, holding the green crayon in his fist. Lua, he laughs, scribbling a bright red on the white wall below the window.
Äiti
, he whispers, decorating the sun. The screaming by the water doesn’t stop. The screaming gets louder. Svensson is standing bare-chested by the water, holding a brown rooster in the air by its feet (William Wordsworth). He’s standing on the dock, he’s spinning the animal in circles like a swing carousel, he’s spinning the orientation out of its head (his arm a swing). Lua lifts his head. The dog rolls heavily from one flank onto the other, he puts his remaining foreleg into this roll, his hind legs he braces in the flowers, then he gets to his feet, lurches a bit to the side, and is standing. Tuuli is waiting off to the side and watching Svensson (the panicked fluttering of the other rooster behind the windshield of the Fiat 128 Sport L). Svensson with the dazed rooster in his hand approaches the firewood block on which he was just chopping wood and picks up the ax. William Wordsworth slowly opens a wing and closes it again, then Svensson chops off his head. He holds the bird like a wet umbrella, its blood drips on the ground and the dock. He hangs the empty animal on a chair and gets Robby Naish from the Fiat. Svensson has to spin the white rooster much longer, he doesn’t get the neck until the third blow into the bloody fluttering (it surprises me that the dead bodies remain completely motionless, I was expecting a headless escape). Then everything is the same as always: the pigeons are cooing, the cicadas are making their shrill noise, Daisy Duck, the hen, is clucking on the roof of the blue Fiat. Lua is lying heavy and black on his side in the sea of oleander flowers, in the hiss of the mute swan. Svensson steps over the blood on the planks and jumps in the lake. Tuuli takes the animals’ heads and bodies and walks toward the house. Far beyond the white buoy Svensson resurfaces and waves (Lua is too old to lift his head again).

bikini (green)

As the roosters were dying, the boy disappeared, I hear his small footsteps on the stairs. He took the stuffed mouse in its blue overalls with him. His crayons are lying scattered in the room, he drew on the paper, the grocery receipt, the walls, and the floor too. The window is open, in the vine and the ivy wasps are buzzing, occasionally one flies in and lands on the dark wood (my headache gives way to fatigue). Svensson far out in the water a tiny dot, he’s swimming back and forth. Tuuli in a green bikini comes out of the house, she’s moving as if no one could see her. My fingers are slow as I make a note of “Tuuli in a green bikini,” as I write “the blood on the planks.” She sets her sunglasses on the dock and takes off the bikini, first the bottom, then the top (her small breasts in the afternoon light). Her left foot is standing in the middle of the roosters’ blood, she leaves three dark footprints on the way to the water. Without any hesitation Tuuli dives headfirst into the lake (I at the window like James Stewart).

the little doctor

Samy is standing next to the black dog and listening to his chest with the chair-leg stethoscope (the animal twice as heavy as the child). Lua has stopped coughing, what is happening and being said down by the water now remains soundless in the drone of the wasps. Samy moves closer and closer to the dog. He carefully lifts one of the animal’s ears and looks inside, he feels Lua’s missing foreleg with his fingers, he touches his scar. Through the binoculars I can’t discern any movement of the flanks. The dog lets the little doctor do as he likes, maybe he’s already dead. Eventually the boy puts down the chair leg. He’s no longer afraid of the dog and lays his ear on his chest, directly on the light spot. With both arms he reaches around the animal’s neck, he plunges his face into the dark fur, as Svensson did before (Lua is a perishing animal). Svensson sits down next to Samy in the grass. They lift Lua’s ears, examine his paws and his speckled fur, they pull Lua’s jowls to the side, Samy examines his teeth (face to face). He seems to be explaining something to Svensson, who then takes the cap off the boy’s head and strokes his blond hair. He lays his hand on Samy’s shoulder and gestures to the small church on the opposite shore, in the setting sun its yellow turns into a glow. Svensson talks and gestures to the sleeping mountain over Cima, he points to the boat in front of him moored to the dock, he points to himself, he points to the house and maybe to Tuuli out in the lake. Svensson points to the blood-smeared planks of the dock (he must be telling the child the truth). Svensson’s world is a more beautiful place than I expected. The swallows high up above the lake, in the evening sun only two water-skiers very far out (practicing at a standstill). For two days they’ve been predicting rain, for two days the view has remained clear, for two days Lugano has stood in the distance like an admonition, at night the city twinkles like a home. Svensson gets his mail at the Bar del Porto, he turned his real life into a fictitious story and sold more than 100,000 copies. He has pigeons and swallows, crickets and cicadas. He slaughters his chickens when he pleases, he erases his characters. Svensson apparently doesn’t live alone here (Kiki Kaufman: salvation and insight).

palimpsest

Between the crayons and papers: the grocery receipt with the boy’s picture on it. When I view it more closely, the momentary question of why Svensson bought so much wine (Barolo), so much beer (Heineken), so much meat. He brought groceries ashore by the box. Samy’s picture consists of a few lines, astonishingly clear for such a small child. I should eat something, I think, I should finally sleep. But when I turn the receipt sideways, the child’s picture becomes the little doctor’s prescription (I’m drawing a prescription for Lua, the boy said, Lua shouldn’t die sad). The grocery receipt shows a syringe and the letters L U A. With my feet on Svensson’s suitcase of stories I realize: the little doctor is prescribing Lua a gentle death, the boy is helping Lua out of the world (Lua becomes history).

Auberge la Fontaine

Elisabeth and I a few months ago in a guestroom above the restaurant in Venasque where we’d celebrated her birthday that evening, her friends’ laughter had died away around midnight on the Rue de l’Hôpital. Elisabeth sat backwards on me and arched her back, then she told me for the first time that she wanted a child. Not at some point, not from anyone, but now and from me (from you, Daniel, she said). She sensed that her body was driving her thoughts in this direction. In my head this image remains: her body from behind bright in the almost complete darkness of the room, her face turned in the orange glow of the streetlights (her back a distinct exclamation point).

now she wants a child

Lying on the examination table in the urology unit of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in May (birds chirping and sirens on the clinic premises). Elisabeth had changed her gynecologist, a recent and thorough examination yielded no cause for concern. Now it was my turn, she said, just to make sure. Her gynecologist had recommended a urologist, Dr. Thankri Sitar, and in answer to my perhaps somewhat too-nervous question as to whether he had anything to do with the instrument of the same name, he told me completely humorlessly to hold my penis a little bit higher, please, he couldn’t see anything. At which point I caught myself for a moment in the suspicion that there might be something to see (the cold ultrasound gel). He gave me a cup and an instruction: sperm sample for the fertility test.

Use your imagination, Mandelkern!

This time everything has to work, Elisabeth apologized afterward in the park at the medical center. We sat on the steps of the central medical library next to our chained-up bicycles. It felt absurd, just a moment ago to have jerked off into a plastic cup and now to be sitting next to her. This is my last try, Daniel (she didn’t even sound silly).

my central medical library

My hesitation in the face of doctor visits surprises Elisabeth. She’s a pragmatic woman, she observes her body, she notices something, she gets treatment (I get things sorted out, she says). It must be her age that has made her so sober. I write and read my own records, I consult reference books. Daniel Mandelkern, born 07/12/1973, height: 1.85 meters, weight: 79 kilograms. Circumcision in 1975 due to foreskin nonretractability (phimosis), 1981 greenstick fracture of the left forearm after fall from a swing (radius, ulna, humerus), no predisposition to wisdom teeth (dentes serotini), 1983–1985 orthodontic treatment of gap between teeth (diastema), 1985–1987 regression of same. Childhood illnesses: chickenpox (varicella), mumps (epidemic parotitis, epidemic salivitis), as well as a prepubescent series of scarlet fevers overcome probably without permanent damage (infertility would be possible). In 1985, on the occasion of the delivery of a mail order catalogue with skin-colored corsetry, first self-gratification under the reproachful poster look of the Pet Shop Boys, subsequent irrational crises of conscience (sex makes you weak, pale, and unsuccessful) and development of compulsive neuroses focused on gaining strength, a healthy complexion, and success (push-ups, vegetarianism, tanning salon). From 1983 to 1993, anxious anticipation of hair loss (matrilineally inherited, I know that from photo albums), 1991 torn ligament in the left ankle, 1994–1995 hair loss and embarrassing gel hairstyle. In 1995, final visit to the haircutter, and purchase of electric hair trimmer (Grundig). Then, as of 2001, joint pain in the knees, increasing weight and accelerated aging (the precision of my diagnoses). Last self-diagnostic discovery: eczema on the ring finger of the left hand, an incredible symbol, I’ve never heard of an allergy to precious metals (it must be psychosomatic). Now I’ve been given an official medical opinion. It’s not an infection, says Tuuli, it must be your curiosity.

my decisiveness

I’m extremely tired, but Svensson thinks I’m sick, he’ll leave my care to the small, pretty doctor (he won’t discover my spying). At twilight and on my knees in front of the suitcase I unwrap the
Astroland
manuscript from the packing paper. Tomorrow I’ll continue searching: in the kitchen, in the bathroom, on the boat, in the hallway, on the shelves, in the cabinets (I’ll talk). I’ll find out the whole story. Svensson and Tuuli know how Blaumeiser died (it’s their story). I take my notebook and
Astroland
, I take Svensson’s books, and lie down on the mattress.

my books, his books

I leaf through Svensson’s thinned-out library (books are a takeoff into another life over the course of pages, a suspension of one’s own body for a few minutes). I reread
The Story of Leo and the Notmuch
, I flip through Svensson’s encyclopedias, I skip around in Max Frisch’s
Montauk
. I skip around in my notes and keep finding sentences that pretend to be only my own thoughts and feelings. At times I understand things as someone else has understood them. On Svensson’s mattress in his library on Lake Lugano I’m writing, but I’m making use of nothing but read words, lists, and parentheses. I’m surprised by the speed with which I forget these connections and the amazement when I then rediscover them. That’s not new, scarcely anything is new (title page
Astroland: hardly art, hardly garbage
).

Craze for the Mobile Lifestyle

is printed on the front page of the
Süddeutsche
from my plastic bag. I speak German, English, French, and miserable Italian. I learned a smattering of Finnish from Carolina (I could brush up on it here). I’m lying between books and people, between words and bodies. My language is of no use for decisions, each word is only true for a few seconds, then it dries and turns to paper (for Mandelkern decisions as such are suspect). It would be good to be able to set clear boundaries, Hamburg would be Hamburg, a life with Elisabeth would be a life with Elisabeth (a life with Tuuli would remain an unlived life). Svensson has decided on things: he lives in a ruin, now he chops the old wood, he jumps in the clear, reliable water. Is that how one should live (is that how I should live)? Svensson has told his version of the story, he has wrapped it in paper and locked it in the suitcase, Svensson does push-ups, he plants kumquats and potatoes, he catches his own fish (Svensson has put words behind him).

PricewaterhouseCoopers

Tuuli is suddenly standing in the middle of the room. She opened the door without a sound. She’s wearing Svensson’s T-shirt (I know it from the
Astroland
manuscript: the much too large and bright purple PricewaterhouseCoopers promotional T-shirt). I’m lying between Svensson’s manuscript and my notebooks, I can no longer hide my curiosity, but Tuuli seems to want to disregard my notetaking (she knows the symptoms). The T-shirt actually reaches down to her knees, under it she’s still wearing green, she has knotted the bikini top behind her neck (her bare feet). My small, pretty main informant has a soup bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. Chicken soup for the soul? she asks, and smiles as if she just came up with this herself. For someone who’s sick with the flu you look quite fresh,
Manteli
. She takes the pen from my fingers and hands me the bowl. Yes, I say, I’m already feeling better. Tuuli remains seated next to me on the mattress and waits for me to take a spoonful of the chicken soup (Wordsworth & Naish). Only when I say it’s good does she take the first page she happens to grab from the mattress and hold it up to the light. What is this anyway? she asks and reads aloud without waiting for my answer: