Out of the Line of Fire (22 page)

Ah, you must be Wolfi, he said grasping my hand. Come in, come in. Karlchen will be back in a minute.

I went in.

Sit, sit, he said indicating one of the armchairs while he himself stood wheezing for a moment. He was huge. I could see the buttons of his shirt straining against the soft bulk of his enormous belly. He was wearing thick glasses, the type that make a person’s eyes look twice as large as they really are, so that as he stood there gulping for air he looked like some enormous, bearded toadfish dressed in a suit and a hat.

I’m terribly sorry, he said. Gustave Aloysius Klebbermann at your service.

He reached into his inside pocket and retrieved a small white business card. He trundled over and handed it to me beaming. It read:

I went to hand it back to him.

Keep it, keep it, he said, waving his hand. You never know when you might need it. Karlchen’s told me so much about you.

It was only then that it struck me who this monument to fat was. He was Karl’s father! Somehow I had expected someone more distinguished, more urbane. Instead this mountain of flesh, while obviously successful, was gross and more than a little repugnant.

You don’t mind the hat, he asked suddenly, pointing to a perfectly ordinary if rather old-fashioned business hat on his head.

No, no. Not at all. It’s very nice, really. What else could I say.

He picked up his cigar from the ashtray, bending over it cautiously as if he were wearing a truss. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he was. He inhaled deeply on his cigar, spluttered and wheezed obscenely for a moment, then smiled at me.

The stairs, too many stairs. Just arrived. Always like this for the first fifteen minutes.

He manoeuvered himself over to the other chair, backed himself awkwardly up to it, bent his knees slightly and, raising his voluminous trousers a little, let himself fall slowly backwards into it. I winced as the chair strained under his enormous weight. He settled back into it. The smoke from his cigar was beginning to make me sick. There was an awkward silence. He leaned forward slightly.

Karl, he said in a confidential tone.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

Karl? I said.

Yes, Karl. Can’t get used to it. Wear a hat all the time. Well, almost all the time if you know what I mean.

He laughed knowingly at me. I began to think that perhaps he wasn’t all there. We fell silent again.

Kahl!
I almost shouted.

He jumped noticeably in his chair.

You mean kahl—bald!

I started to laugh.

I’m sorry, Herr Klebbermann. I don’t mean to laugh, but I thought you meant Karl Karl.

I pointed meaninglessly to my head. He looked at me weirdly.

Speaking of Karl, I said. Where is he? You said he’d be back in a minute.

Yes, yes. Of course. He’s just parking the car. Said it wasn’t safe. New you see. Mercedes 450…SE…blue. Couldn’t go back downstairs myself. Not as young as I used to be.

With this he reached again for his cigar and, finding it had gone out, fumbled for his cigarette lighter and relit it by discharging half a dozen lung-fulls of acrid smoke into the room.

Best cigars in the world, he said. Havana grandes. Sure you wouldn’t like one?

No, no thank you. Perhaps I should go and look for him.

No, sit, sit. He should be here any minute. Besides, I have to be off myself in a moment.

Then why did Karl have to park the car if you’re going almost immediately yourself? I asked.

Ah yes. Very good question Wolfgang. Very good question. Karlchen told me you were a sharp young man. Young men like you we could use in our firm.

Suddenly, and with surprising agility for a man his size, he heaved himself up out of his chair and with three quick strides was looming over me. He was breathing hoarsely. Beads of sweat had begun to form beneath the brim of his hat. He took another puff of his cigar, brushing the smoke from his face with his great bear-like paw. He looked menacingly down at me.

Yes, Karlchen told me a lot about you, he rasped. You call yourself a friend. You’re nothing but a hypocrite and a traitor to my Karlchen.

He held his cigar dangerously close to my face. I tried to get up but he kicked my feet sharply out from under me and I fell back into my chair. He started to cough, uncontrollably, hideously. His eyes bulged. He clutched at his chest and turned away from me, his great body bent double, his enormous buttocks quaking millimetres from my face. I saw his hat fall to the floor in front of him. A hand returned to his side, clutching his glasses and a white handkerchief. He was making a frightening, inhuman, horrible sound.

Herr Klebbermann!

I went to rise again but it was too late. The great trembling mass of his body had begun to topple backwards. I raised my hands in a futile attempt to protect myself as he came crashing down on top of me. Instantly the hoarse coughing gave way to a high-pitched laugh and I felt a pair of wet lips kiss my cheek.

Ah Wolfi, you were terrific, terrific.

Karl!

Gustave Aloysius Klebbermann at your service.

He could hardly get the words out for laughter.

God, I haven’t had so much fun in a long time. You should have seen the look on your face: ‘You’re a traitor and a hypocrite to my Karlchen’. But you deserved it. You deserved it, you arsehole.

He got up. Suddenly he was tall again, his trouser cuffs up around his calves.

Come on, let’s go. God, these awful cigars. You know, I spent three or four minutes before you arrived furiously puffing to get the room full of smoke and then when you knocked I couldn’t find my glasses. For a desperate moment I thought you’d gone. And then later, when you said kahl, I thought you’d recognized me.

He picked up his hat and replaced his glasses. He made for the door.

Aren’t you going to change? I asked.

No. I said we were going shopping. The fun has just begun.

On the crowded bus into town Karl created a fuss by insisting that a pretentious-looking woman in her forties give her seat to his son because I had a heart condition and, as anyone could see just by looking at me, I was severely mentally retarded. So I sat all the way into town until we got to our stop at the Kaufhaus des Westens.

In
Midnight Cowboy
there is a scene in which Jon Voigt and Dustin Hoffman as Ratso almost get run over by a car as they cross the street. The car screeches to a halt just centimetres away from them and the limping Ratso turns, bangs its bonnet and yells: ‘Hey, I’m walking here, I’m walking here’. In a subsequent interview Hoffman claimed that this scene was real and unstaged. It had actually happened that way when they were shooting, and he liked it so much that he left it in.

Karl’s departure from the kerb, however, was carefully calculated to allow the driver of a smart new Mercedes coupé just enough time to bring the car to a nose-diving stop. But it
was
close and Karl wisely chose not to acknowledge the driver’s abuse, continuing instead in the direction of the KDW.

God, that was close, I said when I had caught up to him.

Yes, for a moment there I had the horrible feeling he hadn’t seen me and with this fat-man suit on I would have been flat out getting out of the way.

Instead of going into the KDW as I had expected we headed around the corner to one of the nearby supermarkets.

I thought we were going to the KDW.

Some other day, he said. Today is food shopping day and it’s easier if we go somewhere where there are fewer store detectives, particularly if we’re together.

What do you mean, if we’re together? I said, offended.

Well, take a look at yourself. You look like a political terrorist and in the KDW they’d never let you out of their sight. Together we look so incongruous that it’s suspicious. On my own, dressed like I am, I’m just another successful Spiessbürger.

Because of Karl’s bulk we had difficulty getting through the turnstile. I could see one of the young cashiers looking at him with obvious disgust as Karl, with what I now recognized as exaggerated slapstick, somehow managed to get one leg caught either side of the turnstile bar. He was stuck. The manageress had to be called and after some moments of pushing and shoving at the bar between his legs, during which Karl claimed the manageress was trying to touch him up, he was freed.

I went to get a trolley and rejoined Karl in the first aisle where he stood balancing several boxes of cereal precariously in front of his huge belly with one hand, while attempting to pile even more things on top with the other.

It would have been easier to shop if you’d changed. How do you expect us to lug bags of groceries back to the bus when you can hardly walk as it is?

I reached up to put the boxes of cereal into the trolley but he pushed my hand roughly away.

What do you think you’re doing? You get these.

He handed me a list.

I can look after what I’ve got, he said.

Suit yourself, I said. But four boxes of cereal! What kind of party is this?

He went to answer.

No, no. Don’t bother me with the boring details, I said.

I walked off in search of the first item on the list. Two aisles later I caught a glimpse of Karl awkwardly manoeuvering himself between the other shoppers and their trolleys, stopping occasionally to rest his legs and to arch his back in the futile gesture fat people make in an attempt to redistribute their weight. As we passed I noticed that all he had added to his pile were a couple of jars of caviar.

What do you do, spread it on your Rice Bubbles, or have you and Vladan made up?

He just pushed past me without saying a word. I watched him as he waddled up the aisle reaching for the occasional thing off a shelf. I saw him bump into another shopper and nearly lose all of what he was carrying.

A short time later we passed again and still all he was carrying was four cartons of breakfast cereal. Still I didn’t understand.

Change your mind about caviar on your Rice Bubbles? I asked.

He just rolled his eyes.

Then I saw him do it. His right hand reached out and took two jars of coffee off the top shelf. He laid them precariously on top of the uppermost box of cereal, trying to keep one of them in place with his chin as he shifted his weight a little. His right hand came away from the top of the box still holding one of the jars. He looked at it for a moment as if he were reading the label and, deciding against it, turned to put it back on the shelf. The whole thing was totally natural. But when he turned back to me the jar he had been cradling beneath his chin had disappeared. I looked dumbly for a moment at the blank space where it should have been. He caught my eye. He grinned and raised his eyebrows once again as if to say: ‘Finally, you understand.’ I half ran up to him and, without being too obvious, scrutinized the top of his shirt. A narrow band of stitching was all there was to conceal the spring-loaded flap beneath. As if to show me how easy it was, he took another item off the shelf, placed it on top of the cereal and by reaching across to scratch his other shoulder, swept it into his cavernous stomach. I started to laugh.

That’s fantastic, I said.

Not bad, is it, he said nonchalantly. I’m about half full. I’ve got most of the things you’ve got, although you could give me your shampoo.

You mean I’ve been wasting my time?

No, some of those things, like the yoghurt for example, are too risky for me. I had a nasty experience with yoghurt once. No, some of that lot we’ll pay for.

But despite this, now that I knew what Karl was up to, we went on a spree. Dried figs, imported nuts, real coffee, camembert, exotic biscuits, truffles, chocolates, ridiculous things really. Around the aisles we went, intoxicated by the daring transparency of it all.

When we had finished, there was still enough room for a bottle of champagne to celebrate. By this stage, Karl really did appear to be having genuine difficulty walking and when we made our way to the cashier, having ditched the boxes of cereal, all we were carrying in fact was a six-pack of toilet paper. I looked like the solicitous son helping his asthmatically overweight father as I supported him with one arm. As she gave Karl his change he pointed to me and said: ‘Diarrhoea’.

Back on the streets Karl stopped for a moment and grasping his huge belly in his hands he appeared to shift it from side to side.

Jesus, this is heavier than I thought, he said. And I think one of the straps is twisted. Where’s the nearest bus stop?

He was now definitely struggling under the load and we were forced to stop every twenty or thirty metres while he tried to make himself more comfortable. Finally we arrived at the bus stop where we were able to sit for the five minutes it took before ours came along. I helped my poor suffering father aboard.

Back home, we were hardly in the door to the building when Karl took off his coat. I could now see the contraption he had strapped to himself. It consisted of a large, hemispherical container made of fibreglass, the back of which was more or less shaped to his body. A harness attached to the top passed over each of his shoulders and was reattached at the container’s base. The front was a masterpiece. It consisted of a fake shirtfront, collar and bow-tie and, as I had guessed, a spring-loaded flap concealed behind some fancy stitching.