For breakfast he drank a glass of grappa, followed by another one. – What will I do with this Saturday? he thought, and was pleased when he remembered his current theme was woman, and in a wider, more conciliatory sense, mankind. I could write up my nocturnal findings, and complete them during the course of the day. I could go from bar to bar, and reward myself with a little schnapps for each new thought. Maybe my conclusions will make a little vademecum? Surely no one would deny I had the necessary authority, in view of over three decades of bitter practical experience that would be absurd.
Zündel therefore decided to consecrate his Saturday to thinking and drinking. He knew of course that he wasn’t drinking to reward himself for thinking, but because he wanted to drink and because he wasn’t prepared to take full responsibility himself for what he was about to think (and to jot down).
He needed time to get the sleepless hours of the past night down on paper, and when he had done it to his own satisfaction, he ate a plate of spaghetti, drank half a liter of red, and napped until four.
And then he set off.
Tina Bar, July 11. The new dictionary. A handbook for myself and other latecomers. First part. – Nota bene: Egoism is now self-actualization. Consideration for others is loss of self. Brutality is truthfulness. Faithlessness is spontaneity. Lack of principle is openness to fresh experience. Hollowness is receptiveness. Inability to be alone is plays well with others.
Lola Bar, July 11. The new dictionary, part two. – Nota bene: Inconstancy is flexibility. Disinhibition is character. Thoughtlessness is impulsiveness. Availability for seduction is uncomplicatedness. Unreliability is autonomy. Superficiality is refreshing, disarming, healthy, uncomplicated naturalness, undistorted by excessive ratiocination.
Sereno Bar, July 11. The new dictionary, part three. Nota bene: Fear of the loss of the beloved is capitalistically infected ownership thinking. Fear of the loss of the beloved is bourgeois uptight jealousy. Fear of the loss of the beloved is squalid sexual envy. Fear of the loss of the beloved is infantile apron strings neurosis.
Stella Bar, July 11. Liber Amoris. Highly confidential. A memo for men. – Chapter 1: If you want to get rid of her, show her you need her. If you want to keep her, show her you want to lose her. – Chapter 2: If you are a friendly and devoted boyfriend or husband, then she will think: “He’s sweet, he’s terribly sweet, but Charlie – he makes me go weak at the knee!” If you treat her badly, she will think: “He’s mean to me, but I love him so much!” – Chapter 3: If she says: “I do like Max!” then you can sleep easily at night. But if she says: “Oh him, he’s got bandy legs!” then you have cause for concern. – Chapter 4: If she is unfaithful to you, it’s your fault: you failed to satisfy her needs. If she is not unfaithful, it’s your fault too: you kept her penned in. – Chapter 5: If you let her feel your trust, she will one day turn around and say: “Trust is only a subtle form of oppression.” While if you say: “I don’t trust you!” she will reply: “That’s the wretched thing about our relationship.” – Chapter 6: If you’re jealous, she thinks: “He’s constricting me.” If you’re not jealous, she says: “You don’t love me anymore.”
Balbi Bar, July 11. Continuation. – Chapter 7: She wants her independence. But also to remain Sleeping Beauty. – Chapter 8:
She wants to take the initiative. But she feels more at home in the role of victim. – Chapter 9: She craves tenderness. But she doesn’t mind dreaming of something more uncomplicated. – Chapter 10: She wants security, she wants shelter. But not without an erotic component, not without an external fancy man.
Sayonara Bar, July 11. Appendix. – An example. From the animal kingdom. – Perhaps this is the most vivid demonstration of what we men are for and whence comes our melancholy. And it painfully shows us the way female creatures abuse God’s creation. And demonstrates the deep ambivalence and inconsistency of so-called emancipation thinking. – Item. Last chapter (summary): the mosquito called Johanseniella nitida dances seductively around until an unsuspecting male takes fire, buzzes optimistically around her, and starts to copulate with her. She licks and nibbles away at him, and probably our hero is thinking: “Wow, this passion! I’m some fellow!” And then the seeming tendernesses turn into bites, she’s hurting him, she’s flaying him alive, she not only bites his head off, she eats him all up. But his penis is exempt. It sticks in her like a plug, the noble, saved penis, and lo, she keeps it and cherishes it.
Gramsci Bar, July 11, 8 P.M. – One-sided? Immature? Sweeping? Oh, kiss my ass! You moron. As if I didn’t know there is no dirtier, cruder, more brutal, plain evil species on the planet than mankind. That every real calamity can be traced back to them, and that’s the billionfold, verifiable truth! So much the worse, so much the worse! And so much the worse too for women, who won’t shrink from the last and grisliest sin of all: they become agents of dastardy, and can think of nothing better than incessantly and complicitously rutting with these sons of darkness and profligacy. The end.
When Zündel drew a deep breath and put his notebook away, his neighbor at the bar gave him a friendly smile and said: Got trouble? – A little taken aback, Zündel replied: So-so. – Women? asked the stranger warmly. Zündel thought: an Austrian, but not an Austrian. And he replied evasively but not harshly, because he liked the man: There are other troubles too. – His neighbor nodded and said: But it’s women that make the most trouble in this life, but they are so sweet and soft, and I like them. – Yes, of course, so do I, said Zündel, that’s the bane of it, but tell me, where are you from?
The stranger was a Spaniard, grown up in Spain as the son of a Spanish father and an Austrian mother. Serafino was his name, and he did look somehow angelic to Zündel, in spite of his black hair. His complexion was pale and clear, his eyes (ultramarine) burned with an almost ecstatic glow. Konrad had never encountered a purer face. Pure, but not soft, at once somehow feminine and unarguably that of a man. And this so delicately put together fellow was a sailor, a seaman on a Libyan freighter which was sailing this very night – at two in the morning – for Tripoli.
Konrad and Serafino spent the evening together. They drank a lot, an awful lot, decidedly too much for Zündel, but what was born between them was more than an easy brotherhood. Deep affection conjoined them, a feeling of being related, of intimacy, as though they had known one another all their lives. They spoke little; the juke boxes in the bars they visited were too loud. Once Zündel asked: Do you think a man could get hold of a revolver here, I mean, without a permit? – Thereupon Serafino pulled him out into the alleyway and said: Of course. No problem. But it would be a waste! – What would? asked Zündel. – If you were to kill yourself! You’ll see, life is short enough as it is. Are you unhappy? – Most of the time, said Zündel. Serafino squeezed his hand and said: Fratello mio.
They strolled along the port road, arm in arm. Zündel said: The woman I love has left me, but that wasn’t what turned me against the world. – Serafino said after a while: The sad must not become extinct, otherwise Mary the comforter will die as well. – Zündel stopped and asked: Are you really a sailor?
The next bar they went to was called Krazy Korner, and seemed to be a meeting place for North Africans. Underworld! whispered Serafino. – Drugs? Zündel whispered back, and Serafino nodded. Zündel saw nothing suspicious, but then he didn’t see much of anything anymore. He sensed that his next drink would be his last. He gripped the bar with both hands. – Help, everything’s spinning, he thought, and at that moment the bar went quiet. – Police! whispered Serafino in Zündel’s ear. A couple of carabinieri had taken up position outside the door. Zündel thought: I hope it’s a raid with shooting, some action at last. – At the same time he noticed to his consternation that, as often happened when he had had a lot to drink, there was sudden strong pressure on his bladder. He hopped about on one leg then the other, and asked the barman urgently for the WC. – Non c’e, he was told. – Good God, groaned Zündel to Serafino, no toilet, what do I do now, I can’t go another second. – Go out in the lane, but don’t piss right in front of the cops, go round the corner! – Zündel sped out, and it is clear that the two bewildered carabinieri set off in hot pursuit. Of this Zündel, in his extremity, was unaware. He darted – already fiddling with his flies – along the lane, banked sharply round the corner, and after about ten yards on his left hand side saw an unlighted rear courtyard. What he didn’t see was the chain, at thigh-level, that was drawn across the entrance. – His fall must have been terrible. Only: what was his pain in comparison to his humiliation, in comparison to his despair at the spontaneous passing of his water! In sodden trousers he knelt on the ground and vomited. And it was at this point that his two pursuers caught up to him. They lit the little bundle of misery with their flashlights and seemed to see right away that the fugitive was nothing but a drunk, who for reasons apparent had been in a hurry. Even so, they searched him, emptied his pockets, and checked his ID. – Aha, Svizzero, said one of them, while the other urged him in broken German: You go sleep now! – They helped him to his feet, and disappeared.
Zündel vomited again. After that he felt better.
When he limped back, pale-looking, into the Krazy Korner, barely half the clientele was still there. The rest had taken advantage of the distraction provided by Zündel, and scarpered.
My God, take a look at you! exclaimed Serafino. You’re bleeding! And your clothes. Here! – Outside, he gave Zündel a quick hug and said: Povero, povero amico! – Zündel said: That’s life, my life anyway, chains, falls, scrapes, and I’m afraid I pissed myself as well. I need to get out of these trousers.
Serafino waited in the Pippo Bar, next to Zündel’s albergo. And Zündel washed, changed, examined himself in his pocket-mirror, and thought: I really am a poor devil!
He sniffed his trousers. For the first time in three decades, he thought of Rölfli Hunkeler, with whom he had gone to kindergarten for a year. Rölfli used to wet himself at half past ten every morning, and there was no force on earth that could get him to a toilet in time.
Konrad and Serafino drank an espresso together. Then they took a taxi to the harbor. They sat together on the back seat. Serafino held Zündel’s hand, and squeezed it harder when the car stopped a long way out in front of a ghostly-looking freighter. – Goodbye! they both said at once. – I’ll be back in a month or so, said Serafino. – I’ll chop off my finger, said Zündel. – Why? asked Serafino. – I don’t know, maybe to win the sympathy of the Virgin Mary. – Serafino said: Don’t do that, she’s with you anyway, and if you need me, just call, I have six wings.
Back in his room, Zündel vomited again. His little washbasin was half-full. He hoped it would drain away, got undressed, and went to bed. Everything hurt him. Everything spun as soon as he closed his eyes. In spite of which he thought: I must never forget there is beauty in the world, there is warmth in the world, there are good people and flowering trees. I want to be grateful for that, and cherish it. I must have always cherished it anyway, there is no other explanation for my hatred of ugliness. Perhaps the intensity of my opposition is proof of my tenderness. Yes, I’m sure that’s right. Whoever doesn’t violently reject evil can have no understanding of love. Goodnight, gray old Konrad.
If I’d been sober, I’d have broken my neck, he thought late on Sunday morning as he inspected his various abrasions, bruises, cuts and gashes. He could barely move. On top of that there was the alcohol throbbing mercilessly in his brain. He took a Saridon and dragged himself thirstily to the basin. – Not that as well! he thought, shuddering, because his vomit had failed to drain away. He had to empty it out by hand, scooping it into the same plastic bag as contained his underpants from yesterday. – What to make of the fact that almost everything that comes from within us smells bad, he thought. He dropped the plastic bag in the yellow plastic bin.
He got dressed. He packed his things, paid the bill, and moved across the way, to the Hotel Virginia.