ADVENTURES IN A DIFFICULT WORLD (Chapter 6)

The place was as dark as a cavern in the late Autumn, afternoon light. In the candlelight I watched the blue-brown luminescent snakes of smoke from the spliff swirl in slo-mo around us. The wine flowed, and the viscous atmosphere poured like syrup, and from the boxes somewhere above us, the music like tangled wire, also pissed into the goo.
Astrid and I sat in the Forum with the Puppen Meister (Puppet master), who always seems to have the air of The Mad Hatter about him. He was with Antonella, the beautiful, tall and slender, coal-black-eyed, Italian painter, who sipped her wine like a dove. She speaks little English and less German.
I was spaced out after we smoked a spliff with our coffee. I slumped lower down in my chair, while she put her lovely curves around the sofa.
The Puppet Master invited me, once more, to his puppet theatre to see his adult version of the ‘Three Little Pigs’ – life goes ping and my mind goes pong!
We sat at a large but low table to the left of the counter, on which stood rows of opened bottles of wine for the customers to help themselves. A bar bloke I know, Ray, an American, was strongly massaging another’s shoulders. He was limbering him up for the evening, which would be long.
I apologised to the Puppet Master for not going to his show, excuses, excuses. He's an all right guy, an original East Berliner, who's little puppet theatre even existed before the wall came down. But of course the adult shows have been added since then.
Astrid, who had been taking it all in, thought it sounded great, and laughed a lot, and promised him she would come to see it, and that she'll drag me with her. It feels so warm when she includes me in her plan. I didn't want her to leave later.
And it was warm in the Forum, too. I was just taking in the scene, saying little. My stoned mind slid in and out of the vista. I watched a guy at the bar, whose appearance suddenly took on a frog like quality -- not his face, which I couldn't see, as he had his back to me. No, it was more his movements and his posture -- his thin legs, in tight jeans, spread as he perched on a bar stool. Then, as to confirm my thoughts, he turned his head to one side, and his tongue darted in and out as if to catch a fly. I grinned to myself.
After waking and looking out of my window on this grey Sunday morning, Astrid and I had stayed in bed continuing our body geography. It's hard to drag myself away from her. I like her cleverness and confidence, her sexually freedom -- that she takes the initiative, that she talks when we make love, that she is tender. I like the way she clings to me in her sleep – using my chest or back as a pillow.
Around midday, the outside world had suddenly demanded our attention. First Dirk had rang and then Piper. So I arranged to meet them in the Forum, which is my usual on Sundays: comfortable with its seventies living room furniture, and big couches and coffee tables. It has a no-set-prices-eat and drink-and pay-with-respect-principle -- a kind of alternative wine bar. And nobody hassles you about the blow. A wonderful hang out for the afternoons, but after eight it gets really full and fast, with a different crowd coming in off the street.
I rang and told Ralph I couldn't come, as I had a visitor from West Germany – well I wasn't lying was I? I really wanted this time with Astrid to go on. She told me she has to work like the devil all next week, but we could ring, and we can get together at the week end. It gave me a thrill to think it was all on wheels. I'd didn't care now where it was going, at least it was moving.
I promised Ralph I would spend every evening next week on his green mountains, and he seemed right with it, anyway.
Four or five more people joined us – some I knew, others I didn't. One of the newcomers was a big beefy black Mr I’m so cool-Frisco-DJ-Blah Blah-hip hop and bob tail-shallow as a shadow – dissing, scoring, and wishing for every passing woman – sweating, pushing and pulling, loud, and generally acting the goat’s penis.
But it was Sunday in the Forum -- a regular meeting place for odds and sods, and it would be a night of pigus, drunkus, stoneus maximus! Ah, Berlin....
Then came Dirk with Susanna, both looking around as they come in -- checking the place out. He was smiling, and when he saw Astrid he looked at me and give me a knowing wink. Dirk found a couple of chairs. Astrid and Susanna were hugging and chin-wagging like old friends. Susanna looked stunning in dripping black lace over a black tight fitting catsuit. She got a lot of hot glare.
Each time new people joined our lot the coffee tables were pushed together and more chairs were brought. There was an omelet of languages being scrambled: English, German, Spanish, and even Antonella had found a couple of Italian guys to rap with. There is suddenly a lot of shouts. Mr DJ hot-rat-flip-flop-rot-rap-drip-drip-spit-shit was now in full flow with a black guy with a smashed-glass London accent.
'Don't call me Nigger,' he said.
'But that's what you are, nigger....'
'No I'm not. Where I come from nobody calls me nigger....'
'Maybe not, but that's how it is, bro. I'm a nigger and you a nigger.'
'No I'm not, so fuck you, bro!'
'You think you white, nigger? You not, you be a mother-fucking black -- you a mother-fucking-nigger, just like me!'
This toing and froing went on for a few minutes, and began to get everyone's attention. The London guy was looking about to explode, when a guy sitting with him stood up and said, 'I'm a mother-fucking-white guy and I'm out of here!'
Everyone who was in hear-shot laughed, and the mother fucking white guy left with the very pissed off looking Londoner.
Piper arrived. And for some reason, I could not figure out, Danny was with him! They looked so mismatched -- like a comedy-team: Piper tall – large, in a smart black over coat, while Danny squat bulky, and as usual, sporting his turned round hat, and his grey faded denim jacket.
Danny's pudding face winced when he saw Astrid was with me. I saw his neck harden and his mouth fell open. Astrid avoided his glares.
Piper gave us a wave and came over to say hi, but there wasn't a place for them to sit, so he had to take a seat a couple of tables away from us. Danny took the drinks from the bar then joined him without coming over to us. I threw Piper a small bag of grass for him to make a spliff. Piper looked as if he'd already had a drop in the eye. I thought he probably, as ever, had his flask of the creature, as he called it, in his pocket.
He stood and ran open the buttons down his coat as he thanked me. He was wearing a black waistcoat with a starched white shirt beneath it. This, the hat, and the way he stood in that candlelight gave him a Borroughseque air. He was very much present.
Dirk asked me how the book was going.
'Not a work in progress at the moment,' I said, 'I haven't had much time for writing.' He laughed and said,
'You old devil.'
'Eh, more of the devil, and less of the old!'
'Susana looks beautiful,' I said.'
He brushed his thick fair hair from his eyes and looked at her. His face softened and he said 'She not only looks beautiful, she is beautiful... And she sings like an angel! last night I saw her perform at the B-Flat... I never knew she was so good. His face lit up. 'She has a great vice... I mean voice, ha-ha.... I want to do mad things with her. I want to drive us both mad.'
I laughed -- I'd seen him like this before with Flying Christine.
Susanna, as if she'd heard him, turned from Astrid and smiled at him.
He laughed and said, 'Let's take a taxi to my tent!' she aimed a delicious grin at him and then turned to continued her conversation.
'Hows William Tell hanging?' I asked him.
'Yeah, well, I've got a lot of it down... but somethings have to be hammered into your head -- you have to live it day and night, right? It becomes like a worm in your head.' He looked dewy-eyed at Susana and said, 'Sex seems my only release...' But I'll tell you 'I'm even doing the stuff on the bog.'
'Which rings a bell!' I said. 'I have to go to the little boys room.'
******
So, I'd done my stuff and was washing my hands, when Danny came in. He stood in the doorway to the toilet . His thick set almost blocking it. I could tell by his face he wasn't happy.
'Hi!' I said.
'Don't fucking hi me, Rig!'
'Why what's your problem Danny?'
'I haven't got a problem – you've got a fucking problem! It's just not on, Rig...'
'If you're talking about Astrid and me, that's between us -- it's got nothing to do with you, Danny.'
'It's not on, Rig!' He snarled.
'Well, I'm afraid it is.... very much on Danny.' I finished drying my hands and turned to face him. But he didn't move to let me pass. He took his arm down from the door jamb, and I saw his whole body tense up. I could feel my own adrenalin rising.
'Look Rig,' he spat, 'she is always pissing on Detlef, and you are supposed to be a fucking mate of his... And you were always trying to fucking shag her!'
'You don't seem to get it! Which part of no don't you understand?' I snapped, 'I'm not going to say fuck all to you about it, so just leave it Danny...'
Now I was getting it from his body language -- he was losing it – his face became set – he was running out of ways of dealing with it. His body was subconsciously preparing for confrontation -- lining me up. He wasn't going to move -- he was going to make his stand right there in the doorway. My own body was preparing for what I could feel was coming -- and it could come at any second – he'd reached boiling point. And I realised anything I might say could be the trigger.
There was a sizzling sound in the air, or in my head. Getting louder. The same sizzle I'd known since I was a kid, that sizzle, which told me instinctively that he was right handed, that the one metre distance between us was too close for him to use his feet, that he would go for a surprise direct hit, or a grab, which I thought would put me at a disadvantage -- he was younger and obviously stronger than me. I would have liked to step back to give myself more space, but I thought any movement would bring him on. The sizzle intensified -- the sizzle brought back the street. But back in the street, I would, well before this point, have struck the first blow.
Our eyes were fixed. It was as if we were connected by lines with hooks in our flesh – straining – taut – any move, or show of any kind of weakness on my part would give him the signal.
I knew Danny's type -- this is how he gets what he wants. Danny sees everything in black and white, and he was now standing on that line between his black and white, and he wasn't going to move. I was his black, and behind him was where I wanted to go.
I instinctively feigned a look over his left shoulder, hoping to distract him, to break the deadlock of our eyes -- this would be my moment to strike.... And yes, he fell for it -- his eyes followed mine and turned to glance over his shoulder... But I didn't strike... would I have struck? Well... I didn't -- for there, standing in the shadows behind him, was a smiling Mephistophelean Piper.
..'Hey up, Danny, taking up Marriage guidance now?' he laughingly asked, stepping forward. 'And here in the necessarium, too, now that is novel!'
'Piper...!'Danny said looking surprised, and turning around to face him. 'I was telling Rig it's not on.... him and Astrid...' he said quickly.
Piper's smile vanished, and in an agitated voice said, 'Look Danny, you are on a bootless errand, and you are out of order....' He waved his fingers to and fro. 'Really Danny, do you know, you could bring darkness to a black night? And I'll tell you... you don't know the half... you should keep out of it... and you are blocking the toilet!'
Danny shuffled to one side to let him pass, and I stepped past him at the same time.
Danny talked to Piper's back as he stood at the urinal 'No you're wrong, Piper – you know Detlef... he's a great guy, and he's been a good friend to me... I'm just watching his back. Don't you care?'
Piper's voice echoed a little as in talked down into the urinal. 'No, I don't care... and neither do you -- you only want to be somehow involved in some thing you were not invited to. And you are about as welcome, Danny boy, as a dose of rabies in a dog's home.'
I could see Piper had always had this kind of repertoire with him. I never did. It was too much involvement – I barely passed the time of day with Danny.
'No Piper... Detlef is a good mate -- I don't like this bastard' He gave me a glance. 'going behind his back, it's not on -- don't you see?'
'This isn't worth discussing, this is no one Else's business but...' I tried to resolve. But Piper insisted, speaking over his shoulder
'Yes, Danny, I see -- I see all the way up your backside, where that minute clot resides, which you refer to as a brain, which once, maybe... had an idea, but which probably got lonely and died...'
Danny blew air into air and looked aggressive again, but Piper continued. '...If you are so concerned about Detlef's love life, Danny, tell me where did he go Friday night when he left Astrid...? Well...?
Danny said nothing.
Piper turned, nonchalantly doing up his flies. In a quieter voice he said, 'You should have asked him.... He might have thought it had something to do with you – he might have told you... Did he tell you, Danny?
'He told me he had to meet somebody....' Danny replied moodily.
'So he didn't see fit to inform you he has a second kitchen.....?'
Danny just looked into space – he didn't get it. His face was tortured ignorance, his brow corrugated. Piper continued:
..'That he himself is up to ground and lofty tumblings, of a kind...'
Still the penny didn't drop, Danny was waiting for more information, and Piper was soaking up Danny's suffering.
'That he's plumbing a bloody girl he works with...' He added loudly and gleefully.
Now Danny got it, and his face dived into his chest. He looked flustered – like a schoolboy caught doing some mischief -- he said nothing – what could he say?
Piper now spoke to us both.
'Before he left Friday night, Detlef, had asked me to keep an eye on Astrid.... He said it was because she was getting too drunk on the absinthe.
'Everyone could tell she had a glad eye on you, Rig.... So I told him.... if he was so concerned he should stay or take her with him... Then he told me about this girl.... that he's got it really bad for... So, Danny boy... are you now going to use your dog-logic and your wonderful moral persuasion on Detlef, too?
Danny looked confused. He looked smaller. His feet shuffled in a little dance. 'Fuck you both!' he muttered, and stormed off.
We watched him stomp into the shadows of the corridor. Piper said, 'If he had a brain he would be dangerous.'
I was relieved the situation was over. 'I didn't expect that,' I said. 'I'm glad you came when you did.'
'Yeah, I'm sorry I brought him. I met him in the Oscar Wilde, and he... well, metaphorically limped along with me. I didn't know Astrid would be here with you. I saw him watching you as you left the table, and when he followed I knew he was on a mission.... when it comes to tact the guy would wrap sausages in silk.'
I laughed, though I was trembling. 'I've never got along with him' I said. 'He doesn't seem to have a curve in him. And I can't see what Detlef sees in him....'
Piper pulled out his silver flask from his inside breast pocket and gave it to me. I took a swig then handed it back. He took a longer swig.
'Well, the story goes like this,' he said, he took a deep breath, 'Danny boy, wet behind the ears, came from his Brummie home (first time out of Blighty!), and worked on a building-site for a month -- for one of these Dutch agents. And cliché, cliché, he was ripped off when payday came around. So, the idiotic cod was having a raw go when he met Saint Detlef in the Oscar Wilde.... who rescued him -- just picked him up like some mongo object! He knocked him into shape a bit -- taught him how to pull beers, enough math and German to take the bill, and how to throw his muscle about when needed. And gave him the job as bar-monkey in the Swerg Keller. So, ever since, our Danny has been Detlef's catch-fart.
'Well, Astrid never could grow to him, and as you know, she likes to express herself sometimes... So Danny didn't get an easy time from her, especially when she was in her altitudes.
'Does Astrid know about Detlef?'
'I don't know, Rig... and you can't really ask her without telling her, eh?'
'Yeah, and maybe she doesn't want to talk about it... And what has it got to do with me anyway?' I added.
'I'm really thankful, though Piper! -- for your timely interruption. I think Danny was bent on mischief.'
'Yeah, I could see there was no air in his conversation.'
'I'm getting too old for that kind of stuff,' I said, 'he would have probably torn me apart.'
'You old! You're joking! you're a hipster Peter Pan, Rig! You don't look a day over forty. I think it's him who should have been worried – I saw that look in your eye! But you should just forget it,' he said, passing me the flask again.
He asked me about Dirk -- and told me he had had a heated debate with him on Friday night after we had left the King Kong Kulb – but, they had both been “commanding the clouds” as he put it.
I told him told him a bit about Dirk – that he's a great actor – and that you had to know how to handle him. That when his wit was cutting the secrete was to laugh with him – that it wasn't really ever personal.
Piper talked a bit about his new paintings, He asked me if I would like to see them and invited me to come around to the studio. Which I promised I would.

****

'Danny came from the toilet, took his coat and left,' Astrid said.
'Yeah, 'he said it's not his scene,' Piper lied.
'Well... it's not, is it?' Astrid laughed, asking no one.
Piper pulled a chair over and squeezed onto our table opposite me. I felt relieved Danny had gone. And I could see Astrid was, too.
Despite the Whisky, I still had the jitters, though I was slowly calming down. I couldn't help feeling better knowing Detlef was also involved with someone. And after that little escapade things could only get better. The buffet opened and we all started stuffing our selves. And it didn't take Piper long to start winding-up the table with his philosophical spoon.
I was a little distracted by what had happened, but Piper was on form, and was soon espousing his opinion to the subject on the table, which was whether money hinders or enables the artist. Susanne was saying, 'Should you really have to skip a meal for a picture.'
Piper tried to elevate the subject with one of his volleys of grand salutes:
'That, which society eternally discards on this plate of life is, in fact, the essence of that which it has just devoured, and, which luckily, is precisely that, which the artist needs!' He raised his glass to the company, 'So, bon apatite!'
'Yeah, well,' said Dirk scowling, 'How very bunny you make it all sound -- this essence you seem to prize so highly is, in the end, just like everything else, nothing but dust.'
'Yes,' charmed Piper, 'to quot Bill the Quill:
Golden lads and girls all must,
as chimney-sweepers come to dust.
'But Dirk, don't you think there is much more to it than that? and 'Whitman wrote:
All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
'And who was it who said that, 'in this life we merely sip at the fountain of truth?'

'Yes, we merely sip and we merely muddy it with our dirty lying lips. You can put in any kind of the metric that you like, but it all still has an unmistakable smell of cheese about it. ' replied Dirk.'
I put my pennyworth in, I said, 'I agree with Piper. Was it Bergson who thought the brain was like a valve? He thought it filters out almost all the incoming information through our senses, from the universe. Because there is just too much for us to manage. So what passes in through our senses is restricted down to a trickle – and this we put in order and call consciousness.'
'You sound like the trash man who sweeps up in Theory Ally,' snapped Dirk. Everyone laughed.
The Puppet Master said, 'But Dirk, behind his reason doesn't man really believe what he feels?'
Dirk laughed, 'You should try to get out the cave a bit! Dust imagines dust!'
Astrid asked, 'Don't you I think life and art can transcend the literal?'
'Please!' Dirk growled in his cat'o'nine-tongue, 'can we now transcend all this shit and just eat?
Well, we ate, but what followed was a jousting match between mostly Piper and Dirk, which got nowhere, and lasted for the rest of the evening.
Around eleven o'clock I walked Astrid to the RosenthalerPlatz Tube Station. We kissed passionately before the train came. We exchanged telephone numbers in our cellphones, and she told me to ring her during the week, and that we could meet next Friday.
I floated home high as Hyperion! I was thinking of the night before – after we had made love Astrid had clung to me, and began whispering to me about how she had felt the first we had met in the Swerg Keller. It was like she had felt a sudden urgency to tell me. She clung so tight and her mouth was so close to my ear that it gave it a surreal feel.
I also remember that evening -- I had been celebrating my selling of a large picture. And after the gallery had closed, it had been Piper who suggested, we and a few friends, go to the Swerg Keller. She whispered that she had fancied me immediately, and that was why she had joined us at our table for the rest of the evening, and had kissed me on the mouth before I left. And that she wanted me that night. Well, I told her the feelings had been mutual. And that was why I had come there so often.
When I got home I just stood looking at myself the bathroom mirror. That mug! her lipstick smudged on my mouth! -- it made me look like a clown! – an old clown who has laughed a lot through his circus years. And as I stood there time seemed to drip like blood.
'Will she? Won’t she?' These questions became: 'Am I? Aren't’t I?'