Higher Ground, Anke Stelling [historical books to read .TXT] 📗

a trace of a connection between us: we belong to two different systems, and we’d have to start from scratch to find a common language and, from there, a common view on what we’re talking about — and then talk about it.

Am I prepared to do that?

First, I have to answer that question myself, and then, if I decide I want to, ask Ulf the same question.

‘I have to go now.’

I don’t know what to wear. It has to be smart, because I’m receiving a prize, but at the same time, it’s taking place in the morning, so evening dress isn’t appropriate. No brown shoes after six pm, no bare shoulders before four pm, and blue and green should never be seen, and artists can do what the hell they like anyway, and that’s why they have to do something and not end up looking like company reps. I wish I’d gone for a particular style fifteen years ago, like all in black, or an oversized suit, and that way I’d already have a look.

‘It’s okay,’ says Sven when I come out of the bedroom in a skirt with red tights.

‘You look like my French teacher,’ says Bea, and I turn around to put on the blue trousers after all.

‘The shoes are the most important part,’ says Sven when I come out again.

‘The brown ones are the only ones that go with the blue trousers.’

‘That why I preferred the skirt,’ says Sven.

‘I like my French teacher!’ says Bea.

Why did I involve her in the first place? I’m on my own, anyway. It’s a fight, I’m Rambo, no one can help me, and asking somebody to give me cover is nonsense if I don’t know where the enemy lines are.

A ‘huge leap’ is what Ulf called it. And what I’m leaping over is the threshold of the most established literary venue in Berlin.

Coffee has already been made in the director’s office, where there’s a meeting to talk about what will happen at the event. I lay my rain jacket over the photocopier, because it won’t look good on stage. I should have worn the blue trousers after all.

The person presenting the award is Olli, who studied with me at university. He’s wearing a suit and looks good.

‘I’m happy for you, Resi,’ he says. ‘Enormously happy.’

I watch how he does everything — where he puts his bag, how he drinks his coffee. He takes milk and sugar. His coat is lying over the photocopier too.

The event will run in the usual way, and we go through it quickly. I’ll be the fourth on stage, and then there’ll be a photo session.

Olli says he thought my novel was ‘really big’.

Paradoxically, ‘really big’ is bigger than ‘major’. ‘Really big’ was a phrase rarely used during our studies, and we had to think carefully about contradicting whoever used it, because they wouldn’t back down easily.

‘Thank you,’ I say once.

‘Thank you,’ I say again on the stage, when it’s my official turn to say thank you. ‘I’m happy that my book has found such a huge resonance.’

And then I move from resonances to sounds, to the timbres of the world, and words to express anger, and the audience is mostly made up of people over sixty, in fact probably closer to eighty, with white hair and grey pullovers, and they listen indulgently. The leap that Ulf mentioned is the leap into their indulgence. And I see Sven at the end of the first row, wearing a suit like Olli, but without a belly; and it’s not that I have anything against bellies, Bea, not at all, but a suit can’t be worn like a hipster if you have a belly. I want to say that it’s easier without a belly, just like red tights suggest ‘rebellion’ and not ‘French teacher’ when they’re on girlish, slim legs instead of sturdy maternal ones. I want to say that words to express anger in an established literary venue will inevitably be indulged — and how couldn’t they be? That’s the reason it was built.

Sven says afterwards, ‘Well done, babe,’ and disappears for a smoke, then disappears completely.

‘He’s looking after the kids,’ I say when asked why, and it’s true. It’s Sunday and the kids are at home. I have to go to the photo session alone, drink bubbly on my own, and attend the lunch afterwards on my own. I think about ‘Well done,’ and whether I should order a steak, the most expensive thing on the menu. If not now, then when?

I’m sitting across from Olli.

‘Is it true that you’ve got four kids?’ he asks.

‘No,’ I say, ‘that’s rubbish. How would I manage?’

Olli tells me that he and his boyfriend have two dogs, and that’s more than enough.

‘What breed?’ I ask, and the topic spreads around the table. The director of the literary venue also has dogs, the publisher would like one, and the young intern says that having dogs in the city is cruel to animals. Everybody turns to her.

It’s good when people speak their minds. Especially when they’re young and still finding their way and have something to lose. Like, having their contract renewed after an unpaid internship, or getting a publishing contract or a dog-sitting job to tide them over.

Then she says she comes from a farm in Holstein where the dogs are regularly taken out on hunts so they get enough exercise. I ask her what breed they are, and my publisher is curious to know since when I’ve cared so much about dogs, and I say: ‘Since I was hounded out of my home.’

It just slips out; I’m not trying to make myself out to be a victim, and I don’t want to draw attention to myself. I was already the centre of attention during the event. But then, of course, I have to explain what I meant, so I say: ‘Well, the usual: the city centre is out of my price range.’

Olli nods. The publisher nods too, as does the intern, and