Page 21 [21]
OCR
You told me when you were young you had wanted to study medicine but your hands were too clumsy to hold a scalpel. My fellow students thought you odd, even unpleasant. They could not imagine why I spent time with you. One evening you werent’ there. They said you were in hospital — a nervous breakdown. It was autumn. That weekend I took the train half way to London to the mental hospital. The large gothic building was in dark grounds its arched entrance hall encrusted with grotesque murals — Hyronimous Bosch meets Edgar Alan Poe. You were in an upstairs ward with all the lonely people, sadder and slower than ever. Your bed was near a big window. „I need to move downstairs“ you said „ This height terrifies me“. We walked down to the garden » [hey encourage me to do basket weaving“ you told me despairingly »l cant do it“ holding out your pudgy hands. » Lhese always stopped me“ sighing. It was like ‚Last Year at Marienbad‘. Before I left I beseeched a nurse to let you move downstairs. Waiting in the grey afternoon for the train home through pretty country I smoked too many cigarettes and considered... madness... I never told my parents where I had been. My father was pretty cross with Jews because of all that Jesus stuff. We were expected to let our heads rule our hearts and not make a fuss. Big boys don't cry. Later — you were let out — back to your lodgings Ina quiet suburban house. I visited you there. Your drawn curtains glowed in the afternoon light. A few shrivelled apples lay in a dish; russet, edible but sad. That was the last time I saw you I moved to London. T heard friends were helping you to go home. That book of your poems; slim, with a deep red matt cover in an odd sort of plastic, in German, printed in Germany, was one of the books, with Bertrand Russell, Sartre, Camus and Robert Graves, that got lost when my tea-chest library was stolen as I moved from bed-sit to bed-sit. Later (much later) in another room I got a black-edged letter with a German stamp. You were dead. I am sorry I did not get over for your funeral. Later still — you won't believe this — You — who only ever shook my hand — Made my lover jealous (even though you had left before he arrived) even though you were dead. Dezember 2001 Mein erster Dichter Du warst eine dunkle Lithographie zwischen lieblichen englischen Aquarellen schwermiitig und schwerfallig dunkles Haar (Koteletten) dunkle Augen (Hornbrille) Hängebacken, dicke Lippen, dicke Finger dunkler Serge-Anzug (ausgebeulte Hose, Weste). Ich bin sicher, du trugst schwarze Schnürstiefel in einer Zeit als sie nicht ‚cool‘ waren. Einmal sah ich dich in der Stadt mit einem dunklen breitkrempigen Hut. Du lebtest in einer Bücherwelt. Dort begegneten wir uns. Dort war unsere Zuflucht. Obwohl deine Stimme schwer und deutsch klang war dein Englisch wunderbar. Du zeigtest mir meine Kultur Rattigan nicht Rilke. Auskosten von Feinheiten und Nuancen englischer Literatur. Wie du sprachst, wie ich zuhörte. Du füttertest mich mit Büchern, meine Ambrosia. Immer sehr förmlich immer sehr höflich. Ich war Kunststudentin lebensfroh verzaubert von Licht, Liebe und schönen Männern malte, ging aus, ging auf Parties. April 2013 21
