Two or Three Years Later: Forty Nine Digressions - Softcover

Ror Wolf

 
9781934824702: Two or Three Years Later: Forty Nine Digressions
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1934824704 ISBN 13: 9781934824702
Publisher: Open Letter, 2013

Synopsis

Ror Wolf creates strangely entertaining and condensed stories that call into question the very nature of what makes a story a story. Almost an anti-book, Two or Three Years Later takes as its basis the small, diurnal details of life, transforming these oft-overlooked ordinary experiences of nondescript people in small German villages into artistic meditations on ambiguity, repetition and narrative. Incredibly funny and playful, Two or Three Years Later is utterly unique in its depiction of everyday life.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Ror Wolf is an artist, an author of prose and poetry, and a writer of radio plays and 'radio collages'. His writing has earned him many awards, including Radio Play of the Year, the Kassel Literature Prize for Grotesque Humor, and the Literature Award of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts.

Jennifer Marquart studied German and translation at the University of Rochester. She has lived, continued her studies, and taught in Cologne and Berlin.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

TWO OR THREE YEARS LATER: FORTY-NINE DIGRESSIONS

By ROR WOLF, Jennifer Marquart

OPEN LETTER

Copyright © 2007 Schöffling & Co. Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, Frankfurt am Main
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-934824-70-2

Contents

In the Mountains...........................................................3
Neither in Schleiz, nor Anywhere Else in the World.........................4
Various Ways to Lose Peace of Mind.........................................6
Laughter...................................................................7
An Approximately Forty-Year-Old Man........................................8
In a French Kitchen. In a Swiss Lake. In a Berlin Closet...................9
The District Office Employee Outing........................................10
The Current Conditions in Cologne..........................................11
At the Barbershop..........................................................13
Arrival at 15:25...........................................................14
An Instance of Deep Contentment............................................15
A Misfortune in the West, on May 13th......................................16
The Power of Song in Nevada................................................18
An Incident Last September at the Bad Tölz Station Restaurant..............25
Not a Word.................................................................28
One Day, a Thursday, in December...........................................29
An Almost Complete Portrayal of the Conditions in Maybe Waabs..............32
The Laughter of the Sailors................................................33
No Story...................................................................41
On the Edge of the Atlantic Ocean..........................................42
Disclosures from the Field of Crime Fighting...............................43
In Memphis City Hall.......................................................44
At Nightfall...............................................................45
Along the Way into the Deep................................................48
The Next Story.............................................................49
The Mysterious Thimble and the Strange Smoking Pipe........................52
From the Secret Records of a Missing Private Detective, Which Were Found 
in a Shot-Through Briefcase That Had Floated Down the Rhine and Washed Up 
on Shore Near Neuss in the Middle of the Night.............................		53
The Origin and Meaning of Sounds and Habits Which One Usually Doesn't 
Speak of and about Which There Isn't Much to Say...........................		54
Moll.......................................................................55
The Heart of America.......................................................58
Happy Birthday.............................................................60
Herr Korn from Kirn........................................................61
The Rate of Fame...........................................................62
A Glance at Life Last September............................................63
A Visit to the Left Bank of the Rhine with an Unexpected Outcome...........64
An Adventure in an Oberschleißheim Pub.....................................65
A Remark on October 21st 1999..............................................67
Important Remarks on the Basic Movements of Time and Place, of Feet and 
Legs.......................................................................		69
A Little Further Up........................................................71
Everything Else Later......................................................72
The Nature Surrounding Prutz...............................................74
The Pleasure and Pain of Berlin and the Strange Effects of Arctic 
Painting...................................................................		76
A Man Wanted to Leave......................................................79
Awful Words................................................................80
One Day the Door Flew Open.................................................81
A Short Description of a Long Journey......................................82
The Consequences of Human Life in K........................................87
The Penultimate Story......................................................89
The Forty-Ninth Digression: Twelve Chapters from an Exposed Life...........91


CHAPTER 1

In the Mountains


An unknown violinist—a man whose name I wouldn't be able torecall even if I tried—said he'd forgotten, or rather lost his violin, afact he realized upon being asked to play in a tavern in Gletsch. Hethought he might have lost it in Lax on his way through the mountains,where a thick layer of snow had covered the ground. Becauseof the snow he might not have noticed his violin fall out; it could'vefallen out silently, he wouldn't have heard it fall. When he stoppedat a tavern that evening and was encouraged to play a little, he discoveredin that moment that he no longer had a violin. And so heforever remained an unknown violinist.


Neither in Schleiz,nor Anywhere Else in the World

A man who prefers anonymity, a certain X—his name is irrelevant—arrivesone day, one morning, one afternoon ... It's all the samein a city whose name we won't disclose. He does nothing, which iswhat we wanted to report, since what he does do is so insignificantthat that's the only significant thing to say about it. He doesn't weara dark hat, has no umbrella or suitcase. He doesn't have a formalsuit or winter coat. His voice cannot be heard. He asks nothingand answers nothing. The only sound he makes is a short, chokedcry. His head and face aren't entirely hairy, but they're not entirelybare, either. He walks with such infuriating slowness that you canhardly call this movement walking, so we won't. If he contemplatessomething it is without feeling; if he touches something it is withoutreason. I think he is a man without purpose. More often than nothe sits curled up, wrapping himself in his arms with his head buriedbetween his knees, and sleeps—or appears to be sleeping. From timeto time he breaks his silence with a shout that is utterly meaninglessand expresses neither sentiment, nor need. He doesn't know fear, buthe also lacks courage; he doesn't seem to have any friends, but alsoseems impervious to sadness. I was never able to sense any feeling ofcontentment in him. Sometimes, when called by name, he'll turn hishead. Usually he doesn't look around, but instead sits in the midstof the world like a stone. But Collunder's assumption—that he lacksany awareness of his surroundings and his immediate situation, thathe knows neither love, nor hate, has neither friend, nor foe—is false.And one day I'll prove it.

One Sunday, or Monday, or whenever—on a day—this man showsup at my office, or somewhere else. He shows up without a soundand without any discernable movement, puts one foot in front of theother until he reaches me. Then he lifts his hand; he lifts his handwith astonishing quietness and thoughtfulness, and extends it tome. At this point we'd perhaps expect a word, a remark, a message,and we're right to do so. This meeting, at this extraordinarily slowspeed, remains unforgettable: the slow handshake, the unbelievablypolite tip of the hat, the way he removed it, and everything else hedid. However, it is for entirely personal reasons that I do not relay thefollowing to the public.


Various Ways to Lose Peace of Mind

One day a waiter from Cologne went to an otologist's office. Thewaiter had stuck a bean in his ear and couldn't get it out. The doctorremoved the bean and charged him thirty Deutschmarks, but thewaiter only had twenty-five. So the doctor took the bean, stuffed itback in the waiter's ear and showed him the door. Another man, awindow dresser from Berlin, was decorating the shop window for abedding department. Suddenly, he grabbed his chest and collapsedsilently onto one of the freshly made beds. He lay there for three days,and no one noticed him. His coworkers thought he was on vacation,while passersby took the dead man for a mannequin. A third man,a salesman from Denver, was driving through Arizona in his blackChrysler—through the beautiful city of Phoenix—when he suddenlyheard shouting through the open window. He thought he had runover someone, but didn't find anyone injured on the street. Theshouting continued; then the salesman finally realized it was comingfrom down in the sewer. A police officer showed up and found a roadworker who had fallen through a hole in the tunnel system four daysearlier. Confused and starving, the worker stood there in the sludgeand kept asking for milk and cake. That's not all. A fourth man, anemployment counselor from Mönchengladbach, took a vacation toNew Caledonia and went on a diving excursion. When he resurfacedafter some time, the boat that had brought him to this corner of theworld had vanished. Someone had forgotten this man, this employmentcounselor from Mönchengladbach, in the Pacific Ocean. Ashe began to grasp his situation he started to shout; he shouted andshouted, but his words were swept away by an oncoming storm.


Laughter

A nice, but somewhat ill-bred man lived in Bitsch. One day he met awoman. Around dusk, as the sun sank behind the mountain, a laughwas suddenly heard. The next morning and that afternoon this laughwas heard again, only a little louder. I will never forget the followingnight in Bitsch. I heard the laughing, and this nocturnal laugh wasof such tremendous strength that I went to the window and lookedout. There I saw the ill-bred man. He sat in a corner of the world,his mouth open as wide as it would go. It looked unsafe, but it didn'treally mean much. A throaty moan suggested great inner excitement.But it's entirely trivial and hardly worth mentioning. I remembershouting something: What's so funny? But I have to admit I couldcare less about the answer. So for now we'll lose sight of this manfrom Bitsch and concern ourselves with someone else.


An Approximately Forty-Year-Old Man

An approximately forty-year-old man from Olm was on his way toUlm on Monday, when an approximately thirty-year-old man approachedhim and hit him over the head with a bottle. The blowoccurred without any apparent reason. The men—one of whomthen left for the nearby train station and onto the express train toElm—did not know each other. In Elm, a resort town located at thefoot of the Tschingelberg where slate was once mined, one of thesemen climbed the Rotstock, crossing over the Panixer Pass and endingnear the Alps. It was an easy and rewarding ascent, which hisnotes—later found next to him under the snow—recorded in detail.


In a French Kitchen.In a Swiss Lake.In a Berlin Closet.

The inside of my head no longer works; it has to go, a Frenchmanwrote in the margins of a newspaper in France. He then placed threesticks of dynamite on his head, tied down the bundle with a fuse,and attached the end to a kitchen timer. His wife found him twodays later, headless and next to the stove. That's not all I want to tell.Angry, a man threw his golf bag, clubs and all, into Lake Geneva;he'd missed the hole three times. Then it occurred to him that hiscar keys were also in the golf bag. This man, a Swiss from Bern,jumped into the lake and drowned. At the same time, three seventy-year-oldmen met their deaths while playing cards in a closet. As thecloset door suddenly banged shut, one of the men lit a match so theycould see their cards. All three men burned. This was in Berlin, nearNollendorfplatz.


The District Office Employee Outing

During a company picnic in Dux, a well-dressed woman suddenlyrushed to a man lying on the ground, bent over him, and whispereda few words into his ear, at which point they quickly disappeared intothe neighboring darkness. I'll leave it to the reader to decide how thisstory continues, but I'm sure he'll draw the right conclusion in orderto continue on to the next page.


The Current Conditions in Cologne

Shortly before midnight in front of the Cologne train station, a manwas approached and asked if he was Indian. He denied that he was,and received a friendly embrace. That was Monday. Tuesday thingswere different. On Tuesday, it was reported that a male cyclist hadbeen hitting a female cyclist in front of the concert house for a considerableamount of time. Both were members of the City ChamberOrchestra; they shared an apartment and had come to blows overthe repair of an instrument. During the fight, the woman bit theman's arm and, in return, he hit her in the glasses so hard that sheended up with a bloody cut by her nose. The cause of the dispute—theinstrument—was not mentioned again that day. The followingday, Wednesday, a man drove his car into the wall of the chamber ofcommerce. He had wanted to talk to a woman, but she had outrightrejected him. So he said he would drive his car into the chamber ofcommerce—and he did. This man, a wine salesman, was completelydrunk and not in any condition to give a statement regarding hischaracter; what's more, he'd probably lost all sense of composure. Alittle while later he collapsed and stayed with some acquaintancesuntil Thursday. On Thursday, a man on the second floor of the postoffice hit a woman over the head with a telephone receiver. Rightbefore that, a carrier for the district court had taken a bottle and hita janitor over the head with bone-chilling indifference. That sameday, on the second floor of the electric company, a custodian hit anelectrician with a vacuum cleaner tube. As the electrician fled, thecustodian chased after him a few steps, and is said to have laughedloudly. The next day, Friday, a dispute developed in which a welfarerecipient punched a welfare employee in the mouth and ear, and thenput him in a chokehold. Another man, who thought it would turninto a brawl, tried to intervene, but things had gone too far. Whichis why several men bolted out the door and began randomly hittingbystanders. Without knowing the exact course of events, I find thebehavior of the above-mentioned men outrageous. But instead ofgetting involved, I'll content myself with considering it a product ofthe current situation in Cologne—about which we no longer have towonder.


At the Barbershop

A man, a sales broker, walked through the door and fired six shotsat a naked dentist, painting the bed red. A naked woman jumped outof the bed and disappeared through the back door. The dentist died,and the broker fled the country. But that's not the story I wanted totell. I wanted to tell the following story: A barber owes his life solelyto the quick-wittedness of a dentist who'd just been given a shave.The dentist was able to grab the hatchet that a dissatisfied butcherpulled out from his jacket with the intent to deliver a fatal blow tothe barber's head. A detective happened to be passing the barbershopduring the commotion, which took place on Saturday, but wasn'treported until Monday. The detective subdued the butcher with anarmlock and brought him straight to the station. The butcher, a manfrom Mol, was unhappy with his haircut and had therefore takenup the hatchet. However, such events are extremely rare, so it's notentirely necessary to go too far into the details.


Arrival at 15:25

An ex-cook, an ex-engineer, and an ex- ... an ex-caretaker, an ex-firemanand an ex-what ... a doctor, an ex-doctor, and an ex-interpreterwith well-manicured hands, and an ex-teacher, an entire groupof ex-teachers, and more and more ex-teachers returning from Africaand America, from Asia and Australia, from the most distant landsin the world, all left the train station in Bonn and blended into thecrowd. This happened at the exact time I was sitting in the stationcafé one afternoon, beginning and ending, beginning and ending theaccount you've just read, during which time I had nothing more thana glass of mineral water—which now, at 15:30, has been emptied tothe last drop.


An Instance of Deep Contentment

On Tuesday night, a stranger opened the front door of the Kolb Pubin Worms, stepped up to the bar, ordered a beer and downed it in asingle swig, then closed his eyes and gave off an overall impressionof deep contentment.


A Misfortune in the West,on May 13th

One evening, a homeless man sat on the rail of the overpass onMombacher Strasse in Mainz. Another man, who was strolling onthe opposite side of the street, saw the homeless man's legs suddenlyshoot up and his body pitch backward into the indiscernible deep.On this same evening, a man in Bonn fired a shot into the air, butno one heard it. An hour later in Lindau, a car ricocheted off of atree with an enormous crash, flipped over and sank silently into themoon's reflection on the lake. Another man, who had just driven byon his way back from Kaufbeuren, reported seeing the bright taillightssinking into the water right before he drove into an electricalbox and sustained a head injury. Yet another man, a Pole, a roofer,lost his balance in Darmstadt and plummeted from the roof. At thesame time a pastry chef was traveling in Cologne; he turned aroundand at that moment saw a waiter get out of a car and drop his keysinto the sewer. The waiter, said the pastry chef, lifted the black manholecover and lay on his stomach, but his keys were no longer inreach—the waiter couldn't find a foothold on the smooth, roundedwalls, and he slid deeper and deeper into the drain until his headeventually dipped into a dark layer of sludge and water. That wasin Cologne. In Koblenz, a man, a salesman, stood by a mailbox fora moment. Nearby stood a woman, a saleswoman, who was ready tocross the street. At that moment, right as the salesman turned aroundand lightly grazed the woman, a man from Bad Ems, a cyclist, bikedtoward them. That night an agent, a man from Marl named Sapp,heard a body drop onto the roof of his car as he was driving to Moers;he only stopped when he saw blood dripping down the side window.The agent called the police and explained that a heavy shadow hadfallen onto his car and shattered the windshield. The subsequent investigationrevealed that this agent, this man from Marl, was not onlyunder the influence of alcohol, but also that he didn't have a driver'slicense. He also wasn't an agent, wasn't from Marl, and wasn't actuallydriving to Moers. He was not the owner of the car and his namewas not Sapp—other identification papers issued to different nameswere found. Also found were a locked handbag, the owner of whichwas unknown, and a suitcase that could not be opened. Next to thebags lay a pump-action shotgun—loaded, safety off, and, as was laterlearned, stolen. Around the same time, or a little earlier, a homelessman in Mainz sat on the rail of the Mombacher Strasse overpass andsaw stones fall from the sky. He appeared to regard their falling withgreat interest, and didn't budge until a large stone finally hit him inthe head, causing his legs to snap upwards as he pitched back into theindiscernible deep. I found this man while on an evening stroll alongBinger Strasse in Mainz. Afterwards, he explained the incident to meand I recorded it.


(Continues...)
Excerpted from TWO OR THREE YEARS LATER: FORTY-NINE DIGRESSIONS by ROR WOLF, Jennifer Marquart. Copyright © 2007 Schöffling & Co. Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, Frankfurt am Main. Excerpted by permission of OPEN LETTER.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Open Letter
Publication date
2013
Language
English
ISBN 10 
1934824704
ISBN 13 
9781934824702
Binding
Paperback
Number of pages
142