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I can still see you
Back in Berlin, Sybil Koenig could have become to me what I saw in Susanne
and what I though I could not live without – my Mona, my June, my muse, my
inspiration. Alas, it didn’t happen. This is actually a sad story. Well … kind of sad and funny. Sybil fell in love with my writing but apart from
the fact that I happened to be the man who wrote the stuff, she could see
nothing in me which would interest her the slightest bit. She worked as an editorial assistant with a small
publisher and was crazy about books. She smoked large, black cigars and
consumed huge amounts of cheap red wine. I smoked cigars. I enjoyed cheap red wine. Couldn’t she see how many things we had in common? She lived in a little flat in Kreuzberg. I lived in
a little flat in Kreuzberg. Her place had lots of character. Maybe that’s not
quite true. Her place was a mess. To me, her place had lots of character
because there were books and cigars and full and empty bottles of red wine
everywhere. She kept books in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the toilet, on
the sofa, in her bed. Everywhere. In her living room along the walls there
were piles of books. Books on top of each other reaching from the floor to
just below the ceiling. Sybil was one or two years older than me. She was
overweight, but in a balanced way. She was attractive. Her wardrobe consisted
of a mix of old-fashioned grandmother stuff and hippie gear. There was just
one problem. She wasn’t attracted to me. She accepted my existence as an
inevitable necessity. I was the tool which produced the manuscripts which she
welcomed and took pleasure from reading. She didn’t like me. Full stop. A few
times I spent the night in her apartment when I was too drunk to go home. It
didn’t bother her. She told me to make myself comfortable on the sofa between
the books. Which I did. She walked naked from the bathroom to her bed. Just the way she would have done it if I hadn’t been
present. Maybe, in her mind, I didn’t really exist as a
living creature. Maybe, I was only there like a piece of furniture. A
bookshelf. Maybe, I should just have jumped in her bed and made
love to her. She never openly criticized my writing. She asked
questions. She did this in such a skilful way that I was able to critically
reflect on my stuff without the need to defend myself. I could not keep up with her drinking although I
tried it several times in an attempt to find out more about her and to seduce
her. But I am not very good at such things when I am intoxicated and stoned
and half dead. Once or twice she talked about herself. I believe she talked
about a relationship with someone who was important to her in the past. But
then, when I woke up ten hours later, I couldn’t remember a thing. She could
have told me that she had been married to Elvis Presley or the Pope. I just
didn’t remember a damn thing. Each time I had a terrible hangover and would
not have survived without the help of large quantities of aspirin tablets.
Somewhere I had read that a healthy male can consume up to sixteen aspirin
tablets spread evenly over twenty-four hours without endangering his life,
although it may ruin his stomach for years to come. That’s probably a lot of
bullshit. It may kill some men and do nothing to others. I didn’t actually
count the tablets I swallowed. But I remember one frightening instance when I
wasn’t sure which pain was worse, the headache from my hangover or the ache
in my stomach from my irresponsible consumption of aspirin tablets. Sybil’s
comments didn’t help either. She told me that aspirin could cause severe
internal bleeding. If not controlled, she emphasized, it can lead to a slow
and painful death. I believe this was the only time in our relationship
where she showed personal interest in me. She had consumed more red wine than I. Why wasn’t
she dying? How could she eat breakfast, drink black coffee and read the paper?
It wasn’t fair. Damn it! But then, Sybil came to my rescue after all.
She made me a large pot of very strong chamomile tea which, like a miracle,
stopped my stomach cramps within minutes. Thanks Sybil. I can still see you with that big, black, stinking
cigar in your mouth. Naked and very attractive. Click here for Click here for Sample TWO: He mentioned Hemingway,
casually and unexpectedly |