Isabella always unwraps her chocolate balls with care so that she can save the silver paper. Over the year, she collects the foil wrappers in a book beside her bed because she eats most of the chocolate balls in bed. When she finishes the book, she will put the wrappers into another one. At the moment she’s reading an exciting book. The book is called ‘This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen’. She puts the Karl Marx foil wrappers in it. By the end of the year, she will have collected a lot of wrappers for the Christmas tree, more for the branches she hangs on the walls because trees are expensive, branches can be found amongst the waste, in the rubbish, one could say, in the rubbish. But Isabella doesn’t wrap up walnuts any more. She sorts out the shiny ones. There are different sorts. Blue with silver stars, or silver with blue stars, Isabella can’t remember at the moment, but nevertheless, they are like little skies, like little skies you can put in your pocket. Isabella has many little square heavens (Baci Perugina) inside the book she is reading: ‘This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen’. In her youth, space was enormous, the night sky filled with silver dust that seemed infinite and close enough to touch. Now it is small and here, she can touch it, stroke it, put it in her pocket, put it in a book. Isabella doesn’t know why she is reading that particular book, this book that is amusingly called ‘This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen’. There are more amusing books, there are better books. Isabella knows that. She reads all kinds of books. Why should I read him, that Borowsky?
Why do I stick to Borowsky?
***
FROM POLICE DOSSIERS
SECTOR: SURVEILLANCE OF CITIZENS
SUBJECT: ISABELLA FISCHER, MARRIED NAME ROSENZWEIG. NUMBER: P-G III/12-19-99 (Excerpt)
Bought with her monthly allowance for December 1999, Isabella Fischer, married name Rosenzweig, received a book by the controversial communist spy and propagandist Tadeusz Borowsky, born in the Ukraine to parents of Polish origin. In spite of the fact that the book speaks of Borowsky’s experience in the camps of Auschwitz and Dachau, which he somehow managed to survive, the arrival of other books by Borowsky may be expected – books that promote communist ideology and philosophy.
The fact that Borowsky is not alive does not diminish the power of his words. On the contrary.
Borowsky, born in 1922, committed suicide by gas poisoning in his flat in 1951.
***
Maybe Isabella is looking for something, some answer, some clue, some glimmer. Maybe Borowsky knew Waller and Christine, maybe he met mummy Sonya and daddy Peter, there. And? When she’s read ‘This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen’, she will read other books, surely, yes. She will read lighter books, warmer. She will read about garden gnomes. They are more appropriate for the collecting of shiny, rustling wrappers with the scent of chocolate.
Save the wrappers, Isabella says.
Isabella carefully opens her Karl Marx ball and smooths the foil across her knee with the outside edge of the thumb of her right hand.
I used to have a dog, says Artur.
I have garden gnomes, says Isabella. Then adds: They don’t die.
Artur doesn’t see well. Artur doesn’t know if he ate the chocolate Marx. He’s hungry. He’s cold. He can still taste the chocolate bitterness.
When Chemnitz was called Karl-Marx-Stadt the inhabitants didn’t ask for the 42-ton Marx, it came by itself. Now they don’t know what to do with it. They hope that the town will become famous for the chocolate balls.
Artur has been to Salszburg. They have Mozart balls there, with marzipan inside. They are delicious. He hasn’t been to Chemnitz, nor in Karl-Marx-Stadt. These balls are not worth a piece of shit. Here’s your silver paper, says Artur.
I’ve got more, says Isabella, try this one. She offers Artur a Strauss cube, actually a Droste praline. It’s a cube, says Isabella, not a ball. Isabella carefully opens her Strauss cube and almost to herself she adds: These cubes are expensive, but your hat is more expensive. These are Strauss cubes. A large box costs two hundred and forty Marks. I prefer Tchaikovsky. His music relaxes me the way Mozart balls do. Tchaikovsky hasn’t got chocolate balls named after him.
Tchaikovsky was an epileptic, says Artur. So was Handel.
Alfred Nobel was an epileptic too, says Isabella. And Thomas Edison. And the apostle Paul.
Artur is shaking. Artur is afraid he’ll have an epileptic fit. Artur is an epileptic. When he has an attack, he fills his nappy. When he gets an attack he is filled with a joyous feeling, he floats, he hears music, and the music whispers to him, secrets which are otherwise beyond his grasp. His epilepsy is his friend, it is his companion, his small invisible secret love that tortures him and bestows gifts. Well, without his fits, without his seizures, convulsions, jerking, without his petit mal, his falling-down disease, his sacred disease, he would be completely alone. But at this moment Miss Isabella is here, and they are eating Strauss cubes that are so much better than Karl Marx balls, and they are enjoying themselves. Artur implores his lover to postpone her visit. Byron, Edward Lear, Dostoevski, Flaubert, Dickens, Agatha Christie, Truman Capote. Artur studies famous epileptics. Mark Twain. Napoleon. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar. Peter the Great, Socrates, Pythagoras, Van Gogh, Leonardo, Michelangelo.
History is full of epileptics. That’s nothing to worry about, says Isabella.
It seems that Artur and Isabella complement each other.
We complement each other, says Artur.
I cannot complement anybody, says Isabella. I’m empty.
Isabella’s flat is full of gnomes. Isabella lives in a flat. She doesn’t have a garden. You can’t call her gnomes garden gnomes. They are home gnomes. Two white ones are placed at the front entrance, greeting her when she comes home. She always comes home. They have tall hats. Isabella’s flat seems spacious, open, like a garden. It has no doors. It has no internal walls. Isabella had all the walls knocked down. Isabella tells the white gnomes her life story. They are silent and listen. Sometimes, Isabella touches them. The gnomes have their leader. The gnomes keep her safe from earthquakes. Isabella loves fairy tales. If she had a garden, Isabella would have it full of winding paths and gnomes. Criss-crossing paths that would confuse evil spirits. Isabella wants to go home.
***
FROM POLICE DOSSIERS
SEARCH OF FLAT BY ORDER OF CHIEF OF CITY POLICE ON JANUARY 1ST 2000 FROM 4:07 TO 5:02 A.M. REPORT.
SUBJECT: ISABELLA FISCHER, MARRIED NAME ROSENZWEIG. NO: 38 S-C I/01-01-00 (Excerpt)
The flat is tidy and spacious. The only separate room is a bathroom (with toilet). No internal walls. The whole flat is some 70 m2.
36 garden gnomes arranged throughout the flat. Some are completely white, others have their clothes painted red, yellow, green, blue. Some of the gnomes are smiling. There are male and female gnomes. Some of them are exceptionally short, some tall, almost large. Every gnome has a metal ID plate hanging round its neck. In compliance with previously collected data, it may be concluded that those are the names of the deceased members of Isabella Rosenzweig’s (née Fischer) family.
Throughout the living space, on the floor and on the furniture, lie boxes of chocolates. A count of 77 boxes. There are boxes of different shapes and sizes, of world famous brands. The chocolate boxes carry the labels of: Manner, Lindt, Droste, Suchard, Nestlé, Milka, Neuhaus, Cardullos, La Patisserie, Asbach/Reber, Biffar (the only box of candied fruit, the rest contain chocolate), Hacher, Underberg. Some of the sweets have unusual names. A conspicuously large number of chocolate balls bear the inscription ‘Joy of Life’ and ‘Karl Marx Kugeln’. ALL THE BOXES HAVE BEEN OPENED.
The price labels on the boxes are proof of their quality. The prices range from 40 to 60 DEMs per box. The ‘Strauss’ are the most expensive chocolates, actually praline cubes, which cost 180 DEM. In the box there is also a