German writing

also by Paul Leppin:
Blaugast
Others' Paradise

by Paul Leppin

translated from the German by Kevin Blahut

from Part I

That was also the autumn when Severin made the acquaintance of Lazarus Kain. He had his shop in the upper part of Stephansgasse, not far from the large botanical garden. The rust-flecked covers of yellowed brochures and the worn cloth bindings behind the glass panes of the display case told passersby that there was a bookstore here. Over the door, on a sign christened by snow and rain, the word "Antiquariat" stood in faded letters under the name of the owner.

The store was low and narrow and was lit by a gas-flame even by day. But it could be very comfortable here during the winter, when the iron oven in the corner glowed almost red from heat, and behind the reading desk Lazarus leafed through bulging catalogues or taught tricks to his raven Anton. During the holiday months and early autumn he did nothing with the business. He would leave his daughter behind in the shop and make excursions into the surrounding area. He walked up and down the street with small steps and looked at the upper stories of the houses. The gas-light in the shop had weakened his eyes, and he was a little short-sighted. He looked at the servant girls and watched how they leaned their robust breasts against the windowsills and shook the dust from the tablecloths down into the street. The blood rose in his yellow face and he blinked. Sometimes he also stopped by the column of St. Adelbert and followed the nurses from the nearby maternity ward with his glances. Right next door stood the shabby rooms of the "Poison Shanty." Lazarus remembered the evenings when the medical students used to gather here and dance with the midwives. Occasionally he had also stopped to visit, and had watched the festivities from a corner. Now the tavern had changed owners and the pub was completely abandoned except for a few Czech youths who played ninepins in the neglected garden, and a sullen waitress who served the guests cheerless beer in cracked glasses.

He often sat in the small Pilsner bar across from Stephanskirche. It was not very lively here either on the summer mornings when he visited. The priests from the nearby deanery waited until later to come and have their lunches. Lazarus sat by the window, behind the green draperies, and admired the fine ankles of the girls who hurried past. He already had nearly half a century behind him, but women were still his greatest passion. At home, on the high shelves of his bookshop, he kept many costly volumes for connoisseurs and his best customers. Dangerous and shameless novels, French and German private editions, copperplate engravings, rare translations from the time of Retif de la Bretonne. He clung to these treasures with an infatuated tenderness, often taking them out to amuse himself and stroking their pages with his fingers. He sold them only unhappily and for high prices, and felt genuine sorrow when he saw them in the hands of buyers; it was as though they took part of a beloved estate with them when they left the building. He loved only two things more than these books: the raven Anton, an old and dishevelled beast that had kept him company in the bookshop for years, and his daughter Susanna.

It was in the small pub across from the church that Severin first met Lazarus Kain. Outside the bells in the tower began striking for Sunday mass, and both of them watched the thoughtful young women who walked past the tavern window, prayer books in hand. Then Lazarus moved his glass closer to Severin's and began to speak. His withered face became animated when he talked, and his cheeks burned beneath his short side-whiskers. He talked about the cold and unimaginative temperament of the modern age, in which the pursuit of money had killed the joy of desire. And with twinkling eyes, in which a secret delight glittered, he spoke about his favorite world, on which he had hung his aging heart, the France of the eighteenth century. His stories of the Hunting Park period of Louis XV had color and charm, and an envious longing made his voice tremble when he told Severin — who was listening closely — about Madame Janus, the brilliant procuress who had astounded even the Paris of that time with new and inventive pleasures.

That will never come again — he said, and his words contained a sincere lament. For a while they both sat quietly in the half-dark of the pub and brooded over the amorous marvels of past ages, while across the street the church bells fell silent and only a golden humming remained in the air, constantly becoming softer and more delicate, and finally imperceptible. Lazarus had turned his face back to the window, and Severin looked furtively at his bald skull and Jewish profile, which was torn by countless wrinkles. He was overcome by the suspicion that this man experienced a similar malady to his own, that he suffered from an unappeased passion which had fled from a narrow and senseless life into old books. He was seized by compassion for the old man, who had wasted years of his life looking at dead pictures. They conversed for a while longer, and Lazarus told him about his daughter and the raven. As he was leaving, he invited Severin to visit him in his shop.

Severin responded to the invitation within the next few days. Susanna was sitting on a low upholstered chair next to the oven. The days were still fine and the book dealer had no fire burning. Nevertheless, a drizzling chill entered the houses on that street after sunset. Susanna had thrown a black shawl over her shoulders, and the gas-light danced on the pages of the open book in her lap. Lazarus stood behind the counter and greeted Severin without surprise. His naked head shone in the light as he bent over a few valuable curios and examined them with a magnifying glass. Severin listened to his explanations patiently, and looked distractedly over at Susanna, who was silently reading her book. Her brown hair was parted smoothly and the shadows of her long lashes played over her cheeks. Once she raised her face and their glances met.

From that time on Severin went to see Lazarus Kain often. The thought of the young Jewess would not let him sleep. Actually Susanna was not beautiful. But an intriguing flame flickered in her eyes, and stood in sharp contrast to her quiet mouth. In their velvet depths smouldered a treacherous devotion that disconcerted and excited him. Sometimes he had seen stars flicker like that when, worn out by an incomprehensible compulsion, he looked up into the sky as he made his way home late at night. Severin sought her eyes behind the smoke of his cigarette, behind her father's bald avian head, behind the quick flutters of the raven, which jumped from one corner of the room to another as if in a cage. Susanna presented her eyes to him with an inexplicable seriousness, without ever taking part in the conversation or speaking a word to him. When he addressed her, her answers were curt and indifferent. This bothered him and made him stop trying. He continued chattering with Lazarus, and let him show him lithographs and photogravures.

One day when Susanna was not there, Lazarus promised Severin to introduce him at Doctor Konrad's. He brought out the proposal cautiously, like the last part of a guarded confession. And in response to Severin's amazed questions, he told him about the large atelier in one of the new buildings that were being built in the reconstruction area, on the former site of the hovels of the Jewish quarter. Here, with the last remains of a fortune that had been significant years before, Doctor Konrad had rented a painter's workshop, which in reality served for entirely different purposes. Tapestries and potted palms gave the room an exotic appearance, and a few picture frames in the corner, an easel, and some studies of heads that were turned to the wall indicated the occupant's métier. In reality it had been a long time since Doctor Konrad had touched a palette. He lay for hours on the comfortable Turkish sofa, rolled perfumed cigarettes in his hand, and let his servant bring him French cognac with seltzer. Sometimes he also listened to his mistress as she wearily strummed the mandolin. She was a blonde and spoiled creature named Ruschena. A swarm of guests came in the afternoons: Young gentlemen in dinner-jackets, with mouse-gray spats and patent leather shoes; old and experienced playboys in elegant street clothes, the ivory knobs of their riding crops at their mouths; artists with berets and dirty linen; models in silk blouses and tight skirts who spent their free time here, drinking Doctor Konrad's sweet liqueurs; and now and then a girl or a woman from better society, one shy and uncertain, the other with more impudence than was really necessary, brought here by the polymorphous attraction a dissolute life has to outsiders. That was what Lazarus talked about, and Severin guessed everything else from the old man's suppressed excitement and fidgeting hands.

When he went back outside he met Susanna in the fog of the evening street. She looked at him with a smile, and his body began to shake, as though in terror. He took her warm hand mechanically, without flinching.

Come — she said to him, the smile still on her lips. He went with her into the house, where the stairs lay in darkness. Then he kissed her throat, which her dress left open to the nape of her neck.

Your father is downstairs in the shop — he said. Susanna only nodded and led him over the narrow steps and through the corridor into her room.


© Twisted Spoon Press
Translation © Kevin Blahut

ISBN 80 901257 2 7
116 pp.
135 x 195 mm
softcover with flaps
fiction / novel


temporarily out of stock
reprint by autumn 2010

Copyright © 2009 Twisted Spoon Press