476
PARTISAN REVIEW
looking for a relationship with a steady man. If you find my proposal
agreeable, please send me a photo of yourself. I remain your devoted
lib
Leipke
When they had embraced and kissed enough, they made up games. Ilka
Leipke showed great talent in showing the happily giggling Mechenmal
how her friends would behave in corresponding positions. She bent herself
into the most surprising positions. She grimaced comically. Mechenmal was
able make up fictitious names by the hour, with whjch he could make ref–
erence to certain parts of her body in the presence of other people, without
their being able to tell what he meant. So the evenings and the nights that
Ilka Leipke had set aside for her friend went by. Often Mechenmal did not
have the time to go home. Then she got up, if he was still asleep. Made cof–
fee. In her slippers, dressed only in an old evening wrap, she went out and
got pastry from a baker. She placed a wrute cloth on the table. She arranged
everything in an appetizing manner. She prepared some sandwiches for him
to take with him. She disappeared again into her bed, where she slept well
into the afternoon. Mechenmal, however, somewhat sleepy and weary, but
in a good mood, hurried off to his kiosk.
Late evening crept like a spider over the city. In the light of Kohn's little lamp
the upper torso of Kuno Kohn was a bit bent over the table. On the sofa,
breaking the circle oflamplight and stretcrung beyond it, lay Max Mechenmal,
half in the dark. Windows glittered in lush, flowing black. Swollen and blurred
objects rose up out of the darkness. The open bed shone with a wruteness.
Kohn's hands held papers with writing on them. His voice sounded gentle,
dreamy, singing with feeling. He often became hoarse and coughed like some–
one who had read much. One could hear: "The old splendid stories about
God have been slaughtered. We must no longer believe in them. But the
knowledge of misery drives us to need to believe-the longing for new,
stronger belief. We are searcrung. We find notrung anywhere. We torment our–
selves because we have been helplessly abandoned. Why doesn't someone
come, teach us non-believers, who trurst for God." Kohn was quiet, full of
expectation. Mechenmal had secretly been an1used during the lecture. Now he
broke out. Then he said: "Don't take trus wrong, little Kohn. But you certainly
have funny ideas. Trus is really crazy." Kohn said: "You have no feeling. You
are a superficial being.
It
is also certain that you are a psychopath." Max
Mechenmal said, "What do you mean by that?" Kuno Kohn said, "You'll find
that out soon enough." Max Mechenmal said merely, "Ah, so." He was angry
that Kuno Kohn had called
rum
superficial. He thought of Ilka Leipke.
