Birth and Baptism
1
I was...born
on
a first
full, luminous streaming
wonderful,
wonderblue, wonderwarm
spring day,
in
a royal Prussian
pharmacy- -
'To the Black Eagle',-
with a narrow facade and a deep perspective;
spacious,
glassdoor klingeling, protected by shutters
and quaint;
built
'anno domini', in 'days of yore', already there
under
the Great Elector;
dignified, cosy,
with four stories and so many front steps, with sharp gables and
a double roof,
towering high above it all
and beautiful;
shelf on shelf, drawer on drawer,
container near container, small box by small box,
bottle by bottle,
always
most carefully neat, always most prudently exact,
always
most pitilessly orderly,
most well
sorted.
A pharmacy frequently
inspected,
revised, so as not to say molested,
suddenly,
completely
unexpecte d, unawaited, unsuspected;
inspected by
topmast spygalss commissioners-
austere, officious, majestically bespectacled,
snooping,
snuffling, sniffing, sniffling,
rummaging through
all boxes, all vessels, all
provision rooms,
with suspicion, curiosity, mistrust,
for
hours,
hours and hours-
useless,
fruitless, ineffectual,
fully
unnecessary and superfluous.
A pharmacy
not yet new-fashioned,
so atrociously moulded, so gruesomely
schematicized,
shrewdly like a factory, cleverly commercial, slyly
cold and business-like;
lacking the divine,
the fairy-tale magic, the romance;
americanized;
as if
predestined for me
by 'God',
as if
by a special 'destiny', as if by a higher 'power'.
A pharmacy,
just
opposite
the precinct station:
honestly upright, peaceably lowly,
comfortably one-storied,
stretched
out, yellow/pink piebald,
patched up,
gingerbreadbrown, bright red,
tile-roofed,
caring for citizens,
rustling,
rushing, rumbling, whooshing, scarily swooshing,
cellar-deep
teeming with rats;
the precinct station
with the
big, heavy, monstrous,
old-fashioned,
old-frankish, outmoded fire alarm;
a fire bell
of black iron,
dusty with cobwebs, a polished clapper,
dangling, now and then swaying
under a gray, leaking, under a decaying, splintered, under a
slanted shingle roof
penetrable by
rain,
hail, and blizzard;
a fire bell
begging and whining
for
rescue,
help in need and resistance.
There
I was...born!
2.
No one shouted
'RŠtin, he lives! '
The
aspects:
Mars in opposition to Venus, Mercury in opposition to Saturn,
Jupiter in opposition to Uranus,
Neptune
in dispute
with all:
Aries, Aquarius
and
Libra...you don't see them that way... every day,
Leo, Capricorn
and
Scorpio, - oh, it was pure mockery, -
stood
threateningly... fiercely armed, signalled in a terrible manner,
I
protested, I rebelled, I revolted,
I
opposed.
But!

The
good,
old, honest,
diligent, industrious, eager
Frau
PommerŠhnke,
usually
loaded and armed
with an
almost
suitcase-sized, mysterious, black-leather
purse
containing
a syringe;
with a
flesh-colored, self-knitted,
crumpled, wrinkled, rumpled
cardigan;
Frau
PommerŠhnke,
who
had already helped
into the world
the whole city and half of the country
who
helped
so many already
to
the light, to the air;
Frau PommerŠhnke assisted,
and the
refined, venerable, bachelor
Doctor Piehdong,
'clean as a whistle'
always
looking lie the death from Warsaw, always moving like Magnificence itself,
white
gloved, with a gray top-hat, blue bespectacled;
Doctor Piehdong
congratulated, Father inspected, Mother triumphed,
everything
functioned.

Ch ubby
and
round! Red-cheeked and sound! Fully nine pound!

.............

And
then as the christening procession
slowly turned
around the corner-
most joyful of
throngs, Mother in lace with three prongs,
Father
in
festive
tuxedo with tails, very tight pants and with ivory cane,
behind him
in a
stately and pressing
block, Godparents and guests total two score,
the
Liedtkes, the Tiedtkes, the Ziedtkes,
the
Zorns, the Hebestreits, and the Haberkorns,
the
Kluwes, the Struwes, the Druwes,
the
Brodiens, the Scharfenbergs and the Lewertiens,
the
Kuhnkes, the Gruhnkes, the Ruhnkes,
the
Rieks, the Tuleweits, and the Papendieks,
in short, in
full
array, dignified and elegant, each by rank and degree,
most of the upper
bourgeoisie,
amidst the resounding
joyous swekks of pious, honest trusty bels,
and
most golden blue
sunshine, mob and public right behind,
pace
by pace, trace on
trace,
down the
pine-strewn church street,
from the marketplace
towards Saint George's
(there's
more at stake here than
fun and games, 'the manly heart pounds wildly in its cage,'
a
brimstone butterfly
that
flew and flutter-tumbled, beat its wings to
hover overhead,
and
swung and tottered, shivered and
quivered,
picturesquely
brightening up the scene) :
as
the procession
slowly turned
the corner,
suddenly:
an idea
occurred to... Mother!

Stop
it all! It must be so!

Men and women
freeze,
stand, wonderingly
staring, not to say as if they were 'carved of stone':
The
Liedtkes, the Tiedtkes, the Ziedtkes,
the
Zorns, the Hebestreits, and the Haberkorns,
the
Kluwes, the Struwes, the Druwes,
the
Brodiens, the Scharfenbergs and the Lewertiens,
the
Kuhnkes, the Gruhnkes, the Ruhnkes,
the
Rieks, the Tuleweits, and the Papendieks,
in short, in
full
array, dignified and elegant, each by rank and degree,
most of the upper
bourgeoisie!
Mother
handed me over,
in my resplendent
display,
eyes wide open, delighted, making goo-goo-ga-ga noises,
gave me
her
little one,
to the old PommerŠhnke, the
loyal soul, the kindly valiant one,
the
trusty doting mother,
into
the arms,
at once
rescuing, open, obligingly reaching out
and,
click, clack
'Hold on to the kid for a moment, I'll be right back,'
through the crowd, through the people, through the ones
who
were surprised;
courageous, energized,
determined, vigorous, resolute,
back
into the pharmacy,
it
was something!

Whereto? ! Wherefore? ! What for? !
Idiot!

Motherlove! Motherknowledge!
Motherconcern!

A
boy who, at his baptism,
had a
pen, or a pencil, or a goose-quill
stuck into
his jacket, or into his swaddling clothes, or into his bunting,
secretly,
craftily, inconspicuously,
will become
something
'famous'!

......

And
barely five minutes later
in
the church,
with the blessing of Pastor Dreschhoff,
while
I was crowned with
names,
all around me, the little
wiseguy,
in
densely
circling, snircling,
closing
orbit, yes so be it,
the
Liedtkes, the Tiedtkes, the Ziedtkes,
the
Zorns, the Hebestreits, and the Haberkorns,
the
Kluwes, the Struwes, the Druwes,
the
Brodiens, the Scharfenbergs and the Lewertiens,
the
Kuhnkes, the Gruhnkes, the Ruhnkes,
the
Rieks, the Tuleweits, and the Papendieks,
in short, in
full
array, dignified and elegant, each by rank and degree,
most of the upper
bourgeoisie,
I suddenly cried
out
and
moaned, and consequently groaned,
not because
I was feeling my oats
but rather being stuck
by a very sharp Faber pencil
with the... imprint
Number
One!