Carl and Gerlinde (XXXI)
On Friday of all evenings, Gerlinde and Hannelore undertook to get Carl into the theatre, there to watch Schiller’s ’Maria Stuart’!#
Mary Stuart herself could hardly have been worse off: because Carl was not only forced to sit in a narrow torture chair with nightmarishly little room for his legs between the two education-hungry theatre enthusiasts, but, on top of it, was also exposed to a noisy herd of students for whom he was supposedly a deterrent detoxification example in the same way as people were pilloried in the middle ages. Naturally, the quick brains of those young students had immediately noticed what Gerlinde and Hannelore only had the courage to tell Carl in homeopathic doses: that the infernal height of his pains would be two-and-a-half-hours of ’Pils deprivation’!
Those incompetent theatre production people actually had not only – against all union regulations – denied Mary Stuart all and any kind of breaks on her painful way towards the guillotine, but the audience had to suffer likewise! And in doing so, they had guaranteed Carl’s deprivation destiny in one go.…
And on a Friday night on top of it all! After an ever so tiring week of ruthless price negotiations at TRIGA with their Vietnamese sub-contractor in men’s underwear and ladies’ panties at the end of which Carl had no other wish left than three bottles of Pils, his sofa and a stupefying TV series for making sure he could start his pre-evening nap…
Small wonder that Carl, when he finally had received the whispered confirmation from Gerlinde on his left and Hannelore on his right that, indeed, the theatre producers had scheduled a ’break-free’ outrageousness, out of sheer protest fell into some kind of ’sleeping rigour’ which culminated in him sleeping through the entire first act of the Schiller drama without even in the slightest being concerned about the disastrous psychological effect such behaviour could have on all the young persons …
In fact, even the terrible background music between the individual scenes did not make the slightest impression on him – music which consisted of a scratching noise made by ’chalk on dry blackboard’ enhanced to the level of insanity which not only gave the entire audience pain down their entire backs and up again, but also caused tinnitus to all hearing aid users… Unfortunately, with its persistence, this ghosttrain-like soundscape eventually had some effect on Carl: his slumber became increasingly more unsettled than at home in front of the TV set. The consequence was that he was disturbed in a rather unkind way several times by what happened on stage! This was particularly true for the huge, squeaky black wall they kept moving hither and thither! What a grotesque idea of the producers!
Presumably, they did this with an anticipatory eye towards thinning the number of persons on stage, as Carl murmured half-asleep. Maybe they aimed at crushing elderly actors to death between the stage border and the ’moving wall’ – or at least to maim them, as it seemed to happen to this person Mortimer. He, however, seemed to stick to his life with toughness, regardless of all the cork-screw-like calisthenics with which he kept escaping the ’moving wall’ …
Apparently, poor Mary Stuart was not as lucky: even after her first appearance, her upper body was considerably squeezed into a forward-bent position! It certainly must have been painful… Queen Elizabeth alone had been spared. Upright and with serenity, she strutted over the stage; apparently, the deathly ’moving wall’ was impotent against her armour-like crinoline!
Carl found it particularly annoying that, on this Friday evening of all performances, all the actors were suddenly eager to be heard and understood by the audience! Because, as opposed to former habit, they no longer said their lines while turning their back to the audience and speaking to the back of the stage where nobody could hear them. Instead, they rumbled their Schiller texts like machine pistol fusillades into the audience with such noise that they followed Carl right into his sleep …
Queen Elizabeth alone showed pity: she obstinately whispered in the direction of the stage light. Of course, she did not do that because of consideration for Carl’s slumbers but because of her bilious-green made-up face. She probably had hoped to remain undiscovered? Well, this was a miscalculation that had serious consequences, because Mortimer quickly saw her between the moving walls in her pink crinoline and immediately attacked her with a few nicely rhyming impertinences. Regardless of her whispering and crinoline, he ruthlessly gripped between her legs without any scruples!
Well, that was outrageous, as Carl – in contrast to Gerlinde and Hannelore – found during one of his few wakeful moments. In fact, this was a scandalous disgrace! After all, there were quite a few young people sitting in the front rows who on watching this scene giggled nervously! The guy sitting diagonally in front of him practically leered at the girl sitting next to him in a particularly shameless manner!
And when Elizabeth – still whispering – added shame to disgrace by actually putting her own hand between her legs, the entire affair turned extra embarrassing! The two very young girls sitting to the left in front of him delicately looked to the ground! Carl was quite glad that, in this embarrassing situation, the orthogonally kneeling Mary Stuart was able to get upright for a moment and shoot Queen Elizabeth a punishing glare…
Some of the young students became restless! They needed a cigarette! Just like Carl needed his Pils! But now, horny Elizabeth never wavered! Even the black wall was suddenly meaningless: fearlessly, Elizabeth stood there in her crinoline, totally green face, abandoned by all and would certainly at this moment have liked to get her face painted red if that had helped her at all, or yellow, or blue or in pink polka-dots …
Just not black! This colour seemed to have vanished from her: perhaps this was due to the threatening wall, which, after all, had enough black, thought Carl who was now wide awake, since the cooled Pils was quasi already flowing towards his uvulae… He was sure over his glass of Pils that he was also going to remember the current female politician this lonely Elizabeth reminded him of – as he said half-whispering to Hannelore when at long last the lights were turned on …
Naturally, after this cultural torture, the Pils at the ’Fundus’ was salvation not only for Carl! The pub was full to bursting and everybody indulged in the most expensive culinary delicacies offered by the restaurants with wine and water that suggested they had been starving endlessly. Schiller and his verses were totally forgotten! Along with Mary Stuart and the evil Queen Elizabeth! Even Hannelore and Gerlinde were exclusively occupied giggling about the scurrilous couples at the neighbouring tables – and Carl already enjoyed his third glass of undisturbed beer. In fact, he was even wondering if it would not be a good idea to bow before Friedrich Schiller by ordering a huge portion of those delicious ’Schillerlocken’?
KH
(Translated by EG)
Loading ...