Out here, incidentally, it is becoming bitter cold, the flinty polish of the sky is growing dull, the nine lead-gray monoliths, counter to the laws of atomic disintegration, are transmuting into an even heavier metal, moving one step closer together. In the grid pattern of their 2,336 windowpanes, the first lights are beginning to glow in crossword-puzzle fragments, abstract life signs of the horlàs; I flee toward them, for whatever posterity may think of me, I now have need of their feigned life. Nourishing kitchen smells already promise it, real, actual—good solid food will be served for supper, juicy roasts and steaks and pork loins, lavish gravies poured over mealy potatoes, sauerkraut and red cabbage, cauliflower and brussels sprouts and turnip greens, slippery puddings in vanilla sauce, strawberry sauce, raspberry sauce, soon it’ll come rolling up. (“It’s ready, dear! Bring along the Bommerlunder if you want to have another quick drink!”) We’ll wash it down with venomous Riesling, Krötenbrunn, and Liebfraumilch, perhaps beer, which will keep me burping for hours. Our Lucullanism has a Lutheran breadth, I would never have believed that I could eat so much. Through the chewing noise in my ears, I can barely make out her noncommittal admonishments: “Nice, huh? Bon appetit!” and “Tastes good, doesn’t it?” I nod, grunting (one doesn’t speak with one’s mouth full!); nor, after I swallow, do I object to or contradict her chatter (“Well, at the new self-service store—oh, it’s fabulous, dear—they have a contract with a fruit-and-vegetable importer who brings the produce direct so there’s no middleman or anything”). What could I say, anyway? When I read an analysis of the Common Market in Der Spiegel or an exposé of tax breaks for building contractors in Stern, I react at best with a snort. If I put up with the one, then why not the other? Besides, I’m tracking down the poetry of emptiness, I listen for it when the broad talks about her streamlined, well-engineered household appliances (“You’ve just gotta see it working, dear. A whole new kind of hot-water heater”—the word causes her difficulties, like syncopated gutturals in Arabic: hahht-wawdehheeedeh—“it’s also a coffee roaster, steam iron, dish dryer, fruit pitter, bottle rinser, garbage disposal, it’s brand new, from AEG”). Her knowledge of merchandise, shopping expertise, and awareness of prices are stupendous, I see no difference between them and the specialized learning of a bacteriologist or a Sanskrit scholar. The interpersonal aspect is also included (“Well, you can get the same tie at Münnemann & Möller for only half the price”). She goes no further into personal matters, except in more or less concealed erotic offers (“That blond on the third floor, dear—you’ve never seen her, she’s very chic—well, she’s asked me about you twice already, where you come from and so on, I think she likes you, she’s got a boyfriend who’s with the river police, he’s got a small house on the Elbe, which he inherited, they have group sex there on weekends”).