11
“A man that didn’t see Mr. K for a long time greeted him with the following words: ‘You haven’t changed a single bit.’ - ‘Oh.’ Mr. K said and blanched. That was a short story.” Kaltwasser closed the work, took off his jacket and threw it on his chair. Kaltwasser was our German teacher, and he always came in class without any greetings, or, at least, you don’t hear them, because by then, he’s already started with his class, at this point, he hasn’t even stepped through the door yet. I have to say that I don’t really get Kaltwasser. Kaltwasser is, apart Wagenbach, the only one that gives ok-ish classes, but, as Wagenbach is a total asshole, still has somewhat humanity, just because of that, you can’t get too bad out of him. Or at least I don’t. He comes in like a machine and starts talking, and then straight 45 minutes, and then he goes out again, and you don’t really know what you’re supposed to do. I can’t say if I find him nice or not. Others have agreed that Kaltwasser is as nice as a pile of shit, but I really don’t know. I could even say he’s pretty good.
“Rather short.” Kaltwasser repeated. “And they definitely thought about it, I can even get the interpretation though the short story. But then you still have to write clearly: It’s not as easy as you think. Or does someone think it’s easy? Who wants to go then? Volunteer? Na, come. The last row interests me.” We followed Kaltwasser’s sight to the last row. Tschick sat there with his head on the table, and you couldn’t really tell, whether he was all up in his book or just sleeping. It was the sixth session.
“Mr. Tschichatschow, if I may?”
“What?” Tschick’s head slowly raised. This ironic tone. The alarms should be triggered by now.
“Mr. Tschichatschow, are you there?”
“Did you do your homework?”
“By myself.”
“Would you like to read it to us?”
“Ah, yeah.” Tschick sat back again, found his plastic bag on the floor, raised it high and looked for his work. As usual, he didn’t prepare before the session. He took out several booklets and tried to identify the right one.
“If you didn’t do your homework, just say it.”
“I have it – where isit though? Where isit though?” He put one on the table, shoved the others back and flipped through the pages.
“There, there it is. Should I start?”
“If you could please start.”
“Ok, I’m gonna start now. The homework was about the story of Mr. K. I’ll begin. Interpretation of the story of Mr. K. The first question that comes up when you read Precht’s story, logically–”
“Brecht.” Kaltwasser said. “Bert Brecht.”
“Ah.” Tschick managed to find a pen in his plastic bag and scribbled something on his booklet. He threw the pen in the bag again.
“Interpretation of the story of Mr. K. The first question that comes up when you read Brecht’s story, logically, is that it’s a man who doesn’t want light on him. He is hiding behind a letter, namely the letter K. That is the eleventh letter of the alphabet. Why is he hiding? Mr. K. is actually a professional arms dealer. Together with other shady characters (Mr. L. and Mr. F.) he founded a criminal organization for which the Geneva Convention is nothing more than a sad joke. He has sold tanks and airplanes and made billions and has long since stopped getting his hands dirty. He prefers to cruise on his yacht in the Mediterranean, where the CIA came across him. Mr. K. then fled to South America and had his face surgically altered by the famous doctor M. and is now astonished that someone recognizes him on the street: he turns pale. It goes without saying that the man who recognized him on the street, just like the facial surgeon, was standing in incredibly deep water with a concrete block on his feet a short time later. Done.”
I looked at Tatjana. She had a frown on her face and a pencil in her mouth. Then I looked at Kaltwasser. There was absolutely nothing to be seen on Kaltwasser’s face. Kaltwasser seemed slightly tense, but more interested and tense. Nothing more, nothing less. He didn’t give a grade. Afterwards Anja read the correct interpretation, as it is on Google, then there was an endless discussion about whether Brecht had been a communist, and then the lesson was over. And that was just before the summer holidays.