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KLUMBERT’S CHAIR
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in anyform, by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher The moral right of the author has been asserted British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Revenge Ink Unit 13 Newby Road, Hazel Grove, Stockport Cheshire, SK7 5DA, UK www.revengeink.com ISBN 978-0-9558078-8-6 Copyright Š Actes Sud, France 2007 First Published in France in 2007 by Actes Sud under the title La Chaise Klumbert Illustration page 206 reproduced courtesy Robin Day English Translation Copyright Š Revenge Ink 2010 Typeset in Paris by Patrick Lederfain
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KLUMBERT’S CHAIR JP CHRISTOPHER MALITTE (Translated from the French by Jonny Sly)
Revenge Ink
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To Marie-Catherine Vacher, to Claro
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“...he unearthed the intolerable Greek hypothesis of the Eternal Return and tried to find some cause for celebration in this nightmare of the mind.” Jorge-Luis Borges, A Universal History of Infamy
“You are an anal retentive!” “I am not AN anal retentive, I am THE anal retentive. Businesses need them, and I am the one.” With the kind permission of Etienne Robial
“Golden lady, golden lady, I’d like to go there.” Stevie Wonder, Golden Lady
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One could say that this is a novel about a ‘chairman’ – a man firmly seated inside his immobile life; first finicky, then manic, a former industrial designer now bereft of design, lost in the heart of his luxurious Santa Monica fortress, waiting for something to happen. How does a ritualized non-life finally turn out? With this highly original debut novel, JP Christopher Malitte charts the inner landscape of a man dedicated to his own inner void and to solitude, whose ritualistic obsessions are helpless when the world finally bursts in on him. As in the Wizard of Oz, a tornado seems inevitable. As in the film Taxi Driver, life seems haplessly pointed in one single direction. Be careful, dear reader. Sometimes even chairs can explode. Claro Writer, Translator and Publisher Paris
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PRELUDE December 17, 1991 – Weather forecast 5:30 PM
HURRICANE DILLON – CLOUDS FORMING
Experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have revised their forecasts for the progress of Hurricane Dillon, and they fear the hurricane may have major climatic repercussions in the next six months. They expect their analysis to be confirmed next spring. Security and emergency forces are on stand-by, particularly in the Southeast of the country. ADAM SMOCKIN FOR KWA
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A PERFECT DAY Monday May 4, 1992
‌My name is Humbert Klumbert. On Friday, I turned forty. Again I awoke this morning lying on the very edge of my bed, tangled in the sheets like a spider in its web. My first contact with the floor is never with the left foot (mood obliging). With one hand on the parquet floor, the other on the embroidered bedspread, I slowly unravel myself. Then my first compulsory figure commences: the big toe performs a semicircular arc. I steady myself on the sole of my right foot. If the left foot were to graze the floor before the right, I would be most upset. If a day were to start on the wrong side, God knows how it might end. There is one more thing: I am right-handed, so there is no reason to start the day on the other foot.
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That is all there is to it. My sleep is like one long dream-free coma; at least I do not remember my dreams. Sleep invariably leaves me crazed, clutching the edge of the bed, a taste in my mouth like medicine spoons. I like when the morning sun streaks the walls; sunshine is always a good sign. It is my personal clock. On Michigan Avenue, there is always a ray of light, which plays on the blinds in the morning. God knows how a day that starts without sunshine might end. Foot on the floor: the day begins. I smooth the bedclothes with the palm of my hands, right then left. Then when they are smooth, I sit cross-legged and recite a psalm. Always the same. The XC. My favourite. It contains nothing about apocalypse, sin, or wrath. The XC invokes the protection of the Lord. And divine protection is not something you can say no to. Protection invoked is protection granted. Next, I require light. Light, even artificial light, brightens the mind. To cheer up night workers, doctors use rows of fluorescent strips. Phototherapy they call it. I do not see why I should not try too. The
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Constitution does not forbid me from equipping my ceiling as I wish, or from possessing a weapon, or from masturbating in my shower. As long as my shower unit is not on the public highway. As a recently naturalised citizen of the United States of America I have gained the right to overdose on fluorescent ceiling lighting, without the need of a prescription, because my life depends on it, so do not anyone dare talk to me about halogens, or low-voltage dichroics on cables! I am home to nothing but 24x24 inch polycarbonate opal diffusers on L-shaped corner bars. In the morning, I like to watch them flickering and spluttering to life.
FIAT LUX.
I always have a full box of replacement tubes, you never know, sometimes they start to crackle, on and on, and then falter when you switch them back on. I do not like it when they stall like that. It annoys me. It is not a good sign when ceiling lights miss their cue. Without a reasonable quota of artificial light, God knows where the day might end. Insanity maybe. The ‘ranch-house’ apartment, with east and westfacing windows, costs me $2,400 per month in rent. The entrance is set on a Mexican-style rectangular patio surrounded by a low yellow ochre brick wall fitted with a small wooden gate on brass hinges. The
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randomly paved terrace leads to three apartments. On my left live two teenagers. The kind that spend their spring break cruising around in a red Mitsubishi pickup; there is not even a name on their mailbox. Their front door is well insulated for sound so I hear little of their stereo or teenage music. Hallelujah! On my right is Madam Santa Maria (she likes people to call her Madam). She has a pretty wooden openwork door rounded at the top, with a prominent stained-glass Judas hole through which she observes everything that moves, especially my own comings and goings: “You are looking pale, Klumbert, you are working too hard!” or “You know how my poor Hector ended up? Slow down while there is still time!” She only goes out twice a week, to clean my apartment or give me parcels. The rest of the time, I imagine her sitting dressed in a peacock blue towelling robe and her old mules, talking to a cat or to the photo of a black and white basset hound, next to a portrait of a uniformed Hector and a small pale pink jar of Oil of Olay. The apartment is not very stylish but it is well situated, in one of the best parts of Santa Monica. In the morning, I put on an old Klervox radio (which I negotiated for $25.75 with a pawnbroker in Pasadena). I am very fond of it. I love its grooved black plastic front, fake wood veneering, and lo-fi sound. It is constantly on, spewing out KWA news bulletins, occasional music and frequent jingles. I have taken quite a liking to KMart ads and their imperative tones. They ring out
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like the slapping of a spangled banner on the flagpole of a lifeguard’s seat. When you come from Europe you appreciate these things. There are also the May lilies on Olympic Boulevard and their heady fragrance, and the Santa Monica Place shopping centre, with the giant Warner Brothers Store décor; then there are the latest white Mustang cabriolets – the road belongs to them – and the sunshine that makes the German tourists squint... It is all so exotic. The bathroom is simplicity itself. 4x4 inch ceiling high faience tiles, sanitary coving, and lino with nonskid pads. The cupboard contains three carefully compartmentalised shelves of products. To the left of the washbowl, a tiled abutment demarcates the edge of the shower tray. The sink and toilet pan are disinfected before and after each use. Before I sit on the throne, I lay down a crown of toilet paper to prevent my genitals from coming into contact with the porcelain. When it comes to personal hygiene I am intransigent. In my home, and nowhere else. When I shave, I also proceed by stages. First I thin the hairs with the retractable clippers on my electric razor. Then I shave, pulling my skin and spreading my chin with shaving foam using a badger-hair brush. Finally I expose swathes of pink skin with my hand razor. Despite my efforts I am liable to break out into unappealing small red spots at all times. And sometimes even, worst of all, I cut myself.
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Usually I wash my face with dermatological soap then apply a mask of red clay. As soon as the crust is dry and dappled with dark spots of sebum, I wash it away with warm water. I then brush my teeth with an electric toothbrush, down and up and up and down, taking care not to rub against my gums. A really efficient bout of brushing should last just over a minute. I fill my cheeks with fresh water swilling from one to the other. I spit, then rinse off the thin moustache of fluoride froth which fringes my lips. I then roll no. 2 gauge dental floss, imported from Sweden, around my right index finger then my left. Once the length is suitably reduced, I go in search of unwanted leftovers; afterwards the pink thread ends up in the trashcan. I fill a glass with a blue-tinged antiseptic fluid, enough to gargle five or six times. Now for the shower. I soap my navel, my penis, my foreskin. I pull the foreskin back then forward again and I soap (which is my affair). Then I move onto my armpits and each toe, then rinse with fresh water. Not a fold, or recess of the stomach do I miss; not one square inch of skin, accessible mucous membrane, nail (I use a small wooden brush) or mane escapes my cleaning. The eradication of impurities is a ritual that I take very seriously. My shampoo is a houseblend of baby shampoo and beauty salon shampoo, which costs $80 a bottle. I massage my scalp hard to encourage circulation. Apparently, this slows down hair loss. I rinse. Condition. Rinse again. Moisturising body cream. Towel around my hips, I flick my dwindling
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hair forward in an unconscious gesture and I wait for it to dry as I come and go. The morning’s ablutions are complete. My morning exercises are limited to a series of push-ups. Forty-one, because one day, shortly after my arrival in the United States, I heard Larry Blount on a TV shopping channel spouting on about the latest rowing machine. Forty every morning, he announced, in his mauve Bermuda shorts with lace tie and sleeveless Everlast sweat-top. One more push: that is all it takes to flout Larry Blount’s instructions for athletics. I do my own push-ups, with my own numbers, and no idiot cable channel gym coach is going to tell me how many. Forty-one, fists bunched, to toughen my knuckles. In the morning you have to tone your muscles straightaway, so that your pectorals are keyed up and ready, your stomach muscles too. It is impossible to start a day without the reasonable induction of tension. Then it is time to put on my wool suit in dark salt and pepper. That said, it is the only suit I possess, in ten perfectly identical copies, all hanging in a row in the wardrobe. One arm, then the other. I shake my shoulders so that my jacket falls correctly. No marks. I cut the label from the collar and unstitch another on the left sleeve. The suit is nothing extravagant: a
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straight cut with three buttons, tailored collar and false buttonhole, two pockets with piping and flap, one breast pocket with piping, and four interior pockets (two with piping and two with piping and buttons). There are also two back flaps, which are lined inside. I slip on a pair of double-pleated pants. Without hem. I do not like darning. There is always a Kleenex or a dime inside the Italian pockets. I zip my fly, hook the fastener, loop the button, then slip a slightly convex coated calfskin split-leather belt through the loops. The belt has a metal H buckle. H for Humbert. The lining is synthetic, so be it. And then? I slip on a pair of black lace-up ankle boots (glazed calfskin leather uppers, split leather lining and insoles, elastomer soles). I have over twenty, all the same. Before stepping out, I take a look around the house. I make sure that the taps are not dripping. I turn the knob on the electric stove both ways. On-off. On-off. I realign anything that seems askew. I touch the sole of the steam iron. This, I cannot help. Even though I can see the plug dangling mid-air, I must touch the sole of the steam iron. It is cold. Obviously. I open and close my briefcase several times, clicking the fastener. With my right hand in the right pocket of my pants, I check that my billfold is there. Good. One last look, to check the switches. On-off, on-off. I make for the front door and rap it shut, the apartment itself characterised by ambient lighting and non-stop KWA news flashes. I turn the sculpted key
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in the three-point lock. Reverse locking, two turns left, then two turns right. I carry out this operation five times and finish with two final turns of the key – schlackschlack. I make sure that the door is indeed locked. A few steps more and it will be time for breakfast. I stand before the Bellway bus stop, almost opposite my house. Each morning, when the school bus stops, out spills a huddle of kids. Over twenty of them. Noisy and happy. There is also one blonde girl, in a mini-skirt and two-tone baseball jacket, who has a melancholy face. She must be twelve years old but she looks older. From Monday to Friday, the yellow bus drops her off at the junction. Her jacket probably once belonged to her older brother. She never notices me. I time everything and forecast her arrival. I have been doing this for a while now. It is a game. I bet with myself. What time will she come? I even repaired an old Jaeger-Lecoultre (another piece from my pawnbroker in Pasadena) to time her. Today, she is three minutes early. Just as I anticipated. I always anticipate. Bruno’s is at the corner with the New-Age Pentecostal Church. Bruno’s is the diner at the Olympic junction, between the blue neon sign and the “He is Alive...” billboard. Apparently, He has been brought back from the dead.
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Dawn Spaliari serves cheesecakes, pumpkin pies, hot-dogs, cherry juice and a black fluid sometimes topped with milk froth. “Cappuccino!” she announces. I go an hour before everybody else. Bruno’s is my lair. Bruno’s, with its old red buttoned moleskin booths. From the cold stainless steel Merit come the sounds of Jackson Browne, Smokey Robinson, Detroit Emeralds or even Sister Sledge. “Without you”, what perfection! (Rogers/Edwards, Warner-Chappell, midseventies, I did my research – the song has a special American flavour for me). In her “Dawn” embroidered apron, Mrs Spaliari holds forth, singing along to “I will always love you” by Dolly Parton, and other country ballads. The ones that Stetson-wearing rednecks like. I loathe their leather cord ties with the turquoise horse’s heads and their two-tone Chevron shirts and jeans. But at this hour, there are not many of them. I place a folded dollar at the corner of the table and pile the tiny silver coins on top. The exact amount. I tear one corner of the chit as a reminder, and breakfast can commence. I carefully cut my food into equal-sized squares to form small piles or geometric figures. Near the plate is a stainless steel reel of serviettes, a red squeeze-bottle of Heinz ‘Hot’ ketchup, a yellow tube of Beckler mayonnaise, a blue salt pot with a white cover, a pepper grinder and a tub of Klesp margarine with polyunsaturated fatty acids, which Dawn imports from
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Belgium especially for me. Sometimes the perspective on the diner from the booth is perfect. There are no cowboy hats or LA. LAKERS caps to disturb the lines. A trucker gets out of his Mack, and pushes the swing doors bringing in an odour of stale oil. In the rear, Bruno is flipping steaks on a black plate that looks like a truck radiator. On one door of the toilets is a cheap reproduction of Nighthawks (1942, The Art Institute of Chicago). The bar brought to life by Hopper. As if Bruno’s is claiming some relation to the bar of Phillies fame in the picture. But with its imposing glass façade, Hopper’s bar is in a class above. The bright yellow light bathing the streets and window opposite. The triangular mahogany counter. The boilers or percolators. The high leather stools. The stern clients – two males in dark suits and fedoras, one with his back turned – looking like Bogart and Dean. The barman in his white cap, like Popeye, leaning over a glass washer. And the disturbing redhead in red. When will she ever stop staring at her nails? (Bruno’s real name is Luigi.) Dawn never asks any questions. I go in, order, eat and leave. It is a good thing. From a purely spatial point of view I prefer California to Europe. Goodbye the mazy lanes of Perugia and the one-way streets of Paris or Vienna. Here the streets are avenues or motorways: wide
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highways, interstates, freeways and mysterious drives that peter out in Burbank heights. The suburbs of Los Angeles are lined with an endless network of low walls like one huge drainage system or handrail, and they are dotted with telegraph poles, advertising hoardings or stencilled warnings: “Liquor”, “Severe tire damage”, “Welcome to Santa Monica”. I walk to the office (Broadway 1501), an easy journey: follow the signposts to LA before the huge LOS ANGELES board. Another nice straight line travelled by spacious vessels, comfortable limos, Infinitys, Chevys, or Ford station wagons with wooden surrounds. I do not miss sauerkraut, oldtimers hogging the comfy chairs in tea rooms, Viennese coffee, ornamental wallpaper, and poppyseed rolls. Europe is behind me. Now, it is America for me. North America fascinates me, because it is huge, arrogant, and religious too. North America and its lifeguards in pick-ups and firemen in bright red trucks. From the travelator of the Tom Bradley airport, something clicked into place. That was three years ago. The President, in a portrait, said, “Welcome to the United States of America”. Thank you very much. Here the “automobile-culture” rules. Pedestrians have beaten a retreat, except in the centre. But no one thinks of living in the heart of LA. ‘Downtown’ is hell. The morning and evening traffic-jams. Bumper to bumper. Horn to horn.
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6 AM to 9 AM 4 PM to 7 PM ‘Rush hours’ they call them. The entrance to IBC is controlled by a security gate with a site office to one side and a turnstile for pedestrians. To access the grounds, I wait for a car to open the electric gate before I go in. Getting inside before the gates close is child’s play but it greatly annoys IBC’s Technical and Sales Director when he arrives in his Porsche. “Klumpet! Watch out, goddamn it!” he barks, “You will wind up on my windscreen one day if you carry on like that!” Then he disappears into the depths of the car park. I walk on, stepping like a pair of open compasses, scrupulously avoiding the cracks in the square concrete slabs. The IBC initialled automatic doors part as I arrive. IBC is the company that rents me office space. Or rather, a cubicle and a postal address. I am an industrial designer. These days people say merely ‘designer’. To become a designer, I had to undergo rigorous training. My technical studies led me to specialise in ergonomics, my chosen discipline: furniture. My name is Humbert Klumbert, creator of the eponymous chair. You have no doubt heard the name. I invented the chair the day I turned twenty, in my second year at the National School for Applied
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Industrial Design. It was said to be a revolutionary model. Lacquered black epoxy steel leg fittings and seat in white pressed and moulded polypropylene (with grained finish). The first chair that could be stacked up to infinity. The chair for community centres, medical schools, business canteens, public libraries, bridge clubs, station platforms, meeting rooms, law courts, speech therapist waiting rooms, radiology wards. It is the chair that school cleaning-ladies flip upside down on tables before mopping canteen floors. Copyrighted and patented. International licences. My studies came to a sudden end. It was like I was paraded at every design and interior décor salon that existed. I was even asked to mumble on in the amphitheatres of the prestigious Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien alongside famous plastic artists and autodidacts like Paolo Piva, Hans Christian Attersee, Walter Lürzer, Zaha and Adolf Frohner. I handed out diplomas to the good students of Vevey in Switzerland. On a paper flipchart, I would sketch out ‘The Chair’ with my eyes shut (and afterwards students would battle each other to grab the sheet and even the pen I had used). Awards piled up at my parents’ home in boxes of varying sizes; my father lined them up methodically in the entrance, next to the archive boxes containing press cuttings. My life consisted of getting in and out of taxis, sleeping short periods then checking out of hotel rooms, taking shuttles, pacing salons, and inaugurating schools and conference rooms.
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The licence for the chair, called the HK-O1, was negotiated with Hans Vectra, an industrialist based in Birsfelden in Switzerland under the strict jurisdiction of an old German lawyer who liked to clip the nickel clasps of his black fake-leather attachécase shut. When the licences were finally signed, he inundated me with legal speech and multiple copies of stapled contracts with amendments and special clauses. “Herr Klumbert, your income is practically inexhaustible; its beneficiaries will run into the fifth generation.” “Where do I sign?” “At the bottom to the left of the logo, preceded with the phrase ‘read and approved’ and you must also initial each page, Bitte.” “You will not look back. We are a prestigious house.” “We also manage the licences of Charles and Ray and Verner Panton.” “Did you not sign Ducaroy and Mourgue too?” “No, but we have Ron Arad, Marteen van Severen, Dieter Thiel, Jasper Morrison and even some young clown by the name of Philippe Starck.” “And Le Corbusier too!” the lawyer clumsily trumped the industrialist. “Cigar?” “No thank you, Monsieur Vectra, I do not smoke.”
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My life has been a success. One sole success. A chair. A one-hit-wonder. And ever since, I have awakened every morning with only one thought in mind. “I refuse to be the Chair man.” My hectic schedule got the better of my energy. I was approaching my fortieth birthday and I would often doze off during speeches, like one Tuesday afternoon at the Graz Industrial Engineering School. The sun had warmed the amphitheatre nicely and the room was gently humming. I was sitting on the platform next to the Dean who was wrapped up in a never-ending speech. I tried to find the centre of gravity of the chair as I had done when I was a child, by pressing my feet against the desk in front. The gentle rocking movement got the better of my vigilance. A student shouted out: “Hey look, the Chair Man is having a kip!” The words dragged me from my torpor and broke the fragile equilibrium I had established. When The Chair teetered backwards I tried in vain to grab the desk. Bang! The Dean broke off as laughter rose from the hall. I stayed sprawled, feet in the air, for at least five minutes. When I got up, I had formed one safe conclusion: “You can take it as gospel, young people: The Klumbert Chair is definitely not the Eames rocking armchair.”
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I packed my bag and left the platform with new resolve. I would wish my old Austrian psychiatrist a fond farewell and set out for the United States, where I would keep tabs on my cholesterol, schedule, mental health, hygiene, and interior design. Every day since that Chair accident, I have sat down at my work desk on Sundays and bank holidays included, drawing up plans and templates on translucent paper, from morning to night. Since the age of twenty, I have been tyrannised by the need to invent something new. My likes? –symmetry –the police –formats, golden sections –Gustav Mahler’s “Titan” symphony, N°1, especially the build-up –Le Corbusier –Walter Gropius –A handful of modernist architects –Louis Isadore Kahn –and Walter Gropius again. My dislikes are more numerous, but I can draw up a non-exhaustive list: –Knoll Saarinen tulip chair copies
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–fashionable architects –tea sets, cutlery and paper napkins decorated with Van Gogh’s sunflowers –the French word ‘culotte’ –Munch blow-up dolls, “what a scream!” –Op’Art shower curtains –natural beechwood wall frames –fishing photos –dedicated on-site photos –navy blue satin-finish file holders –champagne-brushed aluminium –venetian blinds –light fittings made of white blown glass –fifties wall clocks in opaque glass with large triangular hands –tube and bubble table lamps in white porcelain –100% wool Op’Art blue and orange diamond motif carpets –ceramic cylindrical vases in tawny colours –rectangular dark lava stone lamp bases with ivory cube lampshades –oiled walnut coffee tables with 3-tube adjustable stainless steel bases –‘cool’ pairs of trestles mounted with an isoplane door without a handle pretending to be a work surface –club armchairs in tobacco coloured leather with finest hand-painted calfskin seat cushions in a brownish hue –triangle desks with a nickel plated steel structure.
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Fads. What a joke! Thankfully no one goes on about “Pop vs. Ikea” any more! Since the seventies and eighties, furniture has been held hostage by a bunch of opportunists: delicate ergonomists, the private view brigade, subsidy hunters and lovers of low-quality taramasalata. They would tear each others’ eyes out for two wormlike columns in some ‘arty’ magazine. Call them Hippies if you may. Spraying golden flames on a T-bird is all they are capable of! IBC rent me a 10ftx10ft partitioned soundproofed cubicle by the year, with salmon pink wall-to-wall carpeting. Sometimes, the sound of telephones, admonishments and keyboards clicking filters through from neighbouring cubicles. I am at the far end of this chessboard and nobody bothers me, with the exception of one man known as ‘the floorplan coordinator’. He patrols the floor from Monday to Friday, making sure everything is “A-Ok”, but always shows up at the wrong moment: “So, Mr Kloonbert, are you comfortable?” “Ok, ok.” “So, have a nice day, and if you have any comments, please feel free to share them. Sincerely yours.” The guys in the neighbouring cells get the same treatment. For the most part they are telephone operators, short-term traders or insurance salesmen in white collars and shirtsleeves,. Their effects are the
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same, HF telephone headset, and ballpoint with chewed lid. For my part, I have nothing to sell. My fortune has been made. One last flash of genius and I could finally retire forever to a bunker in Arizona (I have the designs right here). My equipment is rudimentary: –Rotring writing desk –Mecanorma Kutch –ink drafting pen –an (antique) counterweighted table with an orange lamp firmly clamped to the side –an IBM computer with a floppy dis drive –a Hewlett-Packard dot matrix printer (which makes one hell of a racket). My work surface is inclined at 15 degrees, the monitor 60 degrees backwards on a small base. The computer console trolley is made of chrome-plated steel tubing and its surface has rounded corners and white edges covered in laminated syringa, with a sliding keyboard shelf and rubber wheels. My desk is a rectangle of 43x21inches in lacquered MDF on the inside with laminated chipboard drawers, on metal runners with sliding panels on casters. Every day I chain myself to the table and darken whole pages of translucent or squared paper, until my
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phalanxes ring with pain. The hollowed imprint of the striated shaft of the retractable pencil sticks to my fingers. From morning till night. Every day since I first arrived in the United States. All because of an invention that I have not been able to shake off since May 1, 1972. I keep myself busy every day, the hours of which are exhibited by a Plexiglas cube alarm clock (with red LED display). I do not take lunch or only a little. Generally a quarter of an orange, a glass of mineral warer and a piece of sugar suffice to keep dehydration and scurvy at bay. I am never hungry at midday anyway. I leave at 6 PM. I tidy away my pencils, clean the drafting pen with alcohol, roll up the translucent paper, and hang up the French curve sets* (which are useless in principle, as their curves make my skin crawl). My small brown briefcase under my arm, I walk towards Venice, through the now empty wide flat streets and highways. In the air, there is a heady smell of lilies, hot tar, and McDonald’s ventilation. I sit down facing the Pacific ocean. Further on is the Side Walk Café and Crabtree and Evelyn’s, then “SANTA MONICA”, in giant capital letters, adorning the central car park; there are the parking meters, fat people, and the sculpted rollerbladers of Muscle Beach, who never say hello, and there are the *Implements enabling the drawing of curves.
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uniformed cops with their silver badges, white and blue Fords, ‘To serve and protect’ badges, and flashing blue lights. I walk for as long as the light allows until my gastronomic pit stop of the day: Pollo Loco on Monday, Taco-Bell on Tuesday, McDonalds Drive Thru on Wednesday, Kentucky Fried Chicken on Thursday, Burger King on Friday, Nacho Fast on Saturday and Chinese Express on Sunday. You are not supposed to walk through the Drive Thru section but they make an exception for me. It is quicker than the counter. I do not like queuing with people; it is common. I order a takeaway menu and I go home clutching my small serigraphed Kraft paper bag. In the twilight, with its palm tree and large azulejo tile figures, the 1531 Michigan Avenue courtyard has a mock air of Seville about it. Three turns of the lock, and the door opens as every evening to lo-fi sound. The radio is left on all day to simulate presence. With crime and burglaries on the increase, it is as good as any other trick and much cheaper than the $300 Safe-Scan alarm kit (subscription extra). Once over the threshold, the suit goes straight into the wash. In the living room cupboard, there is a box with a brand new one-piece telephone inside. I slide out the bubble wrap package then remove the telephone from its polystyrene case. I plug in the wire and dial a foreign number. After one or two long rings lost in the void, there is always the
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same message: “Risponde la segreteria telefonica di Valentina Giustis, Cubo Design Italy. Non sono disponibile al momento. Lasciatemi un messaggio. Grazie. You have reached Valentina Giustis, at Cubo Design Italy. I am not available for the moment. You can leave a message and your phone number. I will call you back. Thank you.� The past has a disturbing voice. I take at least two minutes to unplug the wire and tidy the box carefully on the top shelf, my memory shelf. I head to the shower and harass my penis but never all the way, because that would be wrong. Shortly afterwards, I put on a sweat suit and trainers for the compulsory figure of sorting through the mail: publicity brochures, administrative letters, a number of statements, the bank, electricity company, blood tests, etc. I begin eating straight out of the bag, on the counter of my American kitchen. The smell of BBQ Ribs from Pollo Loco fills my nose, sometimes it is a Whopper or a Big Mac with melted cheddar, or chicken wings with tikka sauce that I stuff inside me like my life depended on it. I play back this panoply of flavours in reverse order each evening, leaning well forward over the toilet seat, two fingers tickling my tonsils. I take great pleasure in eating, but I cannot keep anything down. So I make myself vomit and I wash my hands, then my mouth, with an alcoholic mint-flavoured fluid. After that I allow myself a huge glass of soya milk or mineral water. My second meal then consists of a square of dill-flavoured tofu and a
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green apple, followed by a quart of Bromazepam under the tongue, but that is not routine. And if I cannot get to sleep, I go and fade out at the counter of Canter’s Pool. A couple of Millers is all it takes.
CANTER’S POOL 1498 Colorado Avenue
Canter’s is the rendezvous for the most ambitious of LA’s middle classes. You cannot miss its billiard ball sign; you can see the neon miles away. Sometimes I see people I know, like the IBC ‘Champ’ strutting his stuff at the wheel of his 911. The ‘Champ’ has a totally out-of-date Bobby Ewing perm, and never takes off his Ray-Bans, even at night. He also applies far too much chalk on his cue and likes to twizzle it with his Stan Smith shoe soles to make himself look stylish. I steer clear when he plays. His movements are too abrupt and he barks rather than talks. I watch him from afar, the time it takes to finish a Miller. When the foam forms fine lace at the bottom of the glass, I get down from my stool and head to the exit. As always, the IBC ‘Champ’ waits for me to walk the length of the pool table before drawing back his cue. As always, I hop to one side and spill the contents of my glass. Near the exit, Cosmo bars the way: “If there is anyone bothering you, Piccolino, you come tell me, capisce?”
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“Ok, ok.” I go home. The large square soft cotton sheet beckons. I lie down nice and straight and pull over the sheets and embroidered bedspread. The day is over. (And I find the heat unbearable.) “Click!”
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IL SIGNOR COSMO
Cosmo takes coffee everyday at Luigi’s and sometimes a glass of Californian wine at Canter’s in the evening. He walks like an ageing outlaw and he is the only old-school gangster listed in the Olympic sector. A chiselled sixty-something face, shoulder-length hair slicked back with a fake horn comb and menthol gel. In burgundy pimp suits with fine white stripes, lambskin Fratelli Rossetti ankle boots, he is a character straight out of a whodunit. He yadders on about how he is retired, how he is a grandfather, but nobody asks how he spends his days, nor why he drives an armoured Pontiac Catalina. The klutzes who reckon he looks like Robert de Niro are mounted on concrete pedestals and placed on the bed of the Burbank waste water reservoir. “Hey, Luigi, ristretto! And none of your merda Starbuck’s, per favore!” His air is affected as he sips his espresso. Originally from a small island off the coast of Sicily, he hit the big time on the Riviera in its heyday.
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“Drugs are not business, Piccolino. Leave them to the Negroes and Latinos. Back in the days we stuck to our traditions: armed hold-ups, call-girls, one-armed bandits. The word back then was ho-no-rable, capisce?” And then he shuts up, pulls out a mecarillo from his pocket and sparks it up with a match. There is a strong smell of mafia, which makes the eyes water. But, “Sorry, your smoke is bothering me, would you mind putting out your cigarillo?” is not something you say to Mr Cosmo. You just listen; that is the smart thing to do. “If you want, Picolino, I can always do a favour for you, you know?” “Errr… No, no, grazie mille.” “Prego.” I think he likes me.
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A GRIM PREMONITION Tuesday May 5, 1992
‌My name is Humbert Klumbert. On Friday, I turned forty. My mother is a practising Catholic, my father a liberal Jew. I am small, my complexion is pale, sometimes rosy, and my eyes are bronze. Once again this morning I awoke on the edge of the bed, tangled in the sheets like a spider in its web. My sleep is like a long dream-free coma and it leaves me feeling groggy, with a taste in my mouth. Today, it is a bitter taste. Not something I like. My first contact with the ground is never made with the left foot. The Lord only knows where a day that begins on the wrong foot might end. Madness maybe. Who can tell? I mechanically smooth the under-sheet before heading to the bathroom. In the morning, I listen to an old radio set (picked up from a pawnbroker in Pasadena). It is not much but it helps fill the space. I
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love the sounds I hear in the United States. Ever since I was young I’ve always had a firm belief in the mythology of America. My mind fills with highcylinder automobiles, monumental pick-ups, signs with huge straight letters on a white background, sumptuous architecturally-built mansions and irascible cops, posing by their patrol vehicles, arms folded.
MARIO PAWNS TO PASADENA
My pawnbroker in Pasadena is Mario. You would swear he has slept in his bordeaux-striped polo and ‘heavy-used’ blue jeans. With his ginger perm and beard, he sits regally behind a glass-protected counter near the till. He is a nice guy Mario, a bit of a paranoid druggy, but a nice guy. He only accepts cash. When the bell rings, he is quite a sight with his syringe-induced wide-open blue eyes and one hidden hand stroking the butt of a riot-gun. He is ready, he says, to grab his less civil clients and pop their heads open-like a watermelon, he likes to remind people. Mario is an orphan and crack addict. Mario is also trigger-happy, as became plain the day he pulverized the rottweiler belonging to Mrs Nichols, the building’s janitor. I remember it well. At that precise moment I was staring at a Jaeger-Lecoultre on the revolving presentation case. There were pieces of dog
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everywhere – sirloin, flank, liver, ribs, collar of metal barbs and medallion engraved “Rex”. “I shall take that one,” I said, composed. “Shall I wrap it for you?” “This is fine, thanks.” Since that day, we have had a mutual respect for each other. Mrs Nichols still does not know why Rex cannot be found. “He was such a good dog!”
* I never omit my washing ritual. Next up: forty-one push-ups on my fists. Not one push-up less, for reasons that are personal. Then I slip on my dark suit and a pair of black lace-up ankle boots. Before setting foot outside, I carry out my short inspection, from the taps to the electric hotplate and back again, setting everything straight that needs setting straight. I run a finger over the sole of the iron and open and close my click-click briefcase several times. With my fingers I feel for the rough surface of my cardholder in my pocket. One last glance at the switches and I close the front door. I make very certain the three point lock is locked-schlackschlack! Just one or two steps
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more and it will be breakfast time. But before my street-corner cappuccino cheesecake, there is one more quirk I cannot go without. Each morning I look out for the school bus. At around 7:45 AM, it drops off twenty school children, all totally hyperactive except one small gloomy blonde girl, wearing a baseball jacket too big for her, who stands out from the rest. When my father took me back to the boarding school in Zisterdorf on Sunday evenings, I had a lump in my throat. I would swallow it, tear myself from my father’s embrace and shut the Volvo door without looking back. There was a huge corridor I had to cross to reach the boarders’ lockers. I would slap my feet on the tiles to make them ring out and keep me company. I know all about that. I remember the swelling bitterness as I walked, with its taste like a badly rinsed medicine spoon. Then one day I noticed the girl at the bus stop. She looked so sad. I came back the next day and the next, and the next. I could tell you exactly when it all started, everything is written down in small Moleskine notebooks. I scrupulously record dates and times. I make bets as well. What time will she turn up this morning? I even resurrected an antique Jaeger-Lecoultre (there are some great discoveries to be made at the pawnshop). Today she is on time. On the dot. Her punctuality delights me.
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I note it down. I breakfast at Bruno’s an hour before everyone else. In her embroidered apron, Dawn Spaliari takes my order. Always the same. I pile up the cents on one folded bill and place them at the corner of the table. It is all there. I tear the corner of the chit, as a reminder. Breakfast starts. It is important I cut up the foodstuffs myself and arrange them into small equal compartments on the plate. Dawn never asks questions and the diner prices never change. This is a good thing. I walk to the office (Broadway 1501), an easy journey: follow LA. before the huge LOS ANGELES sign. This huge sign was my first encounter here. Several hours after landing, in May ‘89, I got lost in Santa Monica. The bus dropped me near Olympic Boulevard. My shoes were sticking to the tarmac, the straps of my bag were digging into my shoulders and my skin had turned bright pink. I tried to decipher the map faxed by my lawyer. From Austria, I had sent instructions about the layout of my future apartment as well as specific details about the furniture, including the Egyptian cotton headboard and the embroidered bedspread. I had already formed a very precise idea about what the place was like. It was as clear in my mind as the mosaic of Saint Paul in the
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San Giusto cathedral in Trieste. Michigan Avenue, however, was impossible to find. After walking eight miles, four words in superb pale blue lettering sprang out and grabbed me, endorsing my disorientation: WELCOME TO LOS ANGELES! I had already stopped missing Europe from the moment I set foot on the travelator at Tom Bradley airport. That was three years ago. Now I have a green card and I love the police. The entrance to IBC is barred by a gate. I usually enter via the electric barrier to the car park. Today, I nearly had an accident. The Porsche saw me but did not bother slowing. Its driver just lowered his electric window and flicked his finger up in my direction. IBC provide me with a 10ftx10ft cubicle on the third floor, in the bottom left hand corner of the floorplan. People generally leave me alone, apart from a morning visit from the ‘floorplan coordinator’ (and his fawning mannerisms): “So, Mr Kleinber, a tough day of work ‘in perspective’?” He chuckles to himself: I feel sure he has been working on that one for weeks. “Ok, ok.” “Well if I can be of service to you in any way, do not hesitate to call me. Do not work too hard. Sincerely yours.”
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In the open plan space next to me, my neighbours are hard at work to bring home the bacon. I am all right. One final flash of genius and I can retire to my blockhaus forever (I really must show you the preliminary sketches). I intend to use white or bare concrete and clear lazure, but I am afraid it might look a bit austere (the colour chart is in the bottom drawer). I think I might build in Maine after all‌ Every day, I lose myself in pencil lines on translucent paper. Sometimes I let the lead ramble over the page like it is figure skating. Then I screw the sketch up into a ball, followed by another and another. The minutes slip by, filed inevitably away by the LED cubeclock, with its black rectangular face and red LED display. I do not take lunch or rarely. A quarter of citrus fruit is enough with a little water and sugar from the drinks distributor near the coffee machine. I am never hungry at lunchtime. That is all. 6 PM. I tidy my pencils away into their small brown briefcase; I clean the drafting pen with alcohol, roll up the translucent paper, and hang up the French curve set. When I leave the office I sense a bad omen. This morning there was a forty-year-old woman at reception, she was wearing a magnificent black pant suit, the kind of suit you wear for big occasions (communions or weddings). Despite the quality of her polo collar jacket, no doubt a major Italian brand, the ends of her sleeves showed signs of wear. On the front,
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the dark mother-of-pearl buttons and pockets in the lining were lost in the folds of the princess cut. Her matt silk legs seemed to spring from their breeches with white turn-ups. I also noted Italian pockets with a button and zip on the side and the elastic belt round her back (you always find a tissue or a dime inside an Italian pocket). The stocking clasp was visible to the naked eye. She had penetrating dusky eyes. The curve of her brow faded in an almost straight line. She had fine tight pouting lips, black hair scraped back and bunched in a square burr brooch. Her ankles were bound by black leather straps, attached to court shoes, with heels – the only vulgar touch. Occasionally, her jacket was vertically indiscreet revealing a Donna Karan black top with thin straps. ‘Upper-class’ tan, dainty nose and angular chin. She batted her eyelids at a regular rate, which lent her incredible charm. As I examined her, she looked at me strangely. I could still feel her staring at me behind my back, even through the doors of the lift, and even through the cantilever flagstones of the IBC tower. 6:01 PM. I reach the bottom of the steps. She is still there. It looks like she has not budged an inch (maybe she has not). Bust to the fore, standing by reception, bolt upright. She does not see me, I am sure. I bring my fist to my mouth to clear my throat and stifle the sound; my breathing becomes heavy as a wave of lust submerges me. Briefcase beneath my arm, I stride
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across the room, feeling like I have just closed an erotic magazine. I shall avoid mentioning her to Lloyd. (Lloyd is my American shrink, full name Frank Lloyd, like the architect, minus the ‘Wright’). Lloyd is paid to listen to what I do not tell him. And paid a lot, for that matter. I tried to take refuge in the toilets of the Side Walk Café to afford myself a moment’s solitary pleasure, but I did not even get to unzip my fly. The toilets were so foul and filthy that I walked right out. I watched the final rollerbladers, until the tourists dispersed into the bars and restaurants. At this time, the Side Walk Café terrace lights up and gets noisy. I stayed sitting for a long time, on the other side of the cycle path, which is now deserted. It took me two hours twenty-nine minutes of fresh evening air to cool the fire in my underwear. After stretching a few times I went home, a steaming Kraft paper bag in my hand: Tuesday is Taco Bell day. Three turns of the lock, and the door to 1531 Michigan Avenue springs open, as every evening, to a distinctly lo-fi sound. The radio has been on all day, as well as the night-light, to make it look as if there is someone home. Once over the threshold, the suit goes straight in the wash. Since I have been here, I have instigated a small telephone ritual to thwart my solitude: “Will answer-Will not answer?” The game consists of dialling up the sales director of Cubo Design in Italy at a specific time. The sales director is a provocative brunette who has
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me obsessed ever since she poured her cappuccino over my Zegna jacket at the contemporary furniture salon in Paris in early 1989. Paris, January 1989 CONTEMPORARY FURNITURE TRADE FAIR, PORTE DE VERSAILLES The Cubo Design italy Stand
“Here is my card, please send on the dry cleaning bill, Monsieur…? “Klumbert, Humbert Klumbert.” “Like the chair?” “The chair. That is me.” “Really?” she turned towards her colleague. “Hey, Enzo, guardi qui! E l’uomo-sedia!”* There was something teasing in her manner. “Ok, ok.” “I am delighted and… embarrassed about the coffee, obviously. I am Valentina Giustis, sales director of Cubo Design Italy. You are not telling me you have come to present a new model?” She sat down in a tawny leather Togo corner armchair; the side-split of her wrap-around skirt kept rising until it reached the dark embroidered band of her left stocking. She was doing it deliberately and I began to lose my composure.
*“Look over here, it’s the Chair Man.”
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