Going Dutch with German Writers (4): Quite a thorough job of drinking

Who?

Jo Lendle is one of those people for whom the day seems to have more hours than 24. Until very recently he was running the Dumont Buchverlag publishing house, and as of January he’ll be heading up Hanser Verlag in Munich. He’s also published four books with another novel to come in August, and spends quite a lot of time communicating with his 1,500 Facebook friends.

Where? Mysliwska Bar, Kreuzberg

What? Gin & tonic, tap water, Jägermeister, Club Mate, tea, vodka & tonic, beer (between us all)

What did we talk about?

Jo is visiting Berlin for a couple of days before going on holiday with his family. He wanted to go to Burma but his wife refused, so they plumped for Albania because it seems to be the European equivalent. We’re both a little awkward to begin with – usually we meet at big parties or book fair-type occasions and this is suddenly rather intimate. Hence, I suspect, the early wife-mentioning. We talk about our kids for a while, a nice safe topic that feels too personal to write about here. Jo says he’s really enjoying his sabbatical but raring to go at Hanser, very keen to meet the authors and so on. He asks about my work and I tell him it usually takes me a few days to get into the tone of a book I’m translating but I try not to come to it with preconceptions about how I’m going to translate it. I prefer to avoid setting rules for myself because I think that makes for samey translations. I ask Jo a question that people ask me fairly often: how do you find time for all the things you do? It’s not so much a question of finding time, he says, as of wanting to do things. And he doesn’t watch much TV. I agree wholeheartedly. The only problem is that he never manages to leave his phone at home and keeps getting distracted by Facebook.

I ask him about his new book and he looks uncomfortable. It’s a love story but he’s not very good at talking about his own books. We have a little discussion of the English word crush versus the German Schwarm. Perhaps it’s called a crush because it makes your heart scrunch up in agony, and perhaps it’s a Schwarm because it feels like insects crawling all over your body. His book is about requited love though. I run out of things to say and start talking about a date-like meeting I once had in the bar next door, and on our next date-like meeting the guy came wearing a skirt and it was all a bit too much for me. Jo tells me he used to like wearing dresses when he was younger but he hasn’t done for a long time now. There is no irony in his voice. We wonder which of the other men in the bar like wearing skirts in private. It feels rather bitchy.

Jo seems to be going through the topics I post on Facebook in his mind, and he asks me whether the other English-speakers I know in Berlin spend as much time with Germans as I do. There are two generations, I tell him: those who came earlier and were forced to learn German to get by, because they didn’t want to hang out with army and embassy types, and those who came after the advent of the internet, which means you can work here in your own language. You mean the people who come because it’s hip and don’t stay for long and don’t bother learning German? I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that – although I do think they’re missing out and have a rather superficial experience of the city, someone explained it to me recently as being quite beneficial if you want to concentrate on writing, for example, because not understanding the place and the culture and the language is like living inside a protective bubble.

The mood is odd

© Privat

One of the ways Jo seems to make optimum use of his time – and who can blame him? – is by dealing with lots of people at once. So he’d asked if he could invite a few friends along and they start drifting in now. I invited a friend too but he chickened out.

The new arrivals are: Jan Brandt (again), Tilman Rammstedt, Katrin Zimmermann and Lucy Fricke. I think Jo and I both relax slightly once they arrive. He gets a little bit touchy-feely, but not in a creepy way that his wife ought to worry about, and I stop talking quite so much. I’d never met Katrin before – she teaches creative writing in Hildesheim and we establish that we go to the same excellent hairdresser. I really like her. She just gave up breastfeeding four days ago and this is the first time she’s drunk alcohol in two years. She makes quite a thorough job of it. Someone gets a round of Jägermeister fairly early on.

The mood is odd, I think for two reasons. Firstly, everyone knows I’m going to be writing about the evening. I think there’s a certain pressure to perform, to be particularly witty and interesting. Jan seems to feel the need to give himself a more bad-boy image than last time – he turns up the volume and tries Club Mate with vodka. They play the Rolling Stones and he tells us he loved them as a teenager because they were a great way to rebel against his ancient parents. He claims he had a little commune all of his own and spent all his time naked in his bedroom, rebelling. Tilman, Lucy and I opt for not saying all that much. Katrin is just enjoying her night out, I think. The other thing is that Jo used to be Jan and Tilman’s publisher and now he’s not. There’s much banter about copious advances and posh meals out, about how they’d all been expecting an intimate tête-à-tête with Jo and now look what they’ve got. Jo is theatrically offended too because I originally came up with the idea for this blog via a conversation we had on Facebook, in which I allegedly promised he’d be my first drinking partner. I apologise less profusely every time he raises the issue.

Things are a bit blurred after a while. Someone knocks their gin over my skirt and tissues are produced, but it dries off quickly because I’m wearing my special drinking with German writers tights, someone suggests. We talk about teaching creative writing, which Jo has done too. The only thing I can really remember about that though is something I can’t write here, about what to do when your students aren’t very good. Jo tells me he wishes he could have translated Mohsin Hamid’s new book and I get a little bit offended because I think he’s suggesting just anyone can translate. But I’d forgotten that he once translated instruction manuals for colonic irrigation kits – and also Go the Fuck to Sleep. I say I only found Mohsin Hamid’s new book medium-good but I can’t remember why; in fact I can only remember good things about it. Luckily, I say, there’s Goodreads to remind me. Jo really loved Mohsin Hamid’s new book.

We talk about a postcard I picked up saying “Get a writer on your couch”, where you can get a writer to read in your home. There’s much sniggering. Someone suggests a new blog going a step further than merely drinking with German writers. I start forgetting the German words for things. One of those words is circumcised. I’m not allowed to tell you the context but I get around my vocabulary problems by using hand gestures. I remember I have to get up really really early in the morning. A woman none of us knows somehow ends up at our table. I start feeling sad that my friend didn’t make it. I find a missed call on my phone but I don’t recognise the number. I look at my watch and am shocked because time has done that thing of leaping from eleven o’clock to one a.m. in what feels like ten minutes. I’m supposed to stay longer to help get rid of the strange woman. But I have to get up so early in the morning! Hugs all round and then I take a taxi home and attempt to make notes. One of them is “What on earth did we talk about?”

Hangover? Oh yes. And my left leg hurts from leaning over on my stool all the time. Apparently the strange woman scratched Jan’s hand and was quite hard to cope with.

I shall now take a break from my hectic schedule of drinking with German writers in an attempt to protect my liver. More in April.