Vanishing Carpet Beaters
Carpet hangers disappeared from back courtyards when fitted carpets and vacuum cleaners came into use – when handwoven rugs had been destroyed by bombs, during an era when funds were low to buy replacements, at a time when the individuals who once carried rolled-up carpets down the steps for washing had been casualties of battle.
The tiny store where I used to take my tights to get them mended if they got a ladder – a place called “Snag Repair” – disappeared when the Wall fell and foreign retailers could sell inexpensive hosiery in the East.
The coffee drippers that graced the openings of family-sized brewers that used to sit on dining tables at German clan get-togethers – such accessories disappeared once the children raised in the postwar period pushed back against their elders and no longer arranged regular meetups, opting rather to travel to Italy and return with espresso makers from there.
Items fade away once they lose their reason for being, like they require nourishment that must be satisfied.
Items fade away if they lack their sustenance, like they, too, have a hunger demanding to be met. Even when the explanation for their vanishing is extremely distant from the things themselves – as distant, for instance, as the wrongdoings of the Nazi military are from coffee in Germany, which is always far too weak, served in specialized containers it constantly dripped before being contained by the coffee saver, a tiny roll of foam rubber on a stretchy strap adorned with a pearl sitting on the coffee pot cover, a little thing that guarded linen tablecloths in Germany from coffee stains through the early seventies – even then, no matter how far removed the object might be from the custom, the new technology, or the change that leads to its disappearance, that disappearance establishes a link that is deeply intimate. For instance, the Berlin-based painter Heinrich Zille noted that it was possible to murder someone with an apartment just as easily as with an axe.
So the little roll of padding and its elastic bridle are thrown away, signifying that currently Germans are prosperous enough to travel abroad again and to return with Italian brewers in their bags upon coming back. Just as all items, regardless of simplicity, contains within it the full awareness of its era, just as all that is intangible resides within a spool of darning thread, as an example: in the same way, each time an object vanishes from routine living, a greater amount vanishes than the thing itself – the way of thinking that goes with it has disappeared, and the sentiment, the perception of what’s appropriate and what is improper, what is within your means and what is unaffordable. We no longer possess repair thread today! Really, for what reason? One should not repair their tights, they should buy new ones!
Own Disappearances
Every time I travel far, I lose at least one scarf or cap, sometimes even a pair of sunglasses or a watch. I’ve furthermore forgotten several items when moving house: some trim from an old rustic wardrobe, a few blinds, and once I even lost the typewriter I employed to compose my first works. Although the hotel rooms I departed were modest, and the apartments I moved out of were obviously vacant, the things were still missing subsequently; for some reason, at some location, they had vanished in the limbo during the transition, it was so common that I began to expect it during the packing of my bag or my crates, as if it were a forfeit, a cost I needed to bear for the change in my circumstances, and from that perspective, despite all the randomness, it was nonetheless fitting. Nevertheless, during my regular existence, the amount of objects in my vicinity never decreased, but instead grew, the heaps expanded, the folders thicker, I could imagine that a fire would break out and I would tuck my diaries, letters, and memory albums close to me and escape of the residence, but luckily no fire broke out.
An Outsider’s View
A short while back, an immigrant came to visit me. She relocated to Germany twelve months prior accompanied by four kids. How nice to have a piano! she remarks as she comes into my home. Such lovely books! Moving along, she gestures toward a few of my son’s drawings affixed to the surface and states: Lovely! She continues: How nice to possess such things. Initially, I am confused by her point; given that she is a mother of four. Oh, she says and grins, you can’t take it all with you. Of course, I respond. So, she says, still smiling, we made a big bonfire, the family circled it, then we took page after page in our possession, we looked at everything again and recollected the artist behind each piece, how old he or she was, we enjoyed it together a last occasion, and then we incinerated everything. It made a wonderful blaze, we were singing. I don’t say anything now. One cannot bring all items, she echoes and notes happily: We exited with four offspring and two sizable cases. That summed up our belongings.
Everyday Tasks
“In dreary moments frequently, O glorious art, / When life ensnares me in {its circle wild|
