Tonight — and you had better savour that concrete detail, because it’s the last you’re going to get out of me in this post, for fear of incriminating myself — I went to a reading at an Unnamed Venue here in Berlin by a Famous Writer (FW). I was somewhat on tenterhooks because of a tenuous connection I have to said FW, which I was hoping might come out over the course of the evening: my wife, S, was at a certain Prestigious University at the same time as FW and they share a Mutual Acquaintance.
Now, my wife is away on a Buddhist retreat at the moment with no phone or email access, so I couldn’t ask her just exactly what her direct connection to FW was. I seem to remember that the last time I asked her, she said FW wouldn’t necessarily remember who she was, but she might. Or something. Anyway, I was eager for this connection to come out so that I would strike up a friendship with FW: “Why, you’re S’s husband! How the hell is she? You two simply must come round for dinner!”
The problem was how to bring this information out into the open. The obvious expedient of saying my wife was a friend of MA was not going to work, because FW is reported to not like MA very much, for reasons which S explained to me at some point but which I have now forgotten. Anyway, I clearly did not want S and myself tarred with the MA brush, not at such a fragile early stage of what was sure to be a beautiful friendship with FW.
As I sat there listening to an Obscure Journalist with an orange face asking FW stupid questions, I wondered how to broach the topic. Should I stand up in the Q&A session and ask FW how she enjoyed PU, random though that question would be? (Oh, but how we would look back on that question and laugh once we had become firm friends!) Should I just bring up the topic of MA and explain that we didn’t like him either? (But we do like him, so that would be a lie.) I consoled myself with the thought that I at least had an excuse to talk to FW after the reading: getting her to sign the two books I had bought earlier at the book table. I decided I would keep the book S had read (B1) for myself and give the other (B2) to S as a present — with dedication from FW, of course.
Then it struck me: there was my solution! The dedication would be the shibboleth. S has a very unusual name — she is possibly the only person in Europe to have it — and FW would be sure to react when she heard it, if she did in fact know S from PU. (“W-what did you say? S? Why, it can’t be — is it the same S from PU?” Or words to that effect.) Genius!
So after the reading I stood nervously in the very long book-signing line. When I finally got to the front, I handed B1 to FW. “Is it for you?” she asked. I explained it was, but that the other was for my wife (thereby cleverly laying the ground for my coup de grace), and said my first name. (I had actually already announced my name during the Q&A session when I asked a question — not about PU — but I thought I would preempt FW’s embarrassment at not being able to remember my name.)
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round to see the man who had sold me the books at the book table earlier. He pointed at a green badge on his sweater with an eager smile. The badge had my name on it. It wasn’t clear if it was his name too or why he was wearing the badge exactly. Now, this — unlike my planned S name stratagem — was not particularly amazing because I do in fact have an extremely common name. “Small world,” I said, trying to sound like Sean Connery in the James Bond movie where he says that to a henchman who has just announced that he, too, has a brother, and turned back to FW.
FW had in the meantime moved on to B2. Here was the crunch moment: “What’s your wife’s name?” Mouth dry, I told her S’s name, spelling it out for her just to make things completely clear.
No reaction. She continued writing the dedication.
“That’s a pretty name,” she said, in a voice which sounded — could it be? Was she wondering, where have I heard that name before? — thoughtful. “Is it German?”
“Actually it’s Non-European Nationality,” I was forced to admit. And then I knew: our incipient friendship was doomed. Not only did she not know S, but I had embarrassed her by pointing out that she had said S’s NEN name was “pretty,” which you are not supposed to do because that’s practically racist.
Oh well. Her husband is giving a reading next week — maybe I’ll try to make friends with him. He’s F too.
