Vanishing Rug Hangers
Rug hangers faded from back courtyards as soon as fitted carpets and hoovers became common – during the period that oriental rugs had been destroyed by bombs, when there was no cash to buy replacements, when the individuals who once carried coiled floor coverings down the steps for cleaning had been killed in the war.
The tiny store where I often carried my pantyhose to get them fixed after they snagged – a place called “Ladder Quick” – closed down when the Wall fell and Western retailers started marketing inexpensive hosiery in the East.
The drip catchers that adorned the openings of big percolators that were commonly placed on kitchen counters at family gatherings in Germany – these little devices disappeared when the offspring raised in the postwar period finally rebelled against their forebears and ceased organizing large gatherings, preferring to travel to Italy and return with Italian coffee machines from there.
Items fade away if they lack their sustenance, as though they have a hunger that must be satisfied.
Objects vanish once they lose their reason for being, like they also possess an appetite that must be satisfied. And although the cause for them fading out is very remote from the things themselves – as distant, for example, as the crimes of Germany’s wartime army are from the nation’s brew, which is always far too weak, contained in specialized containers it often leaked before being contained by the spout guard, a tiny roll of sponge on a rubber loop decorated with a doll perched atop the coffee pot cover, a little thing that shielded white tablecloths in Germany from coffee stains up until the seventies – nonetheless, however unrelated the item might be from the tradition, the innovation, or the revolution that causes it to vanish, that disappearance creates a bond that is deeply intimate. As an illustration, the Berlin painter Heinrich Zille remarked that it was possible to murder someone with an apartment just as easily as with an axe.
So the little roll of foam rubber and its elastic bridle get discarded, signifying that today Germans are prosperous enough to afford vacations in Italy anew and to carry home coffee machines in their suitcases after their trips. In the same way that all items, no matter how simple, embodies all the knowledge of its period, just as all that is intangible resides within a spool of darning thread, for example: likewise, each time an object vanishes from everyday life, far more is lost than the item in question – the thought process that goes with it is gone, and the sentiment, the sense of what fits and what is improper, what is within your means and what’s beyond your means. We don’t have darning thread any more! Really, why? People shouldn’t darn their tights, they must acquire fresh pairs!
Individual Vanishing
Whenever I go on a journey, I misplace a minimum of one scarf or cap, at times even eyewear or a timepiece. I’ve additionally misplaced a number of things while changing residences: some trim from an old rustic wardrobe, several shutters, and once I also misplaced the writer’s tool I relied on for my first works. While the accommodations I left were modest, and the flats I moved out of were undoubtedly bare, the things were lost nonetheless afterward; somehow, somewhere, they had faded in the no man’s land from leaving to arriving, it happened so regularly that I came to foresee it during the packing of my bag or my containers, as though it constituted a sacrifice, a cost I needed to bear for the alteration in my situation, and from that perspective, notwithstanding the unpredictability, it was nonetheless fitting. Yet, during my daily routine, the number of things in my vicinity failed to reduce, but in fact multiplied, the heaps expanded, the binders bulkier, I might picture that a fire would break out and I would stow my journals, correspondence, and memory albums under my arm and run out of the house, but thankfully no fire broke out.
A Visitor’s Perspective
Not long ago, an immigrant stopped by. She relocated to Germany a year ago with four children. What a beautiful piano! she remarks as she comes into my home. Books, how lovely! Walking a bit farther, she points to several sketches from my child affixed to the surface and states: Lovely! She continues: It’s wonderful to own items like these. At first, I fail to grasp her point; given that she is a mother of four. Oh, she responds and smiles, one cannot bring all possessions. Naturally, I reply. Then, she adds, with a smile, we created a significant blaze, the family circled it, after that we took page after page in our possession, we examined all once more and recalled who drew this or that, their age at the time, we enjoyed it together a last occasion, and then we incinerated everything. It was a lovely bonfire, we were singing. I stay quiet then. One cannot bring all items, she restates and says with a smile: We exited with four offspring and two sizable cases. That was all.
Daily Demands
“How often in grey hours, O splendid craft, / When life ensnares me in {its circle wild|
