My tongue makes no bones about love letters, I can show you a hundred if you want to read one. When it comes to poetry I would just like to read a few pages of a poem, preferably by Goethe. What do you think of my proposal to read a little Goethe? We can discuss the matter. If you don't mind I would rather we read Goethe together than a love letter, even though he has written love letters. What do you think of love letters? Have you read them? Goethe and Nietzsche were among his preferred authors, and as far as I remember, he didn't keep a bookcase in the flat. If it is okay with you I would like to read _Faust_ or some other Goethe text before the Goethe and Nietzsche. He always has a poem in his pocket, I have read one of his poems out loud a hundred times or more, although I wasn't asked to write down the text, and he always answers, 'Why so much talking for writing? If you have something to say write a letter! Not everyone can speak off the cuff. We should write more often, so to speak, and should only speak if absolutely necessary.' And now he hands me his leather case. He says, 'This is the beginning of _Faust_. Goethe wrote, "In every man's soul, there sleeps a love".' ### Monday, 14 April At around eight in the morning I wake up in the flat and see my wife next to me, wearing a dressing gown that is clearly mine. Then I remember that we were just separated the day before, and that I didn't go back last night. I can hear from my bedroom that she is doing the laundry. She asks if I am awake and I answer 'no'. No? She says in a loud voice: 'Why don't you get a job, why don't you find a home, why aren't you washing yourself and your clothes as you should, and why don't you find something else besides me, apart from that you'd like to be a poet? Why don't you do something useful?' I sit up in my bed. I ask if she wants to talk about it and what exactly she means. She says no, no need to discuss it, I am the one who is responsible for what happens in the apartment, and it makes me tired. I ask her to stop talking like that and put a sock on my foot, and maybe she can give me my suit. I know what's going on, I can't do anything, and her answer is 'No'. ### Tuesday, 15 April It is difficult for me to describe the feeling of knowing that I have slept with my ex-wife. I say to her that I think she looks very nice, and that I think she looks too thin, and I ask her what she wants me to say. She says 'don't talk to me, I don't know why you are here in this apartment', which I can tell from her attitude. She is also talking with me on the phone and is making a show of it. When I ask her to stop doing that, she says she has no intention of stopping, she doesn't know how this conversation began but we aren't even on the right track. My heart is pounding. She says that I am lying because I think I am so damn cute and that I am using her. I say I don't think I am cute or anything else, but it is hard to find a word when she goes on talking in this way. I ask her again what she wants me to say, but she says, 'I have had a terrible day. And now you are in my apartment with your hands on me. What are you doing?' I ask her if she wants me to leave her apartment now and she answers, 'No. I want you to leave.' I say I will leave when she leaves the room, and I will leave the door open, and I'll put a sock in my mouth if I continue to say anything. She says I can call her by her first name, she doesn't have to call me 'you'. When she gets very angry and says she doesn't want to talk, I say I am tired of it and I want to leave. ### Wednesday, 16 April This morning at around nine o'clock in the morning a woman rings and asks if 'Sabina' is home and what room number. I explain that Sabina has left the apartment in the night and that there is no Sabina here. She rings again. She says that her name is Hannelore. I say, 'I don't want to talk to you, there is no Sabina here. I don't know you or her. Please put your phone down. I am in the middle of something.' She calls the police. They ask me if I am Sabina and if Sabina would have anything to do with illegal money. I say no, we have no money. I say that I was just thinking about writing a poem and that was all, no more, and then they call me Sabina and tell me to leave the apartment. I tell them that my girlfriend went to bed in the night, and she said I was with her, and I don't know what is happening, because someone has dialled the wrong number. They answer: 'Your girlfriend isn't home either.' I hang up and run out the door, taking the phone with me. I put the phone on the wall on the staircase and drop it down the stairs. ### Thursday, 17 April Sabine is gone. I'm sitting here in the corner of the flat, I am not sleeping alone, but I don't care, my heart is broken. I try to write and it's not working, everything comes out clichéd and artificial. I don't have anything. The woman says something in an unfamiliar language and I realise it's the woman from the police station, who is coming here. She doesn't know what she wants from me, she said Sabina doesn't want to talk to me, and if she doesn't want to talk to me then she doesn't want to talk to me, I tell her, I don't have any money, I don't know her, I don't know who she is and what she wants. She says I must have known her and taken her money. She says I mustn't run away and make her call the police again. I say I don't know you, you've made a mistake and a big mistake at that. I go to the phone and dial the police station and say I have been abused by a woman who is very mean, and that I didn't do anything, and that I didn't have any money. She was sitting in a grey chair. Her hair was all grey, and all of her left side was grey, her left shoulder was grey, and her left eye was also grey. She told me to go to bed with my clothes on and that if I don't leave her apartment by half past four I will be locked up. She said I could ask people in the neighbourhood about her. ### Friday, 18 April The phone rings. It is Kiki again. She doesn't seem to understand what I'm saying. I ask her to stop the call and call again. She doesn't call. Sabine is gone. She has taken her bag and her telephone and left her keys and the money on the table. I sleep with Hannelore. I don't know what is happening to me. I am a sad idiot and I can't get a word out of the woman. ### Sunday, 20 April There is someone at the door, probably the next tenant. She asks if everything is alright, is she doing okay. I say she is doing fine. She says, 'May I?' She is German, she is looking at me, I'm afraid of her, I don't know why she is afraid of me. She says that she has a son. She asks if we would like to have children. She asks how we got in. She says that Sabina is an old friend of hers, and I can call her if I have any problems. I tell her not to talk to me and that she should leave my apartment right now. I am sitting in the dark and crying. She asks me what is wrong, why am I crying, and she sits on the couch. She says that she feels awkward, sitting in my apartment. I say I have no friends here and the police are coming. I say I don't know why she has to go, she is sitting here and I say she can't sit here and I will have to leave the apartment. She says she would like to sit here for a little while and that we can talk. She says that she knows I am sad, and that she has four children, that she has been widowed for three years, and that I look sad too. She says her friend, Sabina, has been gone for three months and she knows this isn't the first time. She says that she has always been able to take care of herself. She asks me if I have a son, and I say yes.