architectural terms. Either they were as large and labyrinthine as a courthouse, or the architect had taken the metaphor of illness literally and applied it to the roof structure, or they were intimidating in the way the doors sprang open of their own accord, or they were, like this building here, hidden in the woods. All the other clinics could be reached by climbing a few steps from the final stop of tram line 7; from that point on everything was logical, even the signs made sense. Not so the psychiatric clinic. You had to walk down a dark and accursed path through the woods, and you then came upon a building in which you could not for the life of you imagine mentally ill people getting better. The view from the window every evening alone! All night long the trees talked about you with rustling gestures and read your thoughts.
At least here, just next to the parking lot, a beautiful, quiet tree grew, which seemed not to belong to the small patch of woods. Like an opera singer in front of the chorus it stood there, in the endlessly complex contortion that makes up a tree. Why did trees look like that anyway? They grew according to a simple principle, after all, straight line, divide, two straight lines, divide, four straight lines, and so on, where did those crazy angles come from? Possibly water veins, magnetic fields, or sunlight played a role. Or maybe, thought Robert, a tree was just terribly sentimental. Recently he had with some abhorrence looked at the famous picture by the photographer David Perlmann in an art magazine showing a tree in Pennsylvania that had, as it were, embraced a white single-family house from the side with its branches. First the branches had grown through the perpetually open kitchen window, then they had leaned up against the houseâs south wall, finally it had been the roofâs turn. Within thirty years, in which a married couple had grown old in the house and hadnât bothered with anything that happened outside, the tree had merged with the house. The family that lived in it now had the burdensome tree, a danger to the stability of the roof, which had been built with very light materials, photographed before having it removed. There had, as the magazine reported, even been a sort of competition. David Perlmannâs picture had won first prize, because the tree looked so sure of itself in it. And maybe that was the problem, thought Robert. A tree always wanted to embrace everything. It stands in the same spot for a hundred years and is overwhelmed every day by its affection for a few ducks in a pond, an intertwined couple on a park bench, a delightful, colorfully overflowing garbage can, or a mysteriously curved park lamp. When one of the creatures or things attracts its attention and the desire to embrace it becomes irresistible, the tree beginsâslowly, of course, terribly slowlyâto grow in its direction and to stretch out its branches toward it like arms. Itâs like in those well-known speed dreams, in which you canât move precisely when youâre desperate to. If you give up, however, you sometimes even fly awayâinto the sky, always in the wrong direction. And the tree, as a result of its many minimal daily, hourly changes of direction in its growth over the years, has turned into a bizarrely distorted form.
Stupid tree.
And stupid clinic. One morning in it, and he was thinking completely retarded nonsense. Stupid tree, suck a Frisbee, motherfucker! To bring himself back down to earth, Robert recited a few forbidden, radioactive words: filthy cunt , Jewish pig , degenerate , nigger . Then he stood up.
No, these long hours with Cordula did him no good. He constantly had strange thoughts, as if they were being put in his head by a different, older brain, he felt remote-controlled. No wonder. And his clothing was always soaked in sweat, even though it was only seventy-two degrees. As after a sweat bath in the wretched yard at Helianau. The disgusting
At least here, just next to the parking lot, a beautiful, quiet tree grew, which seemed not to belong to the small patch of woods. Like an opera singer in front of the chorus it stood there, in the endlessly complex contortion that makes up a tree. Why did trees look like that anyway? They grew according to a simple principle, after all, straight line, divide, two straight lines, divide, four straight lines, and so on, where did those crazy angles come from? Possibly water veins, magnetic fields, or sunlight played a role. Or maybe, thought Robert, a tree was just terribly sentimental. Recently he had with some abhorrence looked at the famous picture by the photographer David Perlmann in an art magazine showing a tree in Pennsylvania that had, as it were, embraced a white single-family house from the side with its branches. First the branches had grown through the perpetually open kitchen window, then they had leaned up against the houseâs south wall, finally it had been the roofâs turn. Within thirty years, in which a married couple had grown old in the house and hadnât bothered with anything that happened outside, the tree had merged with the house. The family that lived in it now had the burdensome tree, a danger to the stability of the roof, which had been built with very light materials, photographed before having it removed. There had, as the magazine reported, even been a sort of competition. David Perlmannâs picture had won first prize, because the tree looked so sure of itself in it. And maybe that was the problem, thought Robert. A tree always wanted to embrace everything. It stands in the same spot for a hundred years and is overwhelmed every day by its affection for a few ducks in a pond, an intertwined couple on a park bench, a delightful, colorfully overflowing garbage can, or a mysteriously curved park lamp. When one of the creatures or things attracts its attention and the desire to embrace it becomes irresistible, the tree beginsâslowly, of course, terribly slowlyâto grow in its direction and to stretch out its branches toward it like arms. Itâs like in those well-known speed dreams, in which you canât move precisely when youâre desperate to. If you give up, however, you sometimes even fly awayâinto the sky, always in the wrong direction. And the tree, as a result of its many minimal daily, hourly changes of direction in its growth over the years, has turned into a bizarrely distorted form.
Stupid tree.
And stupid clinic. One morning in it, and he was thinking completely retarded nonsense. Stupid tree, suck a Frisbee, motherfucker! To bring himself back down to earth, Robert recited a few forbidden, radioactive words: filthy cunt , Jewish pig , degenerate , nigger . Then he stood up.
No, these long hours with Cordula did him no good. He constantly had strange thoughts, as if they were being put in his head by a different, older brain, he felt remote-controlled. No wonder. And his clothing was always soaked in sweat, even though it was only seventy-two degrees. As after a sweat bath in the wretched yard at Helianau. The disgusting
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