Hereafter: We Were Sitting On the Cloud, Dangling Our Legs

by Kurt Tucholsky, William Grimes (Preface by)

Overview

What happens after you die? Where will you be? What will you do? Do you have a harp? Will you meet Him? Were you happy with your life? And will you get a second chance to return to earth? In this charming book, Kurt Tucholsky discovers the afterlife and what angels are talking about when they are sitting on the clouds and dangle their legs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935902898
Publisher:	Berlinica Publishing LLC
Publication date:	12/01/2018
Series:	Kurt Tucholsky in Translation
Edition description:	None
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

The famed humorist, poet, storyteller, satirist, and journalist Kurt Tucholsky, born 1890 in Berlin to German Jewish parents, sketched these light-hearted musings about the afterlife between 1925 and 1928 for Die Weltbühne (The World Stage). Die Weltbühne was the magazine he was mainly working for at that time, it was the voice of the political Left in Weimar Germany. Tucholsky wrote this collection under the pen name Kaspar Hauser, one of his four pseudonyms. The stories have appeared in Germany as a book only well after World War II. They were never been translated and published in the United States until now.

William Grimes was an editor and reporter at the New York Times for more than twenty-five years. He covered the arts, served as restaurant critic, and, most recently, wrote obituaries.He is the author of Straight Up or On the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail and Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

"But Then It Wouldn't Have Been So Nice"

We were rocking on the waves — big ones and little ones nudged us gently, sent our way by the cosmic control station, reaching us in the men's bathing area in the hereafter. Muffled squeals came from the family changing huts.

"What's made the worst impression on you here so far?" he asked.

"That first day in the reception area," I said. "That was awful. I don't even like thinking about it. Simply awful."

"Why?" he asked.

"Seventy-two years on earth," I said. "That means sixty-nine years of lying, hiding and feigning feelings, grinning instead of biting, scolding those we really meant to love ... Sometimes it occurs to us that it might be better if we didn't do those things. The cultural authorities call that 'conscience,' but it's really just that faint nagging sensation that those who have gone before us can see right through us from on high. Think about it: the whole lie revealed! If only I had known! I got to the reception area" — now it seemed like those in the family pool were really going at it — "and I wished the ground would swallow me up for shame. But there was no ground. Terrible — never in my whole life was I so ashamed, so awfully ashamed. And worst of all, they all just looked at me. No one mentioned the embarrassing things — but I knew that they all knew! I felt as small as a mouse — so pathetic. I would never lie again."

"The old man in charge of it all," he said, "should have put the ceremony in the reception area first, before our lives ... Maybe ..."

"Yeah," I said.

"But then it wouldn't have been so nice," he said.

"No," I said.

Then a big wave came, one of those long, powerful ones that sent us tumbling into each other and made us laugh.

Die Weltbühne, July 7, 1925

CHAPTER 2

"Gandhi, Polgar, and One of the Unknown Soldiers"

We were sitting on a cloud, dangling our legs. "When I was alive," I said to him, "My favorite places were a little corrupt. I loved working there. The boss already somewhat gaga, as the French say, scatterbrained, no longer entirely up to speed, maybe an alcoholic; his deputy a good-natured man without a whole lot to say. No one had a whole lot to say — the concept of a superior had gone out the window. Nor did anyone take regulations as such — they were there, but they didn't get in anyone's way. There was always something morbid about those places. They were on their way out, quietly fading away. You know — you worked, kept your nose to the grindstone, had something to do — but for all intents and purposes, you were just going through the motions of work. Did you ever see a singer pretend to vacuum the furniture on a burlesque stage? Something like that. It was awful when somebody new came in to clean up the company and declared on his very first day, 'I'm putting an end to this mess!' How long it always took for the newcomer to settle in, too! Decay is contagious — inevitably. I reached the age of seventy-two, and I can't think of any instance when it wasn't contagious. Yeah, there were lots of operetta companies like that. I found them in the military, in industry; even in the countryside. Great to work there. Very nice. Always with that quiet, nagging fear of the end, for the end would come indeed — it couldn't go on like that forever."

"Of course not," he said. "It couldn't go on like that forever. By the way, are you coming to our dear God's this afternoon?"

"Who else will be there?" I asked.

"Gandhi, Alfred Polgar, one of the unknown soldiers, and some new guy," he replied.

"I don't like the new ones," I said. "They seem so solemn. What do you think of our dear God?"

"Quite likable," he said. "He reminds me a little of what you were just talking about."

"Yep," I said.

And we went back to swinging our legs.

Die Weltbühne, August 25, 1925

CHAPTER 3

"Living. I Was Pretty Busy Just Living"

We were floating in the sky, an activity you never grow tired of, at first. There was nothing around us. At some point, a ghost rushed by, in evening attire. Maybe on his way to a spiritualist meeting.

"Did you notice it too," he asked, "that thing with seven years?"

"Yep," I replied. "You mean that it repeated every seven years, the whole lot?"

"Yeah," he said. "Every seven years. It was pretty consistent with me. You too? You were alive longer than I was. Seventy-two years ..."

"It got pretty ridiculous, over time," I said. "Every seven years. Right around six years, things would get stirred up, and I knew it was time again. My living conditions improved, I had money in my pocket — it peaked in the seventh year. Eventually the descent would follow. Happiness fizzled; things were going so well, it got boring. A trouble-free existence, with happiness defined in negatives: no jangled nerves, no head cold, no money trouble, no trouble with dames. Happiness you didn't appreciate until after the fact. Only later, when it was gone, did you realize how well things had been going. Then things got dark on the horizon, clouds rolled in, you began struggling harder and harder, until one day your life was in shambles, again. And it started all over again. Every seven years."

"I asked Him so often," he said, "what it was all supposed to mean — the endless repetition and the seven years ... He never answered."

We did not like mentioning His Name. We did not love Him. "And why seven ...?" he began again.

"It's supposedly some sort of holy number," I said. "No one really knows. Did you know that biorhythm guy, Doctor Fliess?"

"No," he replied.

"He must've turned up here a long time ago," I said. "But I never met him. He's probably calculating divine laws. But there's something to all that, with plant growth, like a period for men ... something super-academic. Ten times I played that game — nine of which I was aware. Good thing people don't get even older. Weren't you ever bored?"

"No, never," he said.

"I sure was," I said. "How'd you do it? What kept you engaged enough that you didn't get bored?" "Life," he said. "I was pretty busy just living. The question 'Why?" is just superfluous. You're not really supposed to ask."

"I was bored," I muttered softly, watching a female ghost in a low-cut gown pass by.. Quite a beautiful, spooky getup. "I did not enjoy it very much. Ten times seven years ... Why? Tell me, why?"

Die Weltbühne, September 15, 1925

CHAPTER 4

"If You Had Another Chance, What Would You Do?"

Did you learn to swim, back when you were alive?" I asked him. We were paddling through endless space, in the pale light. There was really no point in moving anyway, because there was no way to measure where we were going. No planets were to be seen — they were rolling around somewhere else in some distance.

"No," he replied. "I can't swim. I had a hernia. My body had a hernia."

"I didn't learn to swim either," I said. "I always wanted to — I started to learn it, three or four times — but it never amounted to anything. No, not swimming. English either — same with that. Did you accomplish everything you ever set out to do? Me neither. Only then, on quiet evenings, when you could finally catch your breath and all the mumbo-jumbo of the daily grind had faded away, came the hours of reflection and good intentions. Does that sound familiar to you?"

"Quite often!" he said. "Quite often, indeed!"

"Yeah, me too," I said, "On evenings like that, you resolved to do so many things. Then it became perfectly obvious that you were basically wasting your time on a bunch of nonsense of no use to anyone, least of all yourself. Those childish invitations! Those completely useless meetings, in which they harped on things you already knew, for the hundredth time, that endless preaching to the choir! That pointless rushing around in the city, on those ridiculous errands that served no purpose except to be started all over again the very next day. What effort everything took, what work, what misery! With the point of things completely forgotten, and everything going off on its own and taking control! And whenever everything around you grew unusually quiet, so quiet it rang in your ears, then you swore to yourself you'd start a new life."

"You even believed it," he said wistfully.

"You definitely believed it!" I said fervently, "You went to bed, full of those beautiful intentions, to clear out all that nonsense and really live — just for yourself. And to learn. To learn everything you'd put off, to make up for it all, to overcome all the old laziness and lack of willpower. English and swimming and everything ... Then the lawyer calls the next day, and Aunt Jenny, and the chair of the club, and it all starts over again. Then you're done for."

"Did you live the life you wanted to live?" he asked, and continued without waiting for a reply, "Of course not. You lived the life you were expected to live — without saying a word, by tacit agreement. You would have been at odds with the whole world if you hadn't — lost friends, been isolated, ended up like some ridiculous hermit. 'He's walling himself in,' they would have said. A reproach. And now it's all over. If you had another chance, what would you do?" He stopped his swimming motions and gazed at me expectantly.

"Exactly the same as before," I said, "Exactly the same."

Die Weltbühne, September 29, 1925

CHAPTER 5

"Do It Well. Savor It. It Might Be the Last Time"

He's a pedantic, a preposterous pedantic!" he said.

"Do you know how many stars ..." I said. "Our Lord God telleth their number ..."

"He telleth everything!" he ranted. "Telleth — that formal manner of speech even Liliencron couldn't stand, just as ridiculous as that whole old man. He telleth everything ... Did you ever take a look in our book of life?" "That was the biggest surprise I ever experienced — no, that I ever had," I said. "That really is the icing on the cake."

"Isn't it? Recording how often you did every little thing; it's ... insane, is what it is; it's ... it exceeds all manner of senility, ever ..."

"Blasphemy," I said. "Don't blaspheme Him, or the book won't be published. God is great."

"God is ..."

"No, no. Of course it's preposterous. Think about it: I recently spent the entire afternoon at the library, paging through my record. It's an exact account, you have to admit. Some of it, I would not have thought possible — all together, it looks different from how it did back then, when you were doing it.

"Looked for key: 393 times. Smoked cigarettes: 11,876. Cigars: 1,078. Swore: 454 times. (We're allowed to swear, which is why I'm no good at it. I'm no Englishman.) Gave to beggars: 205 times. Not many. Ate nougat — has it ever occurred to anyone to write stuff like that down ...?! Nougat: 3 times. I don't even know what nougat is. But the bookkeeper's handwriting is so neat that it must be true. By the way, the last thousand pages were written by an accounting machine. Progress."

"He counted everything," he grumbled. "He counts tasks that any decent person ..."

"... non sunt turpi a," I said. "In that regard, I saw that afternoon that I lived pretty moderately, in Baccho et in Venere ... pretty moderately indeed. I won't tell you the number, but it borders on holiness. Now I'm kind of sorry about it ... The strangest part is —"

"What?" he asked.

"The strangest part is," I said, "to think that you did this thing or that for the last time in your life. One of those times had to be the last time. One year on February fourteenth was the last time you got into a car ... And no one knows, of course. Only operas have finales. You get into a car, comfy, drive, get back out, and never know that's the last time. Because then maybe your illness sets in, your long confinement in bed ... no more cars, ever. Last time in your life you were eating sauerkraut. Last time making a phone call. Last time making love. Last time reading Goethe. Maybe even years before your death. You never know."

"But it's good, not knowing," he said, "isn't it?"

"Maybe," I said. "But every time you do something, you should think, 'Do it well. Savor it. It might be the last time.'"

"But He really is a goddamned pedantic ...!" he declared.

"Don't say His name!" I said. "He's a divine pedantic."

Die Weltbühne, October 20, 1925

CHAPTER 6

"They Never Loved Us So Much"

What were you laughing about?" I asked him. He'd been sitting there, playing with the rusted buttons on an obsolete detonator in his hand — and he suddenly started laughing. His laugh had been pretty peculiar, like a sob, one stop along the way from laughing to crying.

"What were you laughing about?" I asked him.

"I was laughing," he said, "because I was thinking about them down there. About one thing in particular. It's really stupid. Today is the anniversary of my death, you know. No, don't congratulate me ... it was nothing. To the fiftieth, my good man, to the fiftieth! Eight years ago today ... Do you know why the living aren't afraid of those who've just recently died?"

"I can hazard a guess," I said. "Because ... because we're still bound at first, not up here yet ... you know. It's as if they sense that."

"Absolutely right!" he said, playing with the button in his hand; if the device still functioned, the earth, moon, and several other fine establishments would have gone up in smoke. "Yes, that's right. We aren't immediately dispatched — they're safe from us, right after. And you know what happens with our things — afterward?"

"Of course," I said. "They make an inventory, and the heirs come running, the children, the unpaid bills ..."

"The inventory is what I was just thinking about," he said. "I mean, not the inventory itself, but how they poke around in our things. It's both strange and touching. You know what I mean?"

"Well ...," I said.

"It's like this," he said, "They empty the drawers, pick the locks on the cupboards, unpack everything and pack it back up again. And every trouser button is suddenly significant, every penknife filled with sentiment, old stamps make frowny faces and join in the mourning ..." He emitted another one of those half-sobs. "They find old envelopes with scribbled recipes and tobacco ash; quinine tablets and well preserved playbills we wanted to do something with but forgot; and now all of that stuff is crammed onto shelves — one-fourth of all human possessions consists of such nonsense. And they touch it all with trembling fingers, their tears falling all over it, and while they open and close account ledgers and sniff glass stoppers, they say, 'He kept that!' and, 'He always loved agates!'— and suddenly our essence is spread out over a thousand things, looking at them — we look at them, with a thousand eyes. Everything comes back to them, becomes alive ... they never loved us so much."

"No," I said. "They never loved us so much."

"Why is that?" he asked warily.

"You don't have to be there anymore to be loved," I said. "Not yet or not anymore: you have to want something in order to love it. While we were alive, no one cared about our legacy."

"But it isn't really a legacy," he said.

Apparently one wire was still inadvertently connected — lightening flashed from the box with a sizzle, and we bolted away, so he would not find out, the omniscient One.

Die Weltbühne, November 17, 1925

CHAPTER 7

"You Have to Believe In That Once-In-a-Lifetime Thing"

He was whistling — something he seldom did. "Feeling cheerful?" I asked.

"You've got to go there!" he said. "By all means, you really have to go there! It's absolutely magnificent. Completely magnificent!"

"What?" I asked. "Consecration of a new planet? Final fête on a lunar satellite? Masquerade ball in the Milky Way?"

He made a dismissive gesture. "Of course not!" he said. "The O showed me the world cinema! You have to go!"

I knew who the O was, but what was the world cinema? I asked him. He picked up a meteorite and sent it on its way down.

"The world cinema?" he said. "The O recorded the earth — which is nothing new. But he put the images together, stuck them together in two dimensions, reduced them, enlarged them. I'm no technical expert, so I barely understood the explanation. Something about a time-lapse ... And it can erase the people from the film, so you see only things."

"What kind of things?" I asked.

"Dresses, suits, hatpins, cabinets, books, steamboats, lanterns, paper, antennas ... whatever you want to see, you see. Assembling itself in the factories, with no people visible, understand? Putting itself together on its own, sprouting up from the ground, in workshops, in studios, painting itself, resplendent in its newness ... Then it gets used — cabinet doors open and close. Pages turn, hatpins hang in the air, pictures shine, suits stroll around, turn, sit in chairs ... how busy the things are! How they serve! How active they are! How alive! What a life!" His eyes were shining.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Hereafter"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Berlinica Publishing LLC.
Excerpted by permission of Berlinica Publishing LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Preface by William Grimes,
"But Then It Wouldn't Have Been So Nice",
"Gandhi, Polgar, and One of the Unknown Soldiers.",
"Living. I Was Pretty Busy Just Living",
"If You Had Another Chance, What Would You Do?",
"Do It Well. Savor It. It Might Be the Last Time",
"They Never Loved Us So Much",
"You Have to Believe In That Once-In-a-Lifetime Thing",
"Hot Heads, Red Faces, the Power of Hate",
"I Did Not Pass away without a Trace. Except —",
"Like an Outcast, a Child Living among Adults",
"He Gazed upward Like an Exclamation Point",
"I Am Right. He Is Wrong. But He Is Alive",
"Can't Sit on a Lamppost, Both Feet on the Ground",
"But in One Corner of My Heart, You Know ...,
"A Dress Rehearsal for a Sweetly Feeble Death",
"Even a Really Strong Man Needs The Lies",
"A Trickle of Laugh-Tears Dripped By",
"At That Moment, We Were One with the Universe",
"A Lucifer and A Harbinger of Darkness",
"You Can't Live Like That, with Truth in Your Face",