Gilgi Read Online Free PDF

pigeon / Get into our kitchen … this year’s hits by Willi Ostermann blare forth from a window somewhere. Gilgi walks along Cathedral Street, past Central Station—Saturday night—they’re dawdling and teeming, rushing and chasing, she crosses Cathedral Square, has to hold on to her hat to stop it being blown away. Thank God, now she’s outside the Savoy Hotel, it’s less windy here. She smooths her trench coat and her hair, adjusts her little beret so that it sits properly again. Turns into Hohestrasse—people, people—they push their way along the narrow sidewalks, you can only make your way slowly. Obey the road rules! Walk on the right! You get quite jumpy when you’re used to taking long, brisk strides. A few morose hookers are standing in a side passage, they look well-behaved, earnest and annoyed, if they weren’t wearing make-up and using belladonna you could take them for unemployed telephone operators. Gilgi walks through Schilderstrasse. “Flowers—Flowers!” A little girl is standing at the corner, half-frozen. “Gimme a bunch.” Yellow mimosa, who should she give them to? She’ll take them to her mother, she might be pleased.
    In Thieboldstrasse it’s dirty and dark. It takes Gilgi a while to find the number on the right building. The lobby stinks of rotten fish and yesterday’s laundry. Gilgi climbsone staircase, another, the building is alive: somewhere a woman is screeching, a child is crying, a man is cursing. There’s a
Cologne Advertiser
lying on a doormat: … And we’ll still hold the time-honored official stag party, even if the whole Carnival disappears up its own … The spoilsports are just bashing their heads against Cologne’s sense of fun and tradition … Oh, the golden Rhineland humor! “The asshole’s boozed away all his unemploymen’ money again,” a woman yells. The building is alive, the building is breathing. Gilgi’s legs feel heavy. Why did she come here, what does she want here? Phew, she can’t breathe. No turning back. She sees a greasy little notice: Fräulein Margarethe Täschler, ladies’ dressmaker, ring twice. Gilgi rings. She hears a drag—drag—drag getting closer—what a stink there is in this building, I feel sick—tap—tap—tap—I’ve still got time to …
    “Who’s there?” Why don’t they open up?
    “Is someone there?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who?”
    “Me.”
    “Who you wanna see?”
    “Fräulein Täschler.”
    A safety chain rattles, the door opens: “Come in, Frollein, you gotta be real careful here, ’cos of the burglars. Jus’ the day before yesterday they attacked the poor woman nex’ door, people’re so bad now’days, come on in, Frollein.” Is this her, is this her, is this her? Gilgi clutches the bunch of mimosa to her chest. She doesn’t feel like letting her heart beat wildly, she doesn’t feel like getting excited. It’s a room with a grubby bed, a gas stove opposite, with a few cold fried potatoes sticking to a pan. Next to the windowthere’s a black tailor’s dummy, a lady without internal organs. “That’s how we live, that’s how we live / That’s how we live every day …”
    “Take a seat, Frollein.” The woman sweeps a few dirty underthings from the chair. A classy girl! If she’s come here for a dress—why else would she come here?
    Fräulein Margarethe Täschler, ladies’ dressmaker, ring twice—you have to look at her, Gilgi—you’ve come here to look at her. Take your eyes off the lady without internal organs, the old girl is standing in the corner chirping at the stove, behind which a mangy cat is lying. Misss, misss, misss—and she beckons with a horribly crooked finger, like the witch in “Hansel and Gretel.” Misss, misss, misss—does the Frollein want to have a dress made? Misss, misss, misss. Everyone likes to make a good impression, now and then. One slips on a silk dressing gown, while the other entices a cat out of its hiding place. Misss, misss, misss—this is her,