41. Marzahn, Mon Amour | Katja Oskamp
I came across this wonderful memoir in my new local bookshop in Brighton. Originally published in German in 2007, this is Katja’s first book to be translated into English.
This book has the most unlikely of plots, a chiropodist in East Berlin. In her mid-forties, Oskamp decided to take a break from her career as a writer and retrain as a chiropodist. We learn about Marzahn, which is the district of high-rise Communist-era prefab flats in East Berlin, and her interactions at the feet of its aging inhabitants.
Each chapter is a hilarious and tender observation of her clients and co-workers as she listens to each of their stories with empathy and curiosity.
One of my favourite stories is about Frau Blumeier, who lives in the tower block above the salon.
“It’s a Wednesday at the beginning of March, just before four o’clock. Frau Blumeier is already giggling as she crosses the salon’s threshold. As usual, I’m not allowed to help her out of her wheelchair into the chiropody chair. I take the children’s slippers off her feet. We’re chatting and joking. As I’m trimming her tiny toenails, Frau Blumeier blurts out, ‘Something so embarrassing happened the other day!’
I look up from her toes, and their soft skin, which I must take care not to harm.
While they were having sex, the bed collapsed, and she and Lutz were left scrabbling around on the floor, trying to fiddle the slats back into the frame. The next day, the man who lived in the apartment under hers got in the lift with a stupid grin on his face and said, ‘You have a blast at yours at night, don’t you?’ Frau Blumeier was so embarrassed she could have crawled under a rock. She loves living in Marzahn, but it’s outrageous that everyone in the apartment block can hear everything. And the worst thing is that every time she bumps into that man, he’ll have that stupid grin on his face - he’ll never get over it.
‘Frau Blumeier,’ I say, ‘he’s jealous.’
‘That’s just what I was going to say!’ says Frau Blumeier.”
This is a beautifully written, completely life-affirming book that is really about the joy that exists in the normal mundane human transactions that make up everyday life for so many of us.