In 1920, German playwright Bertolt Brecht arrived in “cold Chicago”—his nickname for Berlin—where he first met young Austrian playwright Arnolt Bronnen. When Brecht was tapped to direct Bronnen’s “black Expressionist” play Vatermord, the cast revolted, forcing screenwriter Berthold Viertel to take over his duties. Despite this, Brecht and Bronnen, two members of the “Junge Bühne” (Young Theatre) movement, maintained their exchange of “ebullient doggerel verse” until Bronnen’s Nationalist sympathies drove the two apart.
September 1922
Dear Arnolt,
What is a murderer’s conscience compared to the stinking dung pit in the back of my head?
But I only received your telegram yesterday.
But today Neher has turned up with a kiss on the hands for you.
I’ve rewritten Drums and spoken with Marianne.
That’s all.
But of course I need the flat, and it’s got to be warm.
The fifteenth will be all right though. I’ll probably arrive sooner, but I can camp somewhere until then.
Just throw those Servaes bedbugs out of those rooms bodily. Raze them to the ground, besiege them, spit in their coffee, shut off their heating, bore holes in their shoes, provoke them, spit at them.
If Biti is cold, Biti will go home to Dad.
Call Dr. Feilchenfeldt at Cassirer Verlag and ask him if he knows of a flat.
In the meantime, I’ve been pestering everybody to find us lodgings in Munich for January February.
I don’t know what has stopped you from looking for a flat.
True, I find here a letter to you, unposted. But even so.
As for the bedbugs, nail a bloater under their table, a roe-herring, then they’ll stink like the plague and get evicted like lepers. Be good to Cas and show him cold Chicago.
Rub him with snow if he’s cold and in the evening if he discovers wounds, sprinkle salt on them.
So as to make his nose learn to smell even though it’s pounded flat and teach him to restore it from memory.
In short, initiate him with piss into the secrets of cold Chicago and wipe his little arse with a grater.
To make him sit up and take notice.
But grant me absolution because you are a sinner.
And how is Gerda, my big sister?
Put pepper in her whiskies lest the theatre die out. Amen.
As for the bedbugs, shame them with kindness and screw them with guile, to make them go away like tape worms.
And take my blessing for all this, my son, O thou cynosure, navel of bliss, smoked meat.
Yours,
B
Augsburg
From Bertolt Brecht: Letters. Edited by John Willett. New York: Routledge, 1990. Print.
FURTHER READING
Watch the opening of Berthold Viertel’s film Little Friend, written by Christopher Isherwood.
Read Brecht’s poem Of Poor B.B.
Listen to Duke Special’s rendition of Yvette’s song from the 2009 revival of Brecht’s Mother Courage.