The Beggar’s Diary, 04.08.07 - Filch walks to the center and feels the burning sun on his skin. He notices that everyone else is walking at his pace, like people who are not going anywhere in particular, but simply enjoying the moment of walking. He remembers the conversation he had with a man about an umbrella and Einstein's relativity theory, and thinks: "If everybody walked REALLY slowly, then everything would become bigger".
He’s still pondering the question while he drinks his coffee. Filch is in a pensive mood.
At the Landesmuseum he cannot find his 06-badge. So much the better, he thinks. It is a sign from heaven. I will stay incognito and observe the people of Muenster.
“If anyone asks you, just say Filch is not here.” –he suggests to the ladies at the info point.
He even decides that if anyone should ask him directly, he’ll deny being Filch.
He sets out for the Spiekerhof. When he goes to the toilet in the Kippenkerl, a waiter calls out to him. "We missed you. You should be there”, he points to the spot, “at 9am”.
Filch, flabbergasted, betrays himself saying: "No, at 11am ...".
He goes out again, furious with himself and with the world. His plan to remain incognito is lost, and people think they have the right to tell him what to do! As if he were a civil servant!
To make things worse, he overhears the waiter telling a customer: “Yeah, he is, you know, ‘Skulptur No. 06’”. Filch feels the disdain in his voice, as if Filch, No. 06, was a passé city attraction, a has been. A nuisance now, in any case.
He takes some chalk and writes 06 on the wall.
Right at that moment a man starts playing the accordion, and, as if Filch had planned it, the man has the 06 sign directly behind him. Will people think he is The Beggar? That would be great. Freedom now sweet! Someone else can be Filch and fulfill the fantasies of middle-class strollers.
But the man quickly moves towards his audience and collects a considerable sum of money.
Filch decides to sit down and give up his incognito life and, just then, a nice lady sits next to him.
She introduces herself as “Alina” (But of course, she bought one of Filch's drawings.)*
Please read further, and you'll know how Alina saved Filch's day.
He explains to her that he needs "Sonnenschutz" (sun block).
- "Schutz" is THE important word in Germany” -she says with regret.
She talks about how Angst (fear) caused everyone here to take out insurance policies (“To insure themselves against fear?”, Filch wonders).
She was like that too, she confesses, but she woke up. She realized that life can be different.
And Filch and Alina just talk and talk. She’s just what he needs in this pensive mood of his.
She says age is tricky, because people force you into being old, "acting your age", but you are as old as you like.
She asks about freedom and Filch says that freedom is a state of mind. She agrees.
And then she utters the sentence which will help Filch the most:
"The place where you are is always the right place."
What that means to her—a Polish girl who moved to Germany a long time ago—is different than what it means to Filch, but being at the Spiekerhof made him meet Alina. And he realizes that any place is a good place to be.
The day can begin. First he needs sun block. He tries to exchange an umbrella for "Sonnenschutz”, but a smug woman tells him he can simply use the umbrella, "it will protect you". As if Filch didn't know that! He just doesn't want to look silly.
The woman's husband gives Filch the sun block. He understands.
It will be a day of strange encounters. He doesn't want to beg for money, not after Alina’s words.
He will just let serendipity take over.
He sees the legendary musician Onkel Willi and how children put money in his box. They love him.
At the market on the Hammer Strasse he meets a man who introduces himself by saying that he was born in 1759 and he died in 1844: Johann Nepomuk Von Schwerz. Quite interesting. Filch feels related to him, since he sees himself as having been born on the June 16, and as scheduled to die on September 30. But Filch doesn't know yet what death will mean to him. Will he vanish into silence? Or will he give an "I am going to be dead" party?
Anyway, the man writes down Filch's name in some ancient script, and Filch asks him to write down Alina's name too, as a future gift.
While writing, Johann explains he was sent by a certain Prussian king or prince (Filch forgot the correct title or name, but I think it must have been King Frederick William III) to Muenster in 1816, to document the city and its citizens. Filch feels he has met a kindred spirit, a pioneer. Another replicant** like him. But this man is not a beggar. That’s clear from the way he's dressed. You could call him an aristocrat.
Times are different now, and aristocrats are no longer in fashion. Today, it is beggars who swing.
Filch The Beggar's Swing/ after Otis Redding
Sittin’ in the morning sun,
I`ll be sittin' when the evening comes,
Watching the ships roll in,
And I'll watch 'em roll away again, yeah,
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay,
Watching the tide roll away, ouh,
I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay,
Wasting time.
I left my home in Georgia,
Headed for the Frisco bay
’Cause I had nothing to live for,
And look like nothing's gonna come my way,
So I'm just sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away,
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay,
Wasting time
Look like nothing’s gonna change,
Everything still remains the same,
I can't do what ten people tell me to do,
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes,
Sittin' here resting my bones,
And this loneliness won't leave me alone, yes,
It’s two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home
Now I'm just sitting on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away, ooh
Sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wasting time.
* please see: http://beta.thebeggarsopera.org/node/83
** please see: http://beta.thebeggarsopera.org/node/92
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