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matter how unthinkable it was for them having or wanting
to take care of a child, there was always someone to keep an
eye on me.
Max was most often at home. He had founded the
commune three years earlier when he moved from
Rosenheim to Munich, where he studied at the Art
Academy. Skinny and chain-smoking, he sat for hours and
hours at his drawing table. He was a comic book artist, a
genius in typography, a chronicler of stories that bloomed
from his small town loneliness. With only a ruler, a pencil
and an ink pen, he managed to perfect an art, which, in
Germany, was yet to have a name: the graphic novel. When
Max was working in his room, I crawled on to his futon and
pressed my head into the pillow, thinking I was hiding.
When I was older, I lay on the floor and, tongue stuck out,
scribbled on the back of the sheets of paper that he gave
me. Later, when I’d learned how to submit hand to will, he
gave me discarded drawings from a stash he kept in a
drawer for me to colour in. We spent many days together
like this, sharing his pencils and our silence, which was
broken now and then by the rustling of the bag of prunes,
the sound of his lighter clicking into flame and Max’s
occasional inquiries as to whether everything was all right.
“Hungry, Lulu?”
“Thirsty?”