The Beggar’s Diary, 29.08.2007. - Filch is reading at the Spiekerhof when an old man and woman stop to inspect the clothes displayed on the shop window. The new collection is up, yes, and they won’t be the last ones stopping by. They completely ignore him. Being completely absorbed in their contemplation of cutting-edge fashion, the man doesn’t notice Filch’s cup and he knocks it over with his foot, sending Filch’s coins rolling all over the place and the 2 Euro piece into the shop’s ventilation pit. Although this may sound to the reader like a banal incident, for Filch it is actually a major catastrophe. The man and Filch look at each other, surprised. Filch stutters: “zwei Euro.” The man replies quickly, as if it were all Filch’s fault: ‘Wer setzt jetzt ein Cup auf dem Fussbodem.’’ And before Filch has time to answer, the man and woman take off, in flight. Filch, eventually, manages to get the 2 Euro piece out.
Next he meets a couple from Tijuana, Mexico: Giacomo and Lucia. They have a lot of questions for Filch, and their questions intrigue him. Their first is whether all cities in Europe have such highly regulated public spaces. There are signs everywhere, they marvel, telling you where you can, and cannot, ride your bike, where you are, and are not, safe on foot. They tell him they’ve even been stopped by the police because they didn’t understand the no-bicycle sign. “Yes,” thinks Filch, “and you should count yourselves lucky you didn’t have to pay a 90 Euro fine.”
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“Yes, I believe most German cities are like this,” he tells them.
Overregulated public space. They go on with their questions: “Are there any poor people in this city?” “There must be,” says Filch, “but I don’t really know them.” He explains that he’s a fictional character with no pretensions to being real. In other words, he cannot give them any valuable information about poverty in Muenster.
On the first floor of the shop, a lady is watering the flowers. The water drips down, right on Filch’s spot. Giacomo laughs, because it really looks as if the gesture was intended to chase him away. “Must be a coincidence,” thinks Filch. Lucia says that in Tijuana, some buildings have sprinkler systems that come on at night precisely to chase away homeless people. No beggar wants to sleep in the rain.
Filch is now heading to Dominique Gonzales-Foerster’s sculpture. There’s where he’s supposed to meet the Bundespresident. He chooses the small version of the Claes Oldenburg balls to sit and wait. When Herr Köhler and his entourage arrive on bikes, Filch notices a whole group of photographers already positioned behind him. The people of the Landesmuseum ask them to keep their distance from The Beggar. Filch, after all, has been very clear about this: he wants to have a private conversation with the President. But just as Kasper König seems to be giving some sort of introduction of sculpture 06, the press again crowds around him. The President just looks with a puzzled face at Filch.
The Beggar smiles, to ease the situation. Herr Köhler smiles back. They shake hands and Filch invites The President to sit down next to him. Filch explains to The President that he has asked for a “private conversation” because he has a message to give to him. Filch wrote, on the palm of his hands, two different sentences, and the Bundespresident can choose one of them. He chooses the left one. Filch reads.
What follows is an animated conversation between the President and the Beggar (yes, this could be a reenactment of the historic conversation between Diogenes and Alexander the Great ...), and they sure look like they get along.
But The Beggar will never tell what they talked about, nor will The President, he is sure of it. It was a message for the President’s ears only. Not even this, Filch’s blog, can be privy to what was said.
Filch offers The President one of his pins as a token of this meeting, and he pins it on his shirt. Again they shake hands.
As soon as the entourage leaves, the press rushes, like vultures, to ask The Beggar what was the subject of the conversation. But this will forever stay between the Bundespresident and Filch.
He leaves the scene and goes to have a coffee at the Gasolin.
No one will discuss anything else than his meeting with the Bundespresident. Filch seems to have been typecast. “I am under the shade of our meeting?”* thinks Filch.
* This is a reference to Alexander the Great who cast a shadow on Diogenes’ barrel.
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