Andreas Montague finds “happy people” in Prenzlauer Berg and Weisens

Linda and Paul live in Prenzlauer Berg. When they walk, the tourists run in front of their carriages: “Where was it again, the wall?” After the couple gave their young son to the care of their grandparents, they spent a night in various places in Berlin in Andreas Montague’s story “Happy People”. Paul is going to Weißensee for this. Linda just entered the elevator. With snoring over the old phrase “Linda made herself beautiful,” realization begins where you’re headed. By the way, she was invited by the owner of the house, the “Mughal”, who is many years older than her, and is also her husband’s employer.

As a supervisor, Paul earns free housing for his young family, but considers himself a musician. He is a man who talks little, especially little with his father, and is a novice with a plumbing company in the East: “Shit gas water always works, and with you anyway, you still live in your communist stone age, but we’ll make it nice for you and while the Mughals mix Linda’s colorful drinks on the rooftop floor, the pool shows her and soon his career plans, Paul hangs out at the bar which is his “island” in the undeveloped area.Paul pulls out a guitar and won’t stop playing and singing for long.

You can see the sprawl and the smell of the pub

It’s all captured atmospheric in this slim book, from shifting perspectives. The dialogues fit into the flow of the narrative without the author having to identify them. Clumsy formulations such as “young party dogs with their tattooed puppets” may be aimed at reckless marketing hype around Berlin. Paul’s father’s Coburg English is equally disturbing – “Buhmdaun” is Leipzig, and “Täkkno” comes to mind when listening to music. But you can feel the vastness of Mogul’s apartment as much as you can smell the mist of the pub while reading. Berlin’s montage shows contrasts and optimization with winners and losers. There are signs of discord in the relationship between Linda and Paul. But who knows, on this one night some things stretch to the unreal. The two could still be happy.

The author, who lives in Halle and Berlin, published his first novel in 1986, but only publishes books over extended periods because he works as head of the cultural department at the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. His story Happy People can be read as an echo of Hermann Kesten’s novel of the same title, published in 1931 and set in Berlin in 1929. At that time, too, voracious capitalism stood in the way of love.

Andreas Montague: Happy people. a novel. Quintus, Berlin 2022. 112 pages, €20