The real protagonist of Tim Krohn’s book is a mattress. Many destinies cross its path.
There’s the eternal optimist Immanuel Wassermann, who, on the occasion of his spontaneous marriage to an Italian woman, buys a quality German mattress and, against the advice of his friends – he’s Jewish, the year is 1935 – sets off for Berlin.
Then there are Mirtha and Simon, who, so far – it’s the postwar period now – have only ever slept on spread-out newspapers. But Mirtha has just picked up the mattress at the Red Cross bazaar, and they sleep so well that night that they decide the next morning to take a day off, just to rest, for the first time in a long time.
And 30 years later, Giaccomo Neri happens upon the remains of the once proud quality mattress. Every year, he travels to a beach resort near Rome in the hopes of once again meeting the nameless woman to whom he once almost proposed. When he falls overboard during a fishing trip, the mattress, floating in the sea, saves him – for a while, at least – granting him one last night filled with dreams that reunite him with the beautiful stranger.
Tim Krohn uses the smallest of surfaces to reveal the vast panorama of a Europe devastated by numerous upheavals and succeeds in creating a literary highpoint that is equally tragic and comical.
