Angelika Overath

Flughafenfische

«So ein Raubfisch hat einen kleinen Fisch schon im Mund, er frisst ihn aber nicht, weil der ihm die Zähne putzt? Das ist zu pädagogisch, um wahr zu sein.»

Travellers are sitting around waiting for their connection flight in the sterile transit facility of an airport. Among them is Elis, a photographer for whom transit has become an attitude towards life. In this constant journey her liaison with a similarly vagrant pilot has just flown by and Elis is not sure if she wants to regret this or not. The feelings of a professor of biochemistry, in turn, are more profound, he has settled himself into the smoking area with a bottle of whisky. Talking to himself he bitterly laments the fact that his wife has left him after 30 years of marriage.

There is a third person in this space, Tobias. Years ago he built the main tourist attraction of the airport, a huge aquarium with an authentic riff that he is explaining to the people waiting. In her novel, Angelika Overath introduces us to these three figures who are searching for a new place to live. While the professor gradually sinks into delirium, Elis and Tobias start talking to each other. She tells him about her travels, he explains the universe of fish to her. The aquarium is a pedagogical institution with shy seahorses where the males give birth and with symbiotic friendships among the various inhabitants of the riff. Their conversation delicately floats between attraction and otherness. The author very subtly holds the tension of this ephemeral state.

(Beat Mazenauer, transl. by Anja Hälg)

Translation of title: Airport Fish

Luchterhand, München 2009

ISBN: 978-3-630-87307-7