had smoked with Pit over the weekend, played on ditch-diggers outside, read Mickey Mouse comic books, and bought a bag of danishes that “we scarfed down with great pleasure.” Then TV. One time they almost burned down our great-uncle’s manor house in Weidenau.
The time of Greek myths and Christian songs was over. Painting and drawing were the only things he enjoyed. He asked for Janosch’s address, and Zimnik’s, and Otto Eglau’s in Berlin, Clemens Pasch’s in Düsseldorf—all our parents’ artist friends. “What I need are skeches, beginings, scrap paper, desines. For the walls of my room and also to copy.” He asked Wiltrud Roser for old sketches “even if they’re just scribbles. I need models.”
He griped about the boarding-school food: the horrible gruel, the “fish with old potatoes and mustard sauce: Yuck!” Even the noodle salad managed to taste bad. The thirteen-year-old Martin had only good things to say about the art teacher: “She is pretty, with long hair, beautiful legs, and a thin figure.” He also pimped out his older sisters (who were not at the boarding school, needless to say), with the result that, as our mother wrote, the sisters held him in much greater esteem: “He goes about it in real style. Brings photos of Barbara and Bettina to the older boys who seem acceptable to him; his ideas are practically genius. He recently sprayed water all over one of these boys, intending to offer him a photo of his sister to make up for it. And in fact the reparations were accepted with obvious pleasure.”
In one of his letters, Martin drew himself, as he so often did, with a crew cut, big ears, and a broad smile: “Me, in a good mood.”
He wrote nonstop even when there was nothing to write about, spinning his spiderweb in all directions in order to stay connected to the world. His favorite time for writing these letters was during Latin class, which he found almost unbearably boring. They read differently than the Tetenshof letters, maybe because they did not have to pass through a censor, maybe because he was older, and maybe because he was having such a bad time at this school. After a visit from our mother, she wrote, “he poured out tears when we said goodbye that went right to my heart.”
He felt abandoned. “One Saturday,” Hoffmann the housemaster wrote, “he had expected to be picked up by relatives and had already put on his Sunday suit for the occasion, but when they did not come, my wife suggested he change back. Martin refused these instructions and went around the rest of the day and evening in his Sunday suit.”
Martin certainly got enough attention—he made sure of it by being so fresh. He got his coddling in a different way: even though his health was “thoroughly satisfactory,” the housemaster wrote, “he gets himself mothered by the nurse: a prescription, or applying a band-aid.” He demanded love. “St. Nicholas approaches!” he wrote in one letter, like a threat. “Write me!” was the demand underlying all his letters. “Write me already like I write to you. Pappa too please.” Once he drew the whole long journey of a letter, from dropping it in the mailbox down its long route to him, where he awaited it with arms raised in delight. “Since I still havent gotten any letters or packages, I feel forced to write to you. This is already my third letter.”
No matter how many letters he did get, they were never enough.
Was it really true that he—the troublemaker, the back-talker—received so much less mail at boarding school than darling Bine? Probably not, but that’s how it felt to him.
In June 1966, when he was thirteen, he wrote a despairing letter that he later reprinted in Through Puberty to Success :
Dear Daddy, dear Mom!!
12:31 a.m.!!
I got a postcard from you yesterday, it said “I look forward to your letter, hopefully I’m not waiting in vain.” Three guesses who has been waiting for the mail here. It’s been four weeks already since I’ve heard a peep from you. But dear little Sabina, sweet darling Sabinie gets one package after another. Every time, Mr. Hoffmann says Kippenberger Sabine has mail, nothing for you Martin I’m afraid! Try to guess how disappointed I am every time. Every time I think “tomorrow I’ll get something from home!” But then it’s again nothing. Finaly a card comes and I think “now I’ll hear a little about what’s going on at home.” But no, another disapointment. But Bine, dear sweet Bine, you have a nice story to tell her, yes indeed. I’m bad, I don’t get any mail. Doesn’t matter. Packages are too expensive anyway. So it’s better to do it “Ladies first!” and that means Bine. I don’t get any news about how you’re all doing, what’s new in the garden or the house? Even the weather!!!!! None of that matters, he doesn’t get to hear those things only Bine. I have no one who writes to me anymore. No friend in the world.
Four weeks ago I heard from you i.e. Tina on the phone and I said you should send me and Bine a little package. But I guess you have to ask 1000x in letters first. I don’t know, sometimes you only think about Bine and forgett me. Yes, yes, that’s what I have to think every day. I think about you the whole time. And you? “Yes well it doesn’t matter.” Bine told me today that we got a Holliwood swing but Kerl doesn’t need to know that. Bine gets a letter, not Kerl, Bine gets a package, not Kerl, Bine gets a second package, nothing for Kerl. I’m supposed to just sit here all by myself. So I hope you now know what I’m thinking about.
At the bottom, he drew a furious face with a telephone: “Call me please. Write me!! And send a package! If you don’t I’ll run away! But I probly will anyway. Your dumb Martin.” In the margin, he scribbled a request to send him Aunt Ev’s and great-aunt Lissy’s addresses: “If you write me already I’ll write back otherwise I’d rather write someone else!!!” Finally he added in the margin in small letters: “I’m gonna kick the bucket on Sunday if I havent heard anything from you by then. And if you tell me that you don’t only write to darling Bine! I don’t get any mail from anyone. I’m all alone here.”
That same summer, he took a camping trip to Scandinavia with our parents, Tina, and Babs. In the book our father wrote about the trip, Martin is a lively child, longing to see only two things: French fry stands and toy stores. When he goes swimming he doesn’t want to come out of the water, and when a lifeguard holds out a cigar box full of swimming badges he can’t resist. “He is always interested in badges.” He didn’t let himself be led around on the vacation: “Martin demanded a plan.” He took the guidebook in hand and looked for campsites “with all the amenities.” When they stayed in a bed and breakfast, he entered his profession as “Student” in the guest book.
The following year, he left Honneroth. The report card was covered with “Satisfactory” and “Poor.” Art: “Very Good.”
The only person who didn’t worry in the least about Martin’s future was Martin. He knew he was an artist. At fifteen, our mother said, “he was filled with boundless optimism and saw himself already raking in the millions, he wouldn’t work for less!”
ADOLESCENCE
“Honneroth,” our mother summed up, “was more of a step backward for [the children] than forward. Our Kerl had a nice long nap for three years and now I’m trying to get his totally somnolent brain back into gear.” When it came to school, she wouldn’t succeed. He attended a private high school in Essen, where they paid just as little attention to their students as at Honneroth. After failing to pass sixth grade for a second time, he had to leave the school without graduating.
The only school he liked and did well at was Aenne Blömecke’s dance school. Chubby Miss Blömecke fell prey to his charm and dancing ability, though she did occasionally admonish him, “Mr. Kippenberger, not so much shaking your behind back and forth, please.” For the ball at the end of the year, he had our mother dress him up: velvet suit, tailored white shirt, giant black bow tie. “He looked like Franz Liszt, The Early Years.”
At
