Franz and Gala

Franz and Gala

Our story begins one sunny, autumn day in which Franz, a young bureaucrat of sombre and tubercular appearance, accompanies his friend Max on a visit to the new Prague zoo. Max is concerned for his friend’s mental health and hopes the outing will distract him. The two men advance methodically from cage to cage, reading the names (common, scientific and given) and origins of each inhabitant. They admire the Siberian tiger (a gift from the Budapest zoo), throw bread to the monkeys and chimpanzees (feeding the animals has yet to be prohibited) and are saddened on seeing the solitary black bear walk disconsolately from one side of his cage to the other, like an expectant father who has lost all hope of good news. The giraffes leave them open-mouthed with astonishment (surrealism has yet to be invented) and both are touched by the Madonna and child tableau represented by the elephant and her son (Franz cannot help but notice that the paternal figure does not appear to be missed).
They are drawing very close now to Gala. Nobody else has stopped to look at her. She has hidden herself in the furthest corner of her enclosure. She is forlorn, hungry and depressed. She has only been in Prague for two weeks and is deeply homesick for Berlin. In Berlin she had friends to play with and above all she had Olaf, her trainer, until this day the great love of her life. Gala has just turned three and of her 1107 days, she has passed only 63 without Olaf. She cannot understand why she has been taken from him. Whenever Olaf is absent, Gala refuses to eat and this is what she is doing now. She has not eaten since she last saw him in Berlin.
Max and Franz have reached her enclosure. There is only one sea lion, or rather, lioness – her name is Gala – and she appears rather unsociable, hiding away in a corner, revealing nothing more than a curved and fleshy back.
There is a bench in front of the enclosure and the two men, already somewhat fatigued, sit down to rest.
And now something breaks through the sad fog in which Gala has been enveloped, something which reminds her of her former life. It is the sound, the cadence of a human language that is achingly familiar. There are two men seated on the bench in front of her new premises and they are speaking in German. Gala would like to hear them better. She wants to fall asleep listening to their voices so she may dream of Olaf and Berlin and of when she was happy. She moves closer to the voices and flops down beside the wire fence that separates her from them. Surprised, the two men come towards her. One of them crouches down in front of her and looks into her eyes. At that instant both creatures recognise in the gaze of the other the anguish each harbours in their own soul. And from this recognition is born a love that will change both their lives forever.
“Why are you so sad?” Franz asks the sea lion. Gala does not understand the question but she is delighted that this voice, so unexpectedly deep and manly, should speak to her so kindly. Informed by her olfactory sense that he has not brought her any herring, Gala is moved to steal a kiss from him instead. It is a sincere, wet and malodorous kiss which takes Franz greatly by surprise. He has always believed himself to be a repulsive and undesirable being. And it now appears that his charm is so potent, even a magnificent female of 300 kilos lacks strength enough to resist him.
As fate would have it the zoo manager is passing by the marine installations at this moment. Having witnessed this moving display of pinniped affection he does not hesitate to address himself to its human object and asks him to employ his gifts to convince the stubborn beast to start eating and behave herself. He is a decisive man with a steamroller will, unused to taking no for an answer. Franz, overwhelmed by a sudden wave of what could only be happiness, is easily convinced to abandon his career as a bureaucrat and dedicate himself to the training of sea mammals, an activity he will go on to perform with outstanding diligence despite his absolute ignorance of the field.
Gala soon rediscovers her appetite and a few months later a male sea lion is found to share her enclosure with her and to father her young. Franz, unconditionally freed from his complexes and melancholy, marries a former girlfriend and allows himself to be happy. He devotes his free time to writing humorous stories for his two small children. The stories are not published during his lifetime but enjoy considerable success after his death of tuberculosis at the age of 41. Gala survives him by seven days.

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