A Book of Memories (67 page)

My guilty conscience was whispering to me that were I to take seriously his silent communication I'd be stealing him from two people, from someone I didn't know and from someone I'd be deceiving despicably in the process, and my anxiety swelled into alarm
—needless, because the Frenchman couldn't have noticed anything, he was leaning forward with his chin on the velvet-covered banister, watching the noisy audience below, and as for Thea, even if she did see Melchior's hand on my knee, she couldn't have found it significant; only Frau Kühnert's look issued a kind of warning: I could go ahead and do what I would, there was no way to escape her watchful eyes, she was there to protect Thea's interests.

Traces of Melchior's smile and grimace stayed with me while I also leaned forward in my chair, wanting to move away from both of them, and put my elbow on the banister; I didn't want to feel the emotional confusion radiating from the warmth of his body, to think he had addressed me with real words in a real voice; his voice seemed to be lost in some echoing space, swirling in a vast, dark, empty hall.

The applause first broke out in the upper gallery, then directly above us, and became thunderous when the conductor appeared in the little door leading to the orchestra pit, sweeping over the orchestra seats, reaching all the rows, and just then the lights went out in the huge crystal chandelier hanging from the heavily ornamented domed ceiling.

His voice was familiar, warm and deep, suggesting strength and self-confidence but also knowing not to take itself seriously, to be playful
— not for the purpose of putting on a false front, but to keep a sensible distance—deepening to a good-natured growl; I had no idea where I knew that voice from, and I didn't bother to search my memory or explain why it felt so familiar and close, yet it kept streaming and swirling inside me, ringing, rising, grumbling as if testing its pitch and various ranges within, trying to find its place in the grooves of my brain, looking for the very spot, the nerve cells, the tiny space where its previous utterances were stored, a carefully sealed and, for the moment, inaccessible compartment.

When I had first arrived in Berlin, about two months before this performance, a room had been rented for me near the Oranienburg Gate, in the first corner house on Chausseestrasse, a tiny sublet on the fifth floor of one of those hopelessly grim, gray, and ancient apartment buildings; of course there was no city gate anywhere near, the name alone remained from an old city map, the name of something that history quite literally swept away, knocked off the table and cast into the fire, and if I say grim and gray, I haven't said much, because in that part of the city, at least in the sections where the ravages of war had not destroyed reminders of things as they once had been, this was how all the houses looked, grim and gray, but not without style, provided we do not limit style to mean conventionally decorative but allow that every human construct carries in itself and absorbs into its image the material and spiritual circumstances of the act of building; that is the style of any structure, that and nothing more.

And style includes destruction as well
—like building, destroying also forms a continual chain in human history, and wartime destruction, in this district at least, was not quite so complete as in others, where nothing remained standing and where between the brand-new buildings only winds of emptiness blew, since here the cracks could be filled, the skeletons of fire-gutted houses could be fleshed out with new walls, enough stones were standing to offer crude shelter and protection from inclement weather, so it made sense to pile new stones on them, enough remained of the pre-destruction foundations, which were familiar, reliable, and therefore most attractive, and though the walls raised on them, patched up and reinforced, could not duplicate the prewar look, the old streets and squares kept their spatial configurations, the city's former layout, its spirit, was somehow carried over, even if nothing but mere traces could be detected of its lively, ostentatious, at once frugal and lavish, frivolous and grave, energetic and voracious style.

The guts of the old style, the principles of yore, the dead visage of the old order showed through the new style of the façades.

The intersection of Hannoverstrasse, splendid Friedrichstrasse, Wilhelm Pieck Strasse (formerly Alsatian Strasse), and Chausseestrasse, which once had formed a pretty little square, was now in this sad resurrection more dead than alive, nearly always deserted and lifelessly silent, an empty hull of different times piled one on top of another, with only a streetcar rumbling through now and then, in the middle of which an advertising pillar stood, left over from the old days, its belly ripped out by shrapnel; in the filthy plate-glass shop windows, blinded by dust, you could see the clock on the pillar top reflected; its glass cover long smashed in, it defied time by not showing it, or more precisely, it showed time arrested, since it clung to the half past four of a long-ago day.

And down below, under the pavement's thin crust, subway cars rumbled past at regular intervals, their clatter heard and felt under our feet, roaring in and out, their rumble dying away in the deep tunnel, but one couldn't get to these trains, since the stations that had escaped destruction were walled off; in the first few days I didn't know what to make of these unused stations on the little traffic islands along Friedrichstrasse, until Frau Kühnert was kind enough to enlighten me: this particular line, she said, connected western sections of the city and didn't belong to us, that's how she put it, so there was no point looking for them on the new maps, they weren't there; I didn't understand, and Frau Kühnert offered to explain, if I'd be willing to listen: Suppose I lived in West Berlin, I was a westerner, all right? say I got on the train at the Kochstrasse station, the train would pass under here, there was a station right under us; it would slow down, but couldn't stop, and simply pass through this part of the city and wind up in the so-called western sector, where I could get off at the Reinickendorf Station
—it was that simple, did I understand better now?

It's our own city that we truly understand; in a strange city, even with the finest sense of direction and a thorough topographical knowledge of the place, street names and locations like east and west remain abstract, the street names conjuring up no images or the images lacking lived experiences, but I did understand
—for that I didn't have to be a native—
that something was under the streets that really wasn't, or rather, we had to pretend it wasn't, there, something allowed to live only in memories of the city as it used to be, yet part of the entire city's lifeline even today, which meant that it did exist, but only for those on the other side, who couldn't get out at the heavily guarded walled-up stations, if only because phantom trains have no stations, and in this way these people were at least as nonexistent for us as we were for them.

I said I understood almost everything, but why did the trains have to slow down at these nonexistent or, rather, existing stations? why the guards? what sort of guards were these, anyway, from here or from there? and since these stations were sealed off, what were they guarding, and how did they get out at the end of their shift? yes, I did understand, more or less, only I found it less than logical, or the logic of it escaped me.

If I continued to use this sarcastic tone, Frau Kühnert said with a native's offended pride, she wouldn't answer any questions in the future, and that finally shut me up.

And somehow this was also the style of that fifth-floor apartment on Chausseestrasse: as you walked through its ornately carved massive brown doors into the entrance hall the size of a reception room, you could smell the aroma of that same style; the entrance hall was completely empty now, and the darkened parquet floor, its worn-out strips replaced with ordinary plywood, creaked at every step, yet you could easily imagine a lighter, finer creak, muffled by rich Oriental carpets, while under the bright light of chandeliers a buxom chambermaid hastened to the door to let in elegantly attired ladies and gentlemen; plain-floored, winding passageways connecting the kitchen, the servants' quarters, the pantry and lavatory led to the masters' living space
—five spacious interconnecting rooms whose elegantly arched windows now looked out on one of those cheerless new façades; I was put up in what used to be the maid's room.

From my window I could see only a dividing wall blackened with soot, so close it kept my room almost completely dark even during the day, and my accommodations could be described as extremely modest: an iron bedstead, a creaking wardrobe, the usual table covered with a stained tablecloth, a chair, and on the wall at least twenty neatly framed diplomas that for some reason had ended up in this room.

If, reclining peacefully on my bed, I stared out the window long enough and let my imagination go, on the map of that black wall I could follow the path of huge flames as they must have swooped down from the burning roof, accompanied by thunderous sounds of crackling, crashing, crumbling, could almost feel the wind, or windstorm, of that day as it was stirred by the fire, the enormous conflagration that left these traces for posterity, for me: protruding, peaked stains, colored by soot, where darting tongues of flame had licked the wall, which survived it all and remained intact.

I tried to consider this tiny room temporary in every respect, and to spend in it as little time as possible; and if it happened that I had nothing else to do, I undressed, climbed into the tub-like bed, plugged up one ear, and stuck the earphone of my small transistor radio into the other so I wouldn't have to hear the noises of people in the other rooms; four small children lived in the apartment, along with their grandfather, their invalid grandmother, their father, who'd come home drunk almost every night, and their pale-complexioned mother, who seemed heartrendingly young next to them, whose fragility, harried look, warmly expressive brown eyes, and feverish energy reminded me a little of Thea, or rather the other way around; it was as if Thea were telling me, in one of her older roles, who she would really be if, just once, she could give a full account of herself.

So I ended up listening to radio programs I never intended to tune in to, didn't really listen to them, but stared out the window, and I can't even say that I thought of anything in particular, simply let my body lie suspended in a rootless, transient state, not wanting it to have memories of its own.

And then slowly, gradually, approaching from afar, a man's voice penetrated my consciousness, still fighting off memories, a deep voice, pleasantly soft, smiling or laughing, which is to say that as the man spoke I could almost sense, almost see, the imperturbable good cheer ruling this unknown face, and after a short while I caught myself listening, not so much to what he said as to how he said it, and wondering who he might be.

He was interviewing a prewar chanteuse, a real old-timer, chatting with her lightly and amiably, as if they were sitting over a cup of coffee and not in front of a microphone, which the old lady had probably forgotten was there, because she kept giggling and gabbing away at phenomenal speed, at times actually cooing as if to a baby, which made their intimate tête-à-tête almost visible; and it wasn't just superficial chatter either, for they interspersed their conversation with old recordings, and the man seemed to know all there was to know about the songs, the circumstances of their recordings, the period that had become so fragmented and became the past, the real subject of their conversation, the vibrant and captivating, frivolous and cruel metropolis whose life was now being evoked by the old woman's girlish giggling and cooing; the man knew everything but never flaunted this, on the contrary, cheerfully letting himself be corrected, friendly little humming and growling sounds indicating his assent, or openly admitting his mistakes, though with certain intonations holding out the possibility that it might be the elderly lady whose memory was somewhat erratic, but again, there was nothing offensive about this, because his gentle, filial affection and scholarly dedication simply embraced and beguiled her; when the show was over and I learned he'd be back again next week, I felt as if all my physical and intellectual needs had been satisfied; I pulled the earphone out of my ear and quickly turned the radio off.

The following week at the same time he did come on again, but to my great surprise he didn't talk at all; in this program famous opera singers sang popular songs, he played vintage recordings of Lotte Lehmann, Chaliapin, and Richard Tauber, and all he did was announce names, nothing more; in spite of my disappointment, this made me happy, for he was modest and became talkative only when making his guests talk, I was hoping he wouldn't spoil the first impression, I wanted him to be consistent.

And he was, but I never heard him again, forgot all about him; one evening I went out to the kitchen, probably to get a drink of water, and the young woman of the house was there, peeling onions
—she, too, was away during the day, I seem to remember her saying that she worked in an asbestos factory, and because she had small children she always got the day shift and did her cooking in the evening—so I sat down next to her and we talked quietly, which meant that I was talking and she hesitantly responding, thrusting each word reluctantly out of her mouth, while she went on peeling onions; I went as far as to risk the question whether she'd mind if I took down all those diplomas, just temporarily, while I was using the room.

The knife stopped in her hand, she glanced at me with her warm brown eyes, and for this brief silent moment her face remained so soft and calm that I returned her glance without any suspicion; I enjoyed looking at her, she was beautiful; the only thing I found odd and not quite comprehensible was the way she pulled up her narrow shoulders, as a cat does with its back when getting ready to purr, and at the same time lowered her hand, with the knife in it, into the bowl of water in front of her; she seemed about to break down and cry, or as if her whole body might begin to convulse, but instead, with her eyes closed, she started screaming at the top of her voice directly into my still unsuspecting face, using words that were strangely literary, stilted, complicated, and, for me at the time, mostly incomprehensible, hurling at me all the hurt that people like myself caused her: Who do these people think they are that they can just come here and do as they damn please and push us around, these filthy foreigners, these shitty little Vietnamese and rotten niggers, that she should have to work even on her Communist Sunday off! they don't care, they've got the nerve to come here, they've got the gall, and expect her to clean up their shit! and now they won't even let her be in her own apartment, not for a moment, they stick their tongues into everything, stink up her pots and pans, just what the hell do they think, who are they anyway, and who are we to them? she'd had enough of not knowing where the hell these people came from, not that she cared, she couldn't care less, but they wouldn't even learn that when they shit into the toilet bowl, the fucking brush is there for a reason, to scrub off the shit coming out of their foreign asses.