In Times of Fading Light (4 page)

He had indeed once—on paper—been codirector of Lüddecke & Co., Import and Export. But in the first place, on the grounds of his lifelong commitment to secrecy, he hadn’t even declared that fact in the CV required by the Party. And in the second place, Lüddecke Import and Export had been nothing but a spurious Russian-financed firm used by the Comintern secret service to smuggle people and goods over borders.

It had taken Wilhelm a very long time to find work in Mexico, and the job that he did get in the end was an admittedly well-paid position as bodyguard to a diamond dealer, which, apart from the fact that protecting a millionaire’s life and property offended Wilhelm’s proletarian honor, was particularly depressing because Wilhelm couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was being paid for his stupidity. Mendel Eder had hired him not although but
because
he knew no Spanish, and it was very convenient for the dealer to have a virtual deaf-mute sitting beside him while he conducted his negotiations.

Only at a late stage, when most of the exiles were back in Germany, had Wilhelm begun working for the
Demokratische Post,
but although he had put “manager of the
Demokratische Post
” in his CV as his last position (and had described his job with the diamond dealer as “running freight services for the firm of Eder”), Dretzky must know that drawing up the balance sheet of donations for the
Demokratische Post
was not remotely comparable with the administration of an entire academy.

“Then now I’m your superior, so to speak,” said Wilhelm, taking a cigarette out of his pack.

“Hardly,” said Charlotte.

What went on in that head of his?

The prospect of going back had been held out to them several times already, but in the end something had always happened to prevent it. The first stumbling block had been over getting a transit visa for the United States. Then there were no funds available, because other comrades were more important. Then the Soviet consulate claimed to have no papers for them. And finally they were told that as they had repeatedly failed to make use of a permit to enter the country, they must now wait patiently.

This time, however, it seemed to be different. They really were given entry visas at the consulate. They also got direct passage by ship, even at a discount. In addition, Wilhelm’s ticket (why only Wilhelm’s?) was paid for out of Party funds—although by now they had enough money to pay for the crossing themselves.

Charlotte began winding down their household, terminated agreements, and sold the Queen of the Night back to the flower shop at a loss. There was an astonishing amount to be done, and only now did she realize how far she had been drawn into daily life here; every book, every shell, every figurine, as she decided whether to pack these things carefully in newspaper or throw them away, was linked in her memory with a part of her life that was now coming to an end. But at the same time as she assessed the usefulness of everything and anything in their new life, an image of that new life also began to form in her mind.

They bought five large cabin trunks, converted part of their small fortune into silver jewelry, and with the rest of it bought things that, they assumed, would be in short supply in postwar Germany, for instance, a Swiss portable typewriter (although it lacked the German double “s” symbol ß, which the Swiss didn’t use), two sets of very practical hard plastic crockery, a toaster, a number of cotton tablecloths printed with Indian patterns, fifty cans of Nescafé, also a very practical purchase; five hundred cigarettes; and a considerable number of new clothes, which, they thought, would suit both the German climate and their new social status. Instead of buying pale, lightweight summer frocks, Charlotte tried on blouses buttoning up to the neck, and sober skirt suits in various shades of gray; she got a permanent wave for her hair, and bought a plain but elegant pair of glasses, with narrow black-rimmed frames that gave her a convincing look of severity when she tried out the stern glance of the director of an institute in front of the mirror.

And so, still in her Mexican clothes but with new glasses and a new hairstyle, she met Adrian once more, one last time. They went, as so often, to a little restaurant in Tacubaya. Its one disadvantage was that it stood close to the Soviet consulate. Adrian ordered two glasses of white wine and
chiles en nogada,
and before their food arrived he asked Charlotte whether she knew that the Czech politician Slánský had been condemned to death.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

Instead of replying, Adrian amplified his statement. “Along with ten others—for being part of a Zionist conspiracy.” He put a copy of the
Herald Tribune
down on the table. “Read that,” he said.

But Charlotte didn’t want to read it.

“It proves,” said Adrian, tapping the newspaper with his forefinger, “that nothing has changed in the slightest.”

“Could you please keep your voice down?” said Charlotte.

“Ah, you see,” said Adrian. “You’re scared already. What’s it going be like back there?”

Their food came, but Charlotte didn’t want to eat. For a while they both sat looking at their stuffed chili peppers. Then Adrian said, “Communism, Charlotte, is like the religion of the ancient Aztecs. It devours blood.”

Charlotte picked up her purse and ran out into the street.

Five days later they boarded the ship back to Europe. At the moment when its moorings were cast off and the deck beneath their feet began to sway slightly, maybe by only a millimeter, her knees felt weak, and she had to cling to the rail with all her might. After a minute the fit of faintness passed over, unnoticed by Wilhelm.

The coast disappeared in the mist, the ship turned toward the ocean and began its voyage, leaving a straight trail over the water in its wake. The wind freshened, on deck the shrouds hummed, and soon they were surrounded by endless gray reaching to the horizon in all directions.

The days were long, the nights even longer. Charlotte slept badly, kept dreaming the same dream, in which Adrian led her through a kind of underground museum, and when she woke she couldn’t get back to sleep. She lay in the dark for hours, feeling the pitching and rolling of the ship, feeling the hull quiver under gusts of wind. Slánský and ten others, Adrian had said. Why hadn’t she at least asked their names? Questions. What was Kurt doing in the Urals? Why, even all these years later, couldn’t the Red Cross find Werner? She wasn’t a good comrade. If she were honest with herself, she was always infringing Party discipline in her mind. And her body had almost done the same.

By day she deferred to Wilhelm and tried to sort out her head. What would she be today, she asked herself, but for the Party? She had learned invisible mending and ironing at domestic science college. To this day she would still be doing invisible mending and ironing for Senior Teacher Umnitzer, who cheated on her with his girl students; to this day she would still be putting up with her mother-in-law’s condescending tone, and getting cross about Frau Paschke using her washing line—if the Communist Party hadn’t come into her life along with Wilhelm.

In the Communist Party, she found respect and appreciation for the first time. Only the Communists, whom she had originally taken for bandits of some kind (as a child she always thought that Communists came into houses and pulled the sheets off neatly made beds, because her mother used to say they were opposed to good order)—only the Communists had seen her talents, had encouraged her to study foreign languages, had given her political tasks, and while her brother, Carl-Gustav, for whose art studies her mother had saved ferociously—to this day Charlotte remembered, bitterly, how she was told to watch the whistling kettle so as to save gas, and how her mother used to hit her on the back of the head with the breadboard if she forgot to turn the whistling kettle off at the right time, which was just
before
it whistled—while Carl-Gustav, then, had failed as an artist and immersed himself in the gay scene of Berlin, she, who had spent only four terms at domestic science college, was now on her way back to Germany to be head of the Institute for Languages and Literature, and the only thing she regretted was that her mother wasn’t around to know about this triumph, that she couldn’t send her mother a succinct note on a letterhead saying it was from
Charlotte Powileit, Institute Director.

But then night fell again. The hull of the ship plowed through the darkness, and no sooner had Charlotte fallen asleep than Adrian was there, leading her through winding underground passages, and something bad was waiting for her at the end of them ... she was awoken by her own scream.

Whereas Wilhelm seemed to be feeling better every day. Not so long ago, on the Mexican side of the ocean, he had suffered from chronic insomnia and complained of lack of appetite. But the less Charlotte ate, the more of an appetite Wilhelm seemed to have. He slept well, took long walks on deck every day, even in the worst weather, and when he came back with his tartan cap drenched, but obviously indestructible, he complained that Charlotte spent all her time moping in the cabin.

“I’m seasick,” said Charlotte.

“You weren’t seasick on the way out,” replied Wilhelm.

He, who for twelve years had stood around at any evening party like a forgotten walking stick, who to the last couldn’t read a street sign in Spanish, and had to enlist Charlotte’s help if a police officer spoke to him, suddenly figured as an enthusiastic expert on Mexico, and entertained the company at the captain’s table with accounts of truly amazing experiences, and although he had talked in riddles and hints ever since his Hamburg days—
Lüddecke Import and Export
—all and sundry were soon convinced that he had crossed the country between the two oceans on horseback, had fished for shark from a canoe in Puerto Ángel, and had personally discovered the Maya temple of Palenque among the jungle plants rambling over it—while Charlotte dunked rusks in chamomile tea.

The icy wind with which the new Germany received them didn’t seem to affect Wilhelm in the least. Holding himself very upright, he stalked through the harbor area, holding on to his hat, with as much certainty as if he knew his way around. Charlotte tripped along after him, her shoulders hunched.

Then they were in a hut, a pale man was looking at their papers, and while Charlotte was wondering how she should address a comrade of the Customs service in the new Germany—as
Bürger
or
Genosse?
—Wilhelm had settled everything and even ordered a taxi.

What they saw of the city wasn’t basically very different from the harbor, and although at first glance Charlotte couldn’t see any recent evidence of ruins, just about
everything
looked ruined: the buildings, the sky, the people hiding their faces behind turned-up collars.

Soup was being sold from a large container on a street corner.

Two figures were trying to haul a handcart brimming over with old junk up onto the sidewalk.

It began to dawn on Charlotte that the hat with the little black veil that she had bought especially for arriving back in Germany had not been a good idea.

Wilhelm ordered the porter around. Charlotte gave the startled man a two-dollar tip.

“You’re overdoing it,” said Wilhelm.

“So are you,” said Charlotte.

The train came in, hissing alarmingly. It smelled of railroads: the typical mixture of soot and excrement. Charlotte hadn’t traveled by rail for a long time.

She looked through the window. The landscape passed by to the regular thud-thud of the turning wheels. The forest was dripping wet. Dirty remnants of the first snow lay on the fallow fields. Smoke rose from the grade-crossing keeper’s little house, and even as they went by Charlotte caught sight of the keeper beginning to wind the barriers up again.

“A crossing keeper,” said Wilhelm. Triumphantly, as if that proved something.

Charlotte didn’t react, but went on looking at the scenery. Tried to spot something comforting; tried to be glad of the brick-red church tower; tried to feel some kind of sense of homecoming at the sight of the landscape. The tree-lined highways, at least, reminded her that even Germany had something like summer. A mild wind as you rode along, Wilhelm’s BMW R32 motorbike and sidecar with the boys sitting in it. Unsuspecting. Laughing.

The train stopped, the compartment door opened. A breath of brown-coal soot and cold rain blew in. The man who followed it didn’t say a word of greeting, didn’t take his coat off as he sat down; it was a worn old dark leather coat. He had mud on his shoes.

The man inspected them briefly out of the corner of his eye, then took a sandwich box from his briefcase and removed a sandwich with a few bites already taken out of it. He munched assiduously for a long time, and then put the sandwich, three-quarters consumed, back in the box. Then he took a copy of
Neues Deutschland
out of his briefcase and opened it, and Charlotte immediately noticed a headline on the back page of the newspaper, which was turned toward her.

THE PARTY NEEDS YOU!

Charlotte felt ashamed. Ashamed of the little veil on her hat. Of her fears. Of the fifty cans of Nescafé in her cabin trunk ... yes, the Party needed her. This country needed her. She would work. She would help to build up the country—could there be a finer task?

Now the man was holding the
ND
so that she could also see the lower part of the page. Minor items, small ads, but suddenly they interested her. How good to know that, if she wanted, she could actually go to the Stern cinema in the Berlin Mitte district this evening—it was showing
The Way to Hope,
Charlotte was prepared to take that title as a good omen, and it moved her almost to tears—why?—when under the heading of
Highlights
she read:

The man opened his newspaper right out, so that Charlotte could see the front page, and as if of its own accord her glance fell on a picture caption saying: