New Lives (40 page)

My suspicion was that my own falsely led life had ruined my writing. Why didn't I have the strength simply to brush my doodlings from the desk and set to work instead on Kaegi's grammar?
²²²
Why didn't I bring this to a fitting end? Because I didn't have the strength to live without writing, without the illusion of a calling?

Since I wasn't going to change myself, I would have to wait for the world to change.

I looked for some way out and, logically enough, I found it: I had to go further back, back to the time before my Fall, when suffering had still been suffering and God still God.

So, of course you've already guessed what comes next. Almost immediately I saw before me in seductive clarity a novella about a student who is on the verge of being broken by the system of the GDR. In fact all I had to do was write about what I had experienced, and make sure I gave it an appropriate ending, some surprising twist, something different from what had happened to me, a finale presentable to a wider public.

In my mind the tone of voice hovered somewhere between
Young Törless
and
Tonio Kröger.
The plot was quickly sketched out. Suddenly I felt free and adventuresome, as if now that my work was as certain as certain can be—its completion looked to be a matter of weeks—I could participate in other people's lives as well.

         

Dear Nicoletta, it's three in the morning. I'm waking up earlier and earlier. Yesterday, on the way to the office, I thought about what I should describe to you next. Suddenly there was Anton before my eyes. And in the next moment it was clear to me that Anton and his meeting with Johann ought to be part of the letter I had with me ready to drop in the mail.
²²³

Of course it wouldn't contribute much to our cause and would add confusion to my narrative if I were to report about every encounter and acquaintanceship that had some significance for me in one way or another. And yet Anton deserves a few lines, so that the picture you have of my life isn't a frozen, one-sided view.

I don't know whether I can call years of living alongside Anton a friendship or not. Our daily proximity to one another did, however, create an almost intimate familiarity that now and then counterbalanced all the partialities and secrets that Anton shared with others. Our seminar clique was always called “Anton's bunch.” He was the only man I knew who placed exceptional importance on clothing and hairstyles and could talk about fashion for hours. David Bowie—whose music he considered merely average—was his idol. And from a distance at least Anton actually looked like him. On those special occasions when students were expected to wear their Free German Youth shirt, Anton would appear in a black suit, white shirt, and black tie, so that at first a good many professors thought he had just returned from a funeral and left him alone. When Anton burst into laughter, tossing back his blond locks and revealing gaps behind his eyeteeth, he always reminded me of a whinnying horse.

Anton was a man to be envied. He had a very beautiful and warm-hearted wife and a little boy. All the same Anton fell in love with a new woman every couple of weeks. He spent almost all his evenings at the Rose, the student club.

I found Anton's seminar work and translations disappointing. It's no exaggeration to say that I never heard Anton express an original thought. He reacted to criticism with defiance and even tears, and despite his stubborn resistance to wearing a blue shirt, he folded immediately when pressed to become an officer in the reserves.

Anton had never dreamed of applying for an exit visa. He was perfectly aware that his appearance and choice of majors wouldn't be nearly as unusual as they were in the East.

When Johann visited me in Jena after Nadja and I had split up—we hadn't spoken with one another for an eternity—suddenly there was Anton standing at my door, wanting to pick up the letter from his latest sweetheart, which had been sent to my address. Anton paid no attention to either me or Johann, ripped open the envelope, withdrew to a corner, read, whinnying loudly a couple of times, and immediately set to work on his reply. Johann made fun of Anton's behavior, whereas I had long since grown used to it. All of a sudden Anton asked if he could read us something, but first finished the last few lines of his letter, then sat there pondering for a moment while we waited for his presentation.

Anton read in a monotone, occasionally repeating a sentence, only to correct it on the spot. Anton's story was about the Good Lord, about how God created man.

After a few sentences Johann and I listened spellbound. What amazed me was not so much the plot as the turns of phrase and details. I recall that there was an angel who comes floating past God singing, “Thou who seest all things…” But God in fact doesn't see everything. Finally God puts his hands to work all on their own, so that he doesn't have to take his eyes off the earth. And like children playing hide-and-seek he keeps asking his hands, “Ready yet?” He wants to be surprised. Suddenly something from very nearby plummets to the earth, God fears the worst. And now his hands appear before him, muddied with clay but without any sign of mankind. After a thunderstorm God sends his hands away, “Do as you will, I know you no longer!” And yet without God there is no completion, which is why his hands become discontented and weary and finally kneel down and do penance the whole day long. Which is why it seems to us that God is still resting and that the seventh day still goes on and on.

Johann wiggled his toes in his woolen socks and sought out my eyes. I looked up at Anton like a teacher gazing at his prize pupil and tried to hide my bafflement as best I could.

“A stroke of genius!” Johann exclaimed.

The real shock, however, was that, after asking for an envelope and stamps, Anton now folded up the pages as if he attached no real importance to their preservation.
²²⁴

I said we needed to celebrate his accomplishment—and invited Anton to share our dinner. At first I didn't mind fading into the background. I was the host and my job was to take care of the two of them, who quickly took a liking to each other. What did annoy me was the way they accepted my waiting on them as a matter of course. While Anton ran through his repertoire of views and Johann, inasmuch as he was still under the sway of the story, was prepared to consider them or at least not dismiss them outright (Anton was a great fan of Klaus Mann and Erich Kästner), they began to eat and drink while I was still running back and forth like a waiter between the kitchen and the front room. A glance, a smile—and I would have been placated. Anton had moved on to his preferences in music, and Johann was trying to figure out what sort of music King Crimson played. They didn't even notice when I raised my wineglass—theirs were already empty again.

After the meal, when Anton got up to go and Johann asked what his plans were, Anton invited him to come along to the Rose. They didn't return until way after midnight, slept half the next day, and sat around in the kitchen after having first raided my fridge. It was Anton who accompanied Johann to the train station.
²²⁵

On Monday Anton told me he thought we had both known Rilke's “Tales of the Good Lord.” It had been a little unfair of me to saddle him the whole time with my visitor. Did I want to take a walk with him by way of reimbursement? I received a letter from Johann in which he expressed his regrets that we had had so little time for each other over the weekend.

A couple of days later Vera wrote to tell me she had applied for an exit visa and had separated from Roland.

Enough, then, of my confusions for this round,

Your Enrico T.

Dear Jo,

What should we have done, in your opinion? Where else could we have got that many desks and chairs from one day to the next? And it was Helping Hand that got our
obolus.
Should it all have been demolished and burned? In Jörg's eyes they're trophies. During the occupation of Stasi headquarters,
²²⁶
Michaela pilfered a silver Matchbox-size APC to prove she'd actually been “inside.”

Yesterday morning Ilona greeted me with sobs. Where had I been? She was close to pummeling me with her fists. She had wanted to come and get me, but she couldn't leave the office unstaffed—and that's what she had told Herr von Barrista too. He had called and hauled her over the coals three times.

It was a beautiful morning, warm and with lots of birds chirping away. I had bought breakfast rolls on Market Square. I asked Ilona to make us a pot of coffee, sat down at the telephone, and mulled over what it was Barrista might want.

The day before yesterday we were in Giessen. The publisher of the newspaper, who's not much older than I, received Jörg and me as warmly as you could imagine. We assumed it was a bluff, since not one word was said about the reason for our visit. When Jörg openly addressed the issue and repeated the managing director's threats, the publisher let loose with a peal of laughter. He knew nothing about that. He was so sorry, yes, really, it wasn't his fault, or at most only to the extent that he had asked the managing director to extend an invitation for us to meet with him sometime, that was all—perhaps the fellow had thought that was the only way to rouse us to a visit. He couldn't make any sense of it otherwise. All he had wanted was to learn a little about Altenburg firsthand. After that he gave us a tour of the whole enterprise and invited us to a little festive lunch in a Chinese restaurant, at the end of which he asked the waiter for the receipt.
²²⁷

When Ilona, still stony with fright, arrived with the coffee, I put some life back into her face by telling her about the baron's proposal for a trip to Monte Carlo. It wasn't until Ilona pointed to the telephone and reproachfully exclaimed, “And you ain't got nothin' to say about that, huh?” that I noticed the silence. And it wasn't just the telephone. There weren't any visitors either. I picked up the receiver and heard the dial tone.

Ilona watered plants, I sharpened pencils. When she sat back down with her hands in her lap and stared at her shoes, I told her she needed to find something to do.

She said she'd been here till ten the night before trying to get caught up, she couldn't get anything done during the day. “This is spooky,” she cried, and started crying again. “Really spooky!” And then Ilona, who is constantly and for no good reason the victim of exaggerated fears, asked, “You don't suppose something's happened—an atom bomb?”

I sent her to the market so she could convince herself this was not the case. After she left, I sat there alone, waiting; I would have been happy for any call, any visitor.

When the phone finally rang, I flinched. I answered and right away I knew from the baron's “Well, how's it going?” that the world was in shipshape order. “Guess what I've got for you?” I would have loved to have shouted, “It doesn't matter what you've got for us!” and wasn't the least surprised when the door opened and Jörg and Marion entered.

“We got it!” the baron said in triumph, and for a moment I enjoyed my own ignorance. “Sixty thousand, Türmer! For sixty thousand.” I still didn't understand. “The shopkeeper downstairs almost had it in his pocket. Your building.”

“You're a—genius!” I cried. I almost said “genie”—but decided to change the second syllable. “A genius!” I repeated, just to show him that I knew it was a word that ended in an
s.
Ever since we moved in here we've been trying to figure out how to become a publishing house with all the bells and whistles. And suddenly it's all within our reach!

While we were in Giessen, Piatkowski—who was reelected, by the way, although he had been far down on his party's list—had telephoned the baron. The baron had immediately paid him a call “with a little bouquet” for Madame Piatkowski. It turned out, however, that only one fifth belonged to her; her older brother, however, had two fifths, and the two other sisters the rest. He had hoped to take care of the whole thing by telephone, but in order to have any chance whatever, he had had to travel all the way to a village just south of Bonn, where the rest of the clan was already assembled.

He was almost too slow in realizing that it was less a matter of the brother than of his wife, and of the youngest sister's husband, who both had instantly whiffed big money. Whereupon he had made it clear to them that the shopkeeper wouldn't be able to get a D-mark loan in a hundred years—they'd have a long wait. And then he had played the “time card,” as he called it, and claimed he needed their agreement then and there, otherwise his clients would have to follow through on another option. They had dispersed around ten that night. Shortly after midnight he had forced Recklewitz—still in his pajamas and robe, he lives somewhere nearby over yonder—to draw up the necessary contracts. He himself had had trouble so early in the morning freeing up liquid assets even for just the small change he needed to have for a stuffed briefcase all set to present to the family.

The baron was very apologetic for not having had me at his side. The three siblings plus spouses had been so befuddled after one glance into the briefcase that they had assented on the spot. Of course he lacked our consent, but had felt there was no real risk there, since even in the worst case, he could easily resell it anywhere for sixty thousand. Since they more or less already had the money in their hands, he was not at all worried that they might spit the bait back out. The appointment with the notary was for three that afternoon. And as if all that were not enough, the baron had booked a half-page ad for our future issues, no termination date specified. A friend of his will be opening a travel agency in Altenburg shortly and, what's more, she'll be showing people what real publicity should look like…

The baron succeeds at everything! There was no response whatever to his article about the woman whose head had been shorn in public in 1941. But the baron had been able to discover the descendants of the hapless hairdresser who at the time had considered it an honor to do the deed. These descendants own a beauty salon right next to the Rathaus. And? Do you see where I'm going with this? And now the baron does indeed have his shop on Market Square. And Andy's lease takes effect on June 1st.

After our noon meal I was about to go through the received mail file with Ilona, but was puzzled by her strange gestures when I asked her about what had come in so far. In the corner behind me stood Frau Schorba from Lucka. Like some oratorio soloist, she was clad in a dark dress that fell straight down from her bosom to just above the tips of her shoes. At first Frau Schorba didn't budge, as if trying to maintain her stelalike appearance. She then followed me mutely down the hall, where I now set a chair beside my desk, sliding it as close to the wall as possible.
²²⁸
We said nothing, as if we didn't know what to talk about outside of our usual ritual. Her face, which has always been something of a mask, now suddenly betrayed her agitation, her every thought. “Nice of you to stop by,” I said, trying to relieve the tension trapped within her silence from getting the upper hand. Frau Schorba didn't look up. I waited.

“Can you take me? Can you give me a job? Please! And don't ask why.” She grasped my hands. “You must never, never ask me why. You must promise me that.”

Frau Schorba's hands were ice cold. She had edged to the front of her chair and was bent so far forward that I was afraid that in the next moment she would sink to her knees. I asked her to sit back up.

“You must!” she whispered, still presenting me the shaved nape of her neck. “You must! Please, please!”

It wasn't until I warned her that someone might come in at any moment that she straightened up and pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve. Shortly thereafter Jörg stepped in, letter in hand.

I introduced Frau Schorba and asked her to wait in the reception room. Both Jörg and I found the purchase of our building quickly helped console us in regard to Steen's letter, in which he informed us that due to internal restructuring of his firm he would unfortunately not have any time free to meet with us over the next few weeks. This also meant, he wrote, that we would not be able to depend on an extension of his ad.

I told Jörg what I knew about Frau Schorba and asked him if he could include her in the host of job applicants—since we'll truly be in urgent need of reinforcements.

Then I accompanied Frau Schorba downstairs. When I asked what sort of salary she had in mind, she gave a few joyful shrugs. She would take whatever we could offer her.

Hugs, Your E.

PS: You, of course, would receive the same salary I do.

Dear Nicoletta,

I always picture you reading my letters standing—standing or walking. No sooner have you fished the latest dispatch from your mailbox than you clutch your purse and newspaper under your arm, open the envelope with your car key, unfold both pages, and start to read without giving a thought to anything else. You don't even notice how your feet carry you up the stairs, from one step to the next, how you open your door, set down your purse and newspaper, or simply let them fall to the floor. It's not all that important which lines bring a smile or a frown to your face. The only important thing is your undivided attention. It's only on the second reading that you make yourself comfortable on the couch or in an armchair. As for anyone who might be watching you read—wouldn't he envy the writer of that letter and wish he were in his shoes?

It is dreams like these that are to blame for my continued efforts.

In the middle of June '87, barely a year and a half after Vera filed her application for an exit visa, I received a telegram. “Leaving today. Neustadt Station,” followed by departure time and as usual, “Greetings, Vera.”

The telegram arrived around eleven. I normally would have left my place by ten at the latest. And since it was Tuesday I would have been in the library, except that when I got up the tap didn't work, no matter how I played with it. A note in the building entryway promised running water by ten thirty. I had lain down again and didn't wake up until the pipes began to spit and grumble, flooding the sink with a jet of rusty brown water. And if, as I was leaving the building, I hadn't seen the messenger—who was scanning the doorbell register with his glasses pushed back up on his forehead—and asked him who he was looking for…yes, a miracle that I got the telegram in time.

It was one of my few train trips without something to read or work on. Although I stared out the window the whole time, I never even took notice of the valleys of the Saale or the Weinböhla.

I walked from Neustadt Station to Vera's apartment. The windows were closed, no one answered the door. I left a note and took a streetcar to my mother's place. No one there either. Finally, an hour later, they arrived together.

Vera had spent the whole day running from office to office; for the first time in her life Mother had called in sick and now dragged in two suitcases full of new shoes, underwear, and bed linens. She couldn't understand why Vera wanted to leave with just a little traveling bag. And if it hadn't been for photographs and my father's handkerchief collection, she wouldn't even have needed that.

“What am I supposed to do with all this?” my mother cried, dogging Vera's footsteps until she locked herself in the bathroom and we all three stood around shouting. Mother was the first to start sobbing.

As I write to you about all this, it seems to me as if this were the first time I've ever recalled those hours.
²²⁹

Vera moved through each room one last time, opening every drawer, as if she wanted to print it all on her memory. She'd really prefer to go to the station by herself, she said. Shaking her head, she watched Mother butter one sandwich after the other, as if we were going on a family outing. We walked to the streetcar stop together.

Mother had bought a pack of Duetts and was chain-smoking. We rode to the Platz der Einheit. Vera and I had taken a few steps in the direction of Neutstadt Station, when Mother called her back. “Vera! I can't do it!” Mother was still standing in the same spot where we had got off the streetcar. Vera ran back, set down her bag, and I watched as—for the first time, or so it seemed to me—she hugged my mother. I could also see my mother caressing Vera's cheeks. Then I noticed people turning around to look at them.

Vera said nothing, cast a glance into her compact mirror, and linked her arm in mine. I took her travel bag. Someone might have thought she was bringing me to the train.

Neither outside the entrance nor inside the station did I notice anything unusual. It was a few days before the start of school vacation, and there were long lines at the ticket booths. We slowly climbed the stairs. I was afraid that some of Vera's girlfriends—and boyfriends—would arrive and we wouldn't be alone.

We walked along the platform. People were standing shoulder to shoulder in little groups. Bottles of wine and bubbly were being passed around. Almost every group had children, each with a backpack and some stuffed animal to clutch. To me it looked as if all these white-splattered jeans outfits had reassembled at their point of origin.

Under an open sky, at the end of the platform now, Vera unpacked her sandwiches.

“The Stasi asked about you,” she said, without looking at me.
²³⁰
I exclaimed much too loudly, “What?” Yes, I think I crowed that “What?” like a fourteen-year-old whose voice is cracking.