Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation (23 page)

‘I feel most at home when I am with you and Anna. It doesn’t matter where we are.’

‘But you need your distractions.’

‘That’s not always true.’

‘More often than not. You may be concerned about my feelings now that we have returned but I am also worried about
you
, Sidney. Will there be enough entertainment? So far there has been no crime and no lonely perfumed women. What are you going to find to amuse yourself? Perhaps, now that we are in a foreign land, you will be thrown back on your resources, without the protection of your past, your country, your church and your friends. Maybe I will see the real Sidney at last?’

Anna Chambers was excited by the imminent possibility of men walking on the moon. She had brought her little telescope from home in the hope that she might be able to see them land. Her mother hadn’t had the heart to tell her how improbable this was, but she did promise to wake her up in the middle of the night so that she could see the event on television – provided the East Germans showed it.

This did not seem likely. There were only two state channels and there was so little chance of picking up reception from West Germany that Rügen was known for being part of
Tal der Ahnungslosen
, the Valley of the Clueless. Instead, the children watched the mishaps of Clown Ferdinand and his caravan.

‘Jürgen loves it when people fall over,’ said Günter, laughing loudly, believing that if he found something amusing then other people must too. ‘He thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world. He’ll try and trip you all up, just you watch. He likes his fun.’

‘
Es ist so lustig
,’ said Jürgen.

‘This is boring,’ Anna told her mother. ‘It’s not funny. I want to see the men on the moon.’

Sidney wondered when they were going to go out and sample the delights of a local brewery. Günter finally obliged by taking him to his favourite
Bierhalle
, a large two-storeyed building that doubled as a cinema and community meeting hall, with bright yellow walls decorated with stucco reliefs of gymnasts, dancers and musicians.

Outside, an oompah band played ‘
Wein, Weib und Gesang
’ and all around them people were toasting each other: ‘
Prost, prost, Kamerad! Prost, prost, Kamerad! Prost, prost, prost, prost, prost, prost, Kamerad! Wir wollen einen heben: prost, prost prost!
’ As they spoke they moved their glass to their head, chest and stomach –
Zur Mitte, zur Titte, zum Sack, zack, zack
– before downing the beer in one.

Günter bought the first round of drinks and they spoke in a mixture of English and German, helping each other out whenever necessary. He said that he was surprised Sidney had agreed to come on such a holiday. ‘I thought the British preferred France.’

‘It’s the first time we have been here as a family. Hildegard is keen that Anna should keep in touch with her German heritage.’

‘Some exiles would prefer to forget that.’

‘I think my wife is of the belief that you can’t ignore history.’

Günter began to extemporise on a theory of social improvement, in which everyone strived for a future that evolved from the workers up rather than the aristocracy down. ‘You have to work with people who are all planning for a better tomorrow.’ He continued: ‘And this is not always clear. It is not just the politicians but the town planners, the people in construction, the police. We have to be consistent. Ideology is more important than money.’

‘Although money does matter, I suppose.’

Günter clapped him on the back. ‘A typical capitalist response. You must buy the next round of drinks!’

As the conversation wore on, Günter revealed his plan to take over the Pensionshaus Garni.

‘Wasn’t that once Thomas Pietsch’s hotel?’ Sidney asked.

‘Not any more.’

‘Does his son know?’

‘He will find out. He’s over there.’

Otto Pietsch was a large bleary-eyed man with sloping shoulders who had reached that stage in life when it was too late to reverse the process of letting himself go. He was with his friend Karl Fischer and a female drinking companion in a skimpy cotton dress that was a size too small for her. They were already half-cut, shouting out traditional banter to their friends: ‘
Es trinkt der Mensch, es säuft das Pferd, doch heute ist es umgekehrt!
Men drink and horses guzzle, but tonight we’re wearing muzzles.’

After half an hour, another of Günter’s friends, Rolf Müller, pulled up in a two-toned Wartburg police car. Sidney was worried they might have done something wrong, that they had all been too loud or too drunk, but he was quickly informed that they had not been loud
enough
, and that Rolf, an officer in the criminal investigation department of the Volkspolizei, was determined to enjoy his night off. Günter owed him money, he said, and he could start by paying off his debt
in beer
.

‘
Tut den Durst nur immer löschen
,’ he began to sing,

‘
doch mit Wasser das laß sein
.

Wasser das gehört den Fröschen

doch den Menschen Bier und Wein
.’

Günter translated:

If quenching thirst is your sole aim

Then water will do you just fine.

But water belongs to frogs

While humans have beer and wine.

Sidney was uneasy. He could not quite believe the camaraderie that was on display. He felt that everyone was going through the motions of having a good time in order to avoid any true show of feeling; that those around him were willing everything to be all right even though they knew it probably was not.

He had seen this before, in England and in war-time: the hope that if you
pretended
that your morale was good then it might
become
good. There was something desperate about the night. Perhaps, he thought, it was because people worried that if they had stayed at home others might talk about them, report on their activities and arouse suspicion. They felt that they had no choice other than to be part of the show. Their forced conviviality was an attempt to demonstrate that they all belonged, that they were all in this great social project together, no matter what, hiding their terror of being exposed and alone for those rare moments of privacy in which no one could catch them out.

As he bought a round of drinks, Karl Fischer mumbled something about fate and death. Sidney couldn’t quite make out the sense; he was unable to establish if the man was even talking to him and the volume of noise made comprehension difficult, but he knew the words ‘
Tod
’ and ‘
Schicksal
’. He had
heard them often enough. A few moments later, Günter leant forward and pronounced with an almost drunken melancholy: ‘
Freundschaft ist weit tragischer als Liebe. Sie dauert länger
. Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.’

Sidney wasn’t sure these men were really friends: Günter Jansen, Karl Fischer, Otto Pietsch and Rolf Müller may have slapped each other on the back, given out drinking toasts and made their arrangements to see each other at the festival that weekend, but their comradely behaviour felt practised rather than meant, something they hoped might be true while knowing all along that it was no such thing.

Back at the Villa Friede, the children were incapable of such pretence. Any parental hope that they would play happily together soon proved over-optimistic. There was a valiant attempt at a family game of rounders on the beach, but the sad fact was that Jürgen was uneasy in other children’s company and preferred to construct things on his own with a soldering iron.

Günter gave his son the usual communist greeting on his return home: ‘
Seid bereit
.’

‘
Immer bereit
.’

Jürgen told his father that Karl Fischer had paid a visit earlier.

‘He didn’t mention that when I saw him.’

‘He came with a new transistor for the radio I am making. Then he talked to Mother. They told me to leave them alone. I asked Uncle Karl to help with my tape recorder but Mother wouldn’t let me so I watched them without them noticing. Mother likes Uncle Karl . . .’

‘We all like Uncle Karl, Jürgen. He is a very good electrician.’

‘Mother smiles when he comes and is sad when he leaves. I wrote it in my book. It’s like the one you have.’

‘Let me see it,’ said Günter. He turned to his wife. ‘I didn’t know Karl was here, Maria. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because I didn’t know he was coming either.’

‘You were alone with him?’

‘Not for long. I am never alone. There is always somebody watching or wanting something.’ Her husband looked as if he might hit her, but before he could do anything Maria added, ‘And I never smile. You know that.’

‘Perhaps you should be flattered by the attentions of men at your age.’

‘I’d rather be on my own.’

She had just managed to settle the children down to bread, onions and
Bratwurst
and was not in the mood for a fight. As far as she was concerned, there were still nine days to go of this overpopulated intrusion. She just had to live through them.

‘Jürgen has been trying to record all our conversations on his cassette recorder,’ Hildegard announced in an attempt both to explain the situation and deflect from its seriousness. ‘It’ll be you next, Sidney. Anna’s bedtime story. He’ll probably want to record that too. Just you wait.’

‘Am I reading to her?’

‘You promised, remember? Every day of the holiday.’

Anna was at an open window, looking through her telescope at the night sky. Sidney watched as she began an imaginary conversation.

‘Hello, Mr Moon, how are you today?’

She answered herself in as low and booming a voice as she could muster. ‘I am very well. But what are you doing walking all over me?’

‘I wanted to see if you were made of cheese.’

‘I AM made of cheese.’

‘Can I eat you up?’

‘That would take a
very long time
.’

‘If I start eating you will I turn into cheese?’

Anna noticed her father was in the room but didn’t seem to mind. Glad of an audience, she carried on with the moon’s low voice. ‘Do you have a cat, little girl?’

‘No, I have a dog.’

‘Does he like cheese?’

‘I think he does.’

‘Does he want to eat me too?’

‘He’s not here at the moment. He’s in England.’

‘And where are you?’

‘I’m in Germany.’

‘Do you like Germany?’

‘I don’t think I do. I think I’d rather be with you, Mr Moon.’

Sidney said it was time for bed. Anna asked for
his
story and her father then made up a fairy tale about how the moon shone and moved through the heavens, how it was accompanied by individual spirits to keep it clean and how those spirits pulled travellers up into the night sky in their sleep, letting them dream the most beautiful dreams.

It seemed astonishing to be part of a time when you could look up at the moon and know, as you did so, that two American men were walking on its surface.

‘Are the astronauts there now, Daddy? Can we see them?’

‘It’s too far away.’

‘Can they see us?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘And will they see God?’

‘Perhaps, my darling. If they wait long enough.’

‘How long will that be?’

‘As long as a good night’s sleep. Close your eyes now.’

‘I don’t want to.’ Anna looked towards the doorway. ‘What’s he doing?’

Jürgen had been listening. He was holding out a microphone. He had not been able to understand the English (he learned Russian at school) and asked them what the story was about. When Sidney told him, he replied simply:

‘I’ve been to the moon,’ he said. ‘When I lived before.’ Then he turned and walked away.

Anna said that she was afraid of the boy. She didn’t like it in Germany. ‘You don’t either, Daddy, do you?’

‘I’m not sure. I think I am waiting to find out more.’

‘I’m worried all the time here, Daddy.’

‘It’s because you are not at home, my darling.’

‘Mummy says this is her home.’

‘She doesn’t mean that.’

‘What does she mean then?’

‘She is thinking what it was like for her when she was your age. It’s hard for you to understand.’

‘No it isn’t!’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does, Daddy. I’m frightened. It’s that boy. I don’t like him.’

‘Jürgen means no harm.’

‘But he’s scary, Daddy.’

Sidney gave his daughter a cuddle. ‘Don’t you worry. I will look after you.’ His daughter smelled of wool and warmth and milk. He remembered her as a baby. How much longer would she have such trust, such innocence?

Anna held on tightly to him. ‘I don’t like his dog either. Do you think a wolf will come out of the forest and eat him?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘But if a wolf did come and eat him you would be happy?’

‘I wouldn’t like to see that,’ said Sidney. ‘But I wouldn’t mind if that dog Franzi ran into the forest and never came back.’

‘But you won’t go into the forest, will you?’

‘I’ll only go if you come with
me
; and you must only go if I am with
you
. Is that fair?’

‘And when you tell me a story tomorrow night can it just be you and me?’

‘Of course it can,’ said Sidney, tucking his daughter in and realising, as he said this, that tomorrow they would all be at the Friendship Festival.

It took place at the northern end of the small town of Prora, the site of one of the most ambitious examples of Nazi architecture ever built; a three-mile-long series of hotel buildings erected between a long beach and a large pine forest. It had been designed to give twenty thousand workers a holiday every year but the war had put a stop to its construction and the project had never been completed. Two central blocks were currently used by the police and the East German army, but the bulk of the site had been left unfinished amidst the sand dunes, a Nazi white elephant that now served as a powerful demonstration of the folly of political grandstanding and social engineering.

Sidney and Hildegard walked through the areas that had not been sealed off by the authorities while Maria took the children to the beach to eat ice creams and build sandcastles.