The Leipzig Affair

by Fiona Rintoul

  “Hey, listen to this,” Chris would say. “Listen to the wee man.” He’d nudge me. “Go on. Tell them.”

  I’d tell them whatever it was I’d found out about whatever it was – the Roman legions, Rommel’s North Africa Campaign, dinosaurs, the sex life of plants – and they’d listen. When I was done, Chris would say, “Amazing, eh? That’s dead cool, man.” They’d all nod.

  Later, things changed for me at school. We got streamed and I had a wee quiet pal called Donald Black whom I sat beside in maths and English. He understood about my eye patch because his sister had one. I no longer spent intervals and lunchtimes alone. I hung out with Blackie and a couple of other loser, swotty types. Later still, my eye was fixed and I got normal glasses, then contact lenses. I grew taller, started to do sport and filled out. One day when Ian Bagley called me a poof and put his foot out to trip me up in the corridor, I turned round and stuck one on him. There was a satisfying crack as my fist connected with his nose. It started to bleed and he ran away squealing.

  No one ever came after me again. The dark days were over. I didn’t need Chris in quite the way I had before. But I needed him in other ways. His house was a sanctuary for me, an escape from home. The happiest days of my childhood were spent at the O’Driscolls’ house. I saw things there I’d never seen before. Whole coffee beans, which Mrs O’Driscoll turned into a bitter, intoxicating liquid that bore no resemblance to the instant coffee at home. Real oil paintings where you could see the brush strokes in the paint. A married couple who liked each other. I watched mesmerised as Mr O’Driscoll came up behind his wife in the kitchen, ran his hands over her hips, kissed her on the neck and called her pet names like ‘honey’ and ‘sweetheart’. He said things to her – “You’re looking lovely today, Isabella” or “What’s for tea, gorgeous woman?” – that thrilled and embarrassed me in equal measure.

  It seemed to me that Mr and Mrs O’Driscoll almost certainly had sex. If my parents had ever had sex it must have been a grim affair. My father was a sour man who bullied his wife, ignored his daughter and despised his son for being clever. He worked at the steelworks and thought that any man who didn’t wear a boiler suit to work was a pansy. The men he worked with all wanted their sons to do well and get out of Calderhill. Not my dad. The better I did at school, the less he liked it. I grew to hate him, and although my mum was an altogether gentler soul, a soft-spoken book lover who doted on her only son, she didn’t stand up to him, and so I came to despise her too.

  I went to the O’Driscolls’ to forget, but as I got older and spent more time there, something else happened. Chris started to need me as much as I needed him. He was clever but not as clever as me and he didn’t have the application. I helped him with his homework, and my visits became important. Mrs O’Driscoll brought us coffee and cakes and shooed her girls away from Chris’s room. Mr O’Driscoll made sure to pop his head round the door and say, “How’s it going, Bobbie? How’s the old brainbox today.” The O’Driscolls became my second family. When I was made Dux of my school, it was Chris’s parents who made a fuss, not my own. Mr O’Driscoll shook my hand and said, “You’ll go far, Bobbie,” then produced two tickets for the first game of the season at Celtic Park. Mrs O’Driscoll hugged me and gave me a card containing a £10 book token. At home very little was said, though my mum slipped me a five pound note when my dad was out and said, “I’m very proud of you, son.”

  When it came time to go to university, I was worried rather than excited because I knew my time with the O’Driscolls was coming to an end. The private school and Mr O’Driscoll’s money made a difference now. Chris did English ‘A’ levels at St Ignatius’, sat the Oxbridge exams and got a place to read chemistry at Magdalen College, Oxford. Mrs O’Driscoll threw a party for him, and it wasn’t long before I realised how out of place I was in Chris’s new world. I pronounced ‘Magdalen’ as it’s spelt and Gerard Kelly, Chris’s friend from St Ignatius’ College, roared with laughter.

  “Bloody stupid way to say it if you ask me,” said Mr O’Driscoll, slinging a comradely arm round my shoulders. But I minded that I’d got it wrong.

  That summer, Chris and I went on a road trip to France, bankrolled by Mr O’Driscoll. It was my first trip abroad – the best thing ever. We slept in the open, smoked Gauloises, tried dope for the first time and eventually got laid. But the whole time I was aware that it wasn’t just a holiday; it was the end of something.

  I needed a replacement for Chris. I found it with Aloïse, a thin, nut-brown girl who hung out with us for a few days in Antibes and relieved me of my virginity. I came inside her in seconds. I was in a frenzy, clawing at her small breasts till she slapped my hand away. It was blissful but perhaps not quite as blissful as the feeling of control I’d had earlier the same evening when I’d got properly drunk for the first time. Now that was special. I cracked jokes and people laughed. I smiled at girls, and they smiled back. All my cares fell away, and I didn’t need Chris for angel dust to fall on my shoulders. I’d found a new best friend.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lanky Jana is there when you arrive at the University Tower to find out if you’ve been awarded a place on the Study in the Non-Socialist Abroad programme. Everyone knows she is Frau Aner’s right-hand woman.

  The results are posted on a board outside Hencke’s office. Students have travelled back to Leipzig from other cities to see them before the letters go out, not because they want to know what mark they got in prose composition, but because they want to know if they got a place on the Study in the Non-Socialist Abroad programme. It’s a golden chance to travel to the West. There might never be another.

  Jana doesn’t pretend there is any reason for her to be there. She just stands in the middle of the corridor like a block of wood, while the others look at the board. Looking at it now is Dieter, who dresses like a Texan ranch hand and speaks English with an American drawl picked up from Armed Forces Radio. His unhealthy interest in things American means he has no chance of a place, but unlike Jana he has a reason to be there. Jana has already been to the West. The previous year, she spent three months at Leeds University. She didn’t like it. She said everyone had green hair in England, and there were no cows.

  People gasped. “No cows? That’s incredible!”

  “It certainly is,” said Dieter, and you and he exchanged a look.

  You nod to Jana and the others as they move aside to let you pass and try to read their expressions. You’re the best student in the year. Everyone knows that. If the places were handed out on merit alone you wouldn’t need to be here; you’d know your place was secure. You have no relatives in the West. There are no impediments apart from your rebellious past. And you have a secret weapon to counter that. You have Hencke and his promise to you.

  You approach the board. It’s very still in the corridor. Everyone is waiting for you to the look at the board. They’re all waiting for Magda Reinsch, the daughter of a former high-ranking official from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs who rebelled and disgraced her father then came back to the Party, to learn if she has been granted a place to study in England.

  You scan the list of names. Your name is not there. You look again. An absence is so much harder to be sure of than a presence. It’s not there. You knew it wouldn’t be as soon as you saw Jana in the corridor. You close your eyes and take a deep breath.

  “What a pity!” says Jana, appearing at your shoulder. “You tried very hard for this place.”

  You swing round. Your English is ten times better than hers. For a moment, you consider punching her in the face, smashing her beaky red nose to smithereens. Then you look into her pale blue eyes. Her gaze is steady and cool. Is there something new there? Does she know about Hencke?

  At the lift, Dieter comes up to you and claps you on the shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says.

  You force a smile, suppressing the urge to cry. “I’m not the only one who didn’t get a place.”

  “You’re the only one who deserved a place who d
idn’t get one.”

  “Did you – ?” You didn’t look for his name.

  He shakes his head. “No, but then … maybe I’m too crazy,” he says in English.

  You laugh, and he touches your cheek. “You should laugh more often, Magda. It suits you.”

  In the lift, he invites you for a coffee. You hesitate. “C’mon. Let me buy you coffee and cake,” he says. “Let’s cheer ourselves up.”

  Your first impulse is to refuse, but what will you do if you don’t go? Marek is in Berlin, and Kerstin is attending a lecture by a visiting academic from Afghanistan in Halle and won’t be home until later. You’d pinned all your hopes on the study place. If you have coffee with Dieter you won’t have to think about it for an hour or so.

  You expect him to take you to the Mensa, but he says he doesn’t want to go to the student canteen. You don’t want to either: too many familiar faces. Instead, he suggests Café Riquard.

  “But Riquard is expensive.”

  He shrugs. “Who cares?”

  The café is half empty, but you have to wait a long time for a table. “Comrade,” Dieter says to the waitress, “why are we waiting?”

  She scowls, looks round and points to a table at the back near the stairs that lead to the toilets. “You can sit there.”

  “Couldn’t we sit in the window?”

  “Reserved.”

  “But there’s no one there. Please, I’m treating my friend.”

  “It’s reserved, Comrade!” she screams, and the few patrons look over. At the table, she slams the menus down. “Order with me,” she says and stalks off.

  Dieter sighs. “Why can’t she just be civil?”

  The waitress makes you wait a good ten minutes before she sidles back over. “Yes?” she says.

  You order chocolate cake.

  “We don’t have that.”

  “Apple strudel?” Dieter asks, and she shakes her head. “What do you have?” he asks.

  “We have what’s on the menu, young man.”

  “How about apricot cheesecake?” you ask.

  “We’re out of apricot cheesecake.”

  “Plain cheesecake?” The waitress nods sullenly. “I’ll have that,” you say.

  “The same for me,” says Dieter, “and a pot of coffee for two. It’s crazy that you didn’t get a place, Magda,” he says when the waitress has gone. “You were the best in the class.”

  You shrug. “Well – ”

  “What will you do now?”

  You give an involuntary start. The question is unusually direct. In theory, there is no such question. You must finish your training and become an English-German interpreter without ever having been in a country where English is spoken. To ask such a question is to imply that you had ulterior motives for wanting the place. You eye him carefully. He’s very short, barely one metre sixty, with dark curly hair. He is a little ridiculous in his ersatz cowboy outfits, like a teddy bear with spurs. He looks entirely harmless, but aren’t they always the worst? You know Kerstin doesn’t trust him. She thinks his love of America is too obvious. She prefers the quieter refuge of the dead languages she’s learning in Cuneiform Studies. But Dieter sometimes does little jobs for Marek in return for certain treats. That should mean he’s on the right side. You hope he is. In case not, you change the subject.

  “If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?” you ask.

  “Moscow,” he says, and you snort with laughter. “Yes. Why not? I’ve always wanted to see Red Square.” He bursts out laughing. People look over, and the waitress frowns. “No, I’d go to New York City,” he says when you’ve both regained your composure. “I’d like to visit the Empire State Building and the Cotton Club in Harlem. And you?”

  You think of all the places you’d like to go. Kerstin would say Mesopotamia or Assyria. That’s why she’s so stable. No one can go to the places that capture her imagination, not even West Germans.

  “Paris,” you say. “Or maybe London.”

  “Who would you go with?”

  Do you detect an edge in his voice? You’d go with Marek. Always with him.

  “I like to travel alone,” you say.

  *

  When you leave the café you storm across Karl-Marx-Platz to the post office and phone Hencke.

  “Little mouse,” he squeaks. “Goodness.”

  You have never phoned him before. He didn’t give you the number when the phone was installed. But it’s printed on the rotary dial, and you memorised it.

  “To what do I owe – ?” he begins.

  “I need to see you,” you interrupt.

  “I’m afraid it’s not very convenient right – ”

  “It’s important.”

  “My dear girl, I really don’t have time now.”

  You fight the anger rising inside you and put on a little-girl sexy voice. “But I have something to show you, Heinzi. You remember the present you gave me? I spent it. I went to the Exquisit shop in Berlin at the weekend and bought some new underwear. I want to show it to you. It’s your favourite colour.”

  “Ah,” he breathes, “how you tempt your poor old Heinzi. But what colour can you mean? I don’t believe we ever talked about this.”

  “Red, Heinzi. Isn’t it red? I thought it would be red. I bought red panties, a red bra – ”

  “Now, little mouse,” he interrupts, perhaps thinking of the censor, who listens in on every phone call. “I think you should be running along.”

  “I need to see you.”

  “Little mouse – ”

  “It’s important.”

  He sighs. “Very well. But I won’t be able to spare much time.”

  Stay calm, you tell yourself as you jump on the tram. Don’t let him see how upset you are. You change lines at the train station, and the tram rattles out along the ring road, then over the Zeppelin Bridge past the Central Stadium where you watched your brother compete in the Gymnastics and Sports Festival three years ago. Hencke lives in a modern development near the end of the line. All the streets are named after flowers. You march down Carnation Way, which houses the nicer, more spacious apartments. It’s hard to get one of these apartments – very hard for a single man. You need connections. Hencke has connections. You press his buzzer, thinking you wouldn’t live in one of these centrally heated boxes for anything in the world. The regime’s corn and compass emblem is stamped on every stone.

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” Hencke says as you pass through his front door. He rubs his hands together, then reaches up and pecks you on the cheek. “But in future you must give your Heinzi more notice. And please be careful what you say on the telephone. We don’t want any misunderstandings. I didn’t realise you had the number. It’s really best not to telephone. Shall we go through?”

  He sits down on the sofa, and you say, “I went to the University Tower today. I didn’t get a place on the study programme.”

  “Ah, yes.” He clasps his hands together as if in prayer. “Such a pity.”

  On the shelving unit behind the sofa sits a wooden gong inlaid with a bronze medallion of Lenin’s profile and inscribed with the words: ‘30 YEARS OF THE GDR!’ You briefly consider grabbing it and caving Hencke’s skull in.

  “You promised me you’d see to it,” you say.

  “And I tried, little mouse. I spoke up for you at every opportunity, but in the end there was simply nothing I could do. The others were determined to make a different choice.”

  “We had an agreement,” you hiss.

  “It’s just a small trip abroad. There’s really no need to get upset.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.”

  “It’s never been my privilege to travel to the West either,” he says, forgetting all the stories he’s told you about West Berlin.

  His left arm is stretched along the back of the beige plastic sofa. He smiles, and his eyes glitter behind his thick spectacles. “Let’s not fight,.” He pats the cushion next to him. “Come and sit with your Heinz
i. Let’s have a little cuddle and then you can show me your exciting new things. Exquisit indeed! We have been good to ourselves.”

  “You told me you’d see to it.”

  “Little mouse, I’m afraid you overestimate my powers.”

  He smirks, and you think of all the ghastly afternoons you’ve spent in this sterile little apartment. Tears prick your eyes, and you fight back a sob.

  “Are you quite all right, my dear?”

  You take a deep breath and pull a packet of cigarettes from your bag.

  “Now, you know I don’t like smoking in the apartment.” You give him a hard look. “Well, all right then. Just this once. I’ll get an ashtray, but please catch any ash that falls before I get back in your hand.”

  He scurries off like the neurotic little housewife he is. Your hand shakes as you light a cigarette. You drift over to the glass doors that open on to the balcony and look out at the park. It’s a warm June day. Children are playing in the sun. People are walking their dogs. Hencke clomps back into the room and deposits the ashtray on the window ledge. He slides his hands up your back and starts to knead your shoulders.

  You shrug him off.

  “Now, now, whatever is the matter?”

  You swing round to face him. “You lied to me. You told me you’d fix it and you didn’t. I mean, why did you think I was fucking you, Heinz? Surely you didn’t think I liked you?”

  He moves back, a thin smile on his lips. His small, pointy teeth make him look like a vicious little animal: a weasel or a wild cat. “I do think you’re rather over-reacting, don’t you? I don’t blame you. It’s the showman in you. You get it from your mother. I remember seeing her in concert many years ago. It would be many years ago, wouldn’t it? I don’t believe she plays now, does she? All those wild flourishes. Very dramatic. But in the end not all that convincing. If you examine the facts – the facts – I’m sure you’ll see that there’s no question whatsoever of anyone having lied. I didn’t promise you anything. Perhaps you thought our special understanding would help you in some way, that our delightful little times together would give you certain advantages. It’s quite understandable that you might have thought that. But if you consider the matter carefully I’m sure you’ll realise what a foolish idea that was. And not just foolish, little mouse. Illegal. Against all the ideals and principles of our Republic. In the Workers’ and Farmers’ State, we do not get a place on an important study programme through friendships and connections. We get a place through hard work and application. Remember the words of Comrade Ernst Thälmann: No success without pain and work. I suggest you study those words. Didn’t you pledge to follow Comrade Ernst Thälmann’s example when you were a Pioneer? Ernst Thälmann is my model. I promise to learn to work and struggle as Ernst Thälmann teaches. How sweet you must have looked in your little white shirt and red neckerchief. What I wouldn’t give to have known you then.”