“I’m really sorry about the ball.” Hanbury said. “I felt great on Sunday. I tried to call you to say that. I would like to try some of those dance steps again.”
“The music was good,” Gundula agreed.
“Those guys from Harlem were terrific. They opened my eyes. They really did.”
On the city autobahn Trabi went calmly. Gundula explained why the Harlem band impressed her. She hummed a few notes to demonstrate her point. At the bungalow, Hanbury asked, “A drink?”
Gundula looked him over, head shaking, eyes back to teasing. “No thanks. You need time alone to study that book of cowboy manners.”
“It’s thick. Suppose I never finish it?”
“Let’s put it this way – once you have, let me know.”
Hanbury stood on the sidewalk thinking this over. Trabi’s engine roared. Gundula popped the clutch, but the engine died on the spot. Hanbury opened the door. “If you’re gonna hang out with cowboys, get yourself a decent horse.”
“Get away!” she laughed and tried again. With some coaxing Trabi, that dapper creature, disappeared into the fog.
Inside, he put a new disc into the stereo, a compilation, The Best of Soul. He set the volume loud and listened critically for a while. His thoughts wandered – to Gundula, furious with him for reasons he found deeply fascinating – to Günther Rauch, to whom an olive branch had been delivered – and to Bücher Geissler, an unknown place he felt compelled to explore.
CELLAR VISITS
Wrapping up her father’s affairs, Sabine found, was a full-time job which lasted weeks. Inheritance formalities, an apartment to be cleared out, organizing donations of his things: a bleak converse, she thought, to preparing the Fasanenstrasse apartment for Nicholas’s arrival. Settling the estate was not merely a disentangling and redirection of objects. It was also a separating out of the physical from the spiritual. In the end little of her father remained, except what she carried of him in her head.
Everyone was supportive. Werner drove back and forth to Spandau for the things the family would keep. Lisa, who knew charities that supplied Russia, helped with the clothes. Martina arranged for a second-hand furniture dealer, who warned on the phone he paid only for antiques. Herr Geissler, throughout, was strangely understanding. “It needs to be done,” he whispered, staring into the distance. “It needs to be done well.” Sabine had never seen him look more disturbed. Had his tunnel vision become fixed on a looming question with no answer: who one day would settle his estate?
The weather didn’t help. Every day Sabine recalled an opinion of her father’s. No one should be allowed to die in winter, he once said. Winter deaths are too tough on the ones left behind.
When sleepless nights are spent staring at the darkness, and when the day ends in the middle of the afternoon and the mornings are so dull you can’t make out the street from a second-storey window, some moodiness can be excused. For weeks on end, Sabine and Herr Geissler were in this respect peculiarly synchronised. The melancholy Geissler had taken to standing more motionless than usual near the front of his store to stare at the January fog. One day he saw it end. The agent – a cold wind – began pushing a few snowflakes around, and hour upon hour he was mesmerized by the white flecks that died upon impact with the sidewalk.
Geissler was so transfixed by the snow that he almost missed the arrival of an unimposing customer. The man halted in front of the store and paused to read the name in metal letters glued in a semi-circle on the window. The door was opened diffidently and closed gently. The string to the bell scarcely moved, so the jangle was subdued. Geissler felt less animosity towards customers who entered without arrogance.
“Good day,” the customer said softly. Geissler indicated he was welcome with a severe nod. He observed the customer unzip a waterproof jacket, shaking off the wetness. Underneath, he wore a pin-striped suit. The shoes didn’t match either. The colours clashed and they were badly faded, as if the wearer had trekked through acidic swamps. “May I have a look around?” the customer asked politely. “Bitte,” Geissler said brusquely. Please. He waved his left arm towards the shelves rising to the ceiling. The customer handled the books with respect. He surveyed a row, title by title, occasionally pulled one out, holding it like a treasure before slipping it back. Different, Geissler thought. Most customers came in with questions barked out as orders. He adjusted his view away from the snowflakes. The customer’s slow progress from aisle to aisle was inspiring. Why couldn’t everyone browse like that?
Frau Schwartz was re-arranging titles in a far aisle. Geissler watched the customer turn into that aisle. He saw him address Frau Schwartz and how she dropped a book which hit the floor with a loud clap. The customer knelt down to pick it up. Geissler had never seen Frau Schwartz so agitated. She had been withdrawn these last weeks, mourning her loss, although she still dealt with customers well enough, correctly if impassively. But this one, dressed formally and informally at once, polite, educated, he changed all that. She became flushed, looking around as if she wanted to escape. The customer, as he talked, paged through the fallen book. They talked in hushed voices for five minutes. On the way out, the customer gave Geissler a genteel nod.
Geissler took a few hobbled steps into the aisle. “Who was that?” Frau Schwartz’s countenance was once more morose. “An old acquaintance.” She went back to ordering books.
“He is a foreigner.”
“Yes.”
“English. Only an Englishman would wear a banker’s suit with shoes like that.” Geissler was excited. His eyes behind the thick lenses flicked wildly.
“Not English,” Frau Schwartz replied.
“He’s not German,” Geissler insisted.
“No. He’s a consul. From Canada.”
“Der Konsul von Kanada!” Geissler said with soft wonder, returning to the window.
The next day the customer was back, just before midday. He entered with less hesitancy. This time he wore a dark top coat and dress shoes, disappointing Geissler. The previous day’s version, more eccentrically clothed, had better fitted his concept of the fearless adventurers who once upon a time explored a frozen north. When the customer greeted him, Geissler blurted, “I have a cousin in Canada. In Whitehorse. Have you heard of Whitehorse? A wonderful name. Who wouldn’t like to live there?” The consul slipped into a professional demeanour. “Whitehorse? Surrounded by the mountains of the Yukon. A lovely part of the country. What does your cousin do?” Geissler fixed his stare at the consul. “He wrote he panned for gold.” “Ah, yes, flakes in mountain streams. I hope he found some. But I’m sure you’re more successful. This is a wonderful store.”
Geissler gave a pained smile. Eyes full of pride flitted back and forth between the customer and the dusty books. “Your shoes are different today,” he said awkwardly.
“I was out walking yesterday and happened to be in the area. Today I have invited Frau Schwartz for coffee.”
Geissler jerked his head back to the street, sinking into himself, thinking of a Yukon river gravel bed glistening with a million specks of gold. Hanbury randomly took a book off a shelf. Paging through it, he waited for Sabine. When she appeared she asked if he had met Herr Geissler. Hanbury said they had chatted. Nonetheless she introduced him. The consul took a step forward to Geissler who half-turned. Hanbury saw the right arm was missing and without hesitation extended his own left hand. “I’m honoured to meet you,” he said. “The same,” Geissler muttered. Few people intuitively acknowledged his war wound.
A week later, the customer showed up again. He took time to talk to Geissler, asking questions: about the difficulties of maintaining a specialty book store and about the books – where did he get them? Geissler gruffly replied he had thousands of them stockpiled in the cellar. “It sounds like you have a treasure,” said the consul.
Once the consul and Frau Schwartz had left, Geissler thought about the gold in the consul’s country’s rivers being taken out by his cousin, and about his hoard of books one flo
or below. A treasure? He decided next time he would invite the consul down.
Despite the many years with Geissler, Sabine was unaware her father’s death had shaken the bookstore owner profoundly. She had no reason to think Geissler had deep anxieties about death. He never mentioned it. Her father, on the other hand, guided as he had been by a happy unconcern, was always glib about it. Even on his deathbed he had been convinced it would be a matter of days only before his strength would rush back. Reclined deep in the hospital pillows, he had important things on his mind. He was breathing hard, with more difficulty all the time, but he claimed that’s what it was like in the Tour de France, especially in the gruelling uphill heats in the Pyrenees that test endurance. Sabine was next to the bed. Whatever her father was thinking, she could see he wouldn’t win. Pneumonia was doing the winning. Yesterday he spoke in sentences. Today he gasped between each phrase. It broke her heart, being helpless as he struggled.
He was preoccupied with more than going uphill in the Pyrenees. He also lectured her. On the notion of reconciliation. Suppose no one ever forgave…How many million people died in the last war?…And for what?…We started it…Somebody forgave us…Imagine where we’d be if they hadn’t… After all the many years he wanted to say something about Tony too. You don’t need to forget what he did. Just forgive.
The last things Sabine wanted to talk about was war and death, or forgiving a former lover. She wanted her father, as he neared his end, to say things about her mother. And she wanted to tell him about Nicholas who was like him. In a weak whisper, Müller continued. Sabine had to strain to catch the words. Anyway…what did he do?…panicked…ran off…avoided a decision…Once or twice I’ve done that too… Limply he squeezed Sabine’s hand. Listen, next year…I’m going to clock more kilometres than the others…There’s a neat trophy for that…You and Tony, I want you at the banquet…So you two can talk.
That night Müller died.
These were not his last thoughts. He became materially minded enough for a few minutes to tell her where his will was kept. He recommended a lawyer to take over the legal cases he was working on. He wrote his bank account number on a piece of paper. He dictated the telephone number of the Polish cleaning woman who wouldn’t need to come for a week or two. But reconciliation with Tony was his last request, and few things have the power of the deathbed.
Sabine considered she honoured his wish at the funeral. She accepted Tony’s condolences. She appreciated them. She showed she forgave. That done, she planned to forget. But then Martina asked about him, boring into the subject, insistently, painfully, like a hammer drill. When Martina didn’t stop, she lost composure. Once the story was out though, Martina agreed not to meddle. The Savignyplatz affair thus once more exhumed, was buried again.
Then Tony walked into the store. Sabine knew it was Martina’s doing. She tried to maintain her poise but dropped a book, which made the confusion worse. Tony confirmed he wouldn’t have come had Martina not pressed him. He was abjectly apologetic. “I don’t want anything,” he said. “I don’t wish to bother you. I have some pictures of your father. Would you like them?”
“Pictures?” Sabine asked.
“I took them at the Stadium. I’ll send them to you.”
“Bring them.”
“When?”
“When you like.”
That evening Sabine made a point of informing her husband that the consul had visited the store. “Him?” Schwartz replied. “The one who upset you? He struck me as a decent man. Invite him for dinner some time.” Werner, Sabine thought, could be casual to the point of being callous.
The photos broke Sabine’s heart all over again. From Geissler’s they had gone to a coffee shop, a stand-up place, and leaning on a table with Hanbury beside her, she studied them. She saw her father surrounded by other exhausted cyclists. There was a close-up of him glowering at his defeat, but holding a champagne bottle like a Grand Prix racer; in another, closer shot he gazed into the camera with a look that was part triumph, part pathos and part cheek.
“He knew it was his last race,” Sabine said. “You can see that.” Hanbury asked about the cycling accident. She described the operation, her father pulling through, until the pneumonia set in. “His mind was fine, but his voice wasn’t working,” Sabine said. “He was fighting for air.” All around them lunch-time noise was growing, but Tony and Sabine didn’t hear the clatter. They were concentrating on picking their way forward in a conversation that covered difficult terrain.
Hanbury described how, having read the obituary in the paper, he went to The Tankard where Uwe’s son-in-law showed him an old photo. “He said you brought it in. When was that picture taken, Sabine? We were so young then. Those evenings with Müller and Uwe, the four of us. I’ll never forget them.” Sabine admitted she found Tony’s letters in a box amongst her father’s papers. At first she intended to throw them out, but then she read them. “You wrote my father, but you never wrote me. Not one try. Why?”
Hanbury attempted to explain, but the words came out mechanical, bloodless. Gripping his empty coffee cup, staring into its interior, he searched there for adequate descriptions of his failings, how they demonized him on Savignyplatz, how one day they hit him like a freight train, stunning him, making him stagger off. Incapacity for commitment, inability to make decisions, irrational fear of intercultural mingling, a tendency to cowardice. Did she want a longer list? Cowardice feeds on itself, he explained, meaning he could write Müller, but never found the courage to write Sabine. But no matter how hard he tried, the apology that was twenty-five years in the making was halting, even confused. Sabine could see he was struggling, that he was sweating out contrition.
“What does all that have to do with you coming to the store?” she asked. “Was there a special reason?” Yesterday in the store he had been composed. Now it was the other way around.
Hanbury faltered even more. He said something about becoming older. Nothing since Savignyplatz had added up. The way things were then counted for more than he could ever have predicted. “The sessions in The Tankard were like being in a family. I haven’t experienced anything like it since. I’m glad I had a chance to see your father during his last months.”
Sabine believed he was trying to say that he had come to Berlin hoping to lever part of his youth into his middle age. She accepted it. With her father gone, she was beginning to feel the same way. She too needed a new thread to run through and connect experiences. “Do you still listen to music?” she asked, her tone gentler.
“Oh yes,” said Hanbury, brightening.
“You were beyond reach when you were inside your music.”
“Do you still read as much?”
“When I have a spare five minutes.” The conversation halted for a moment, then Sabine continued. “Your letters to my father said nothing about other people. You wrote about countries, or politics. The only personal news in all those letters was that your mother died. You never married?”
Hanbury shook his head. “No, no. Oh no. It wouldn’t have worked.”
“But no shortage of girlfriends. You must run into Martina’s type everywhere.”
Hanbury explained Martina’s type didn’t appeal to him. “You never mentioned her back then,” he said. “She never joined us at The Tankard.”
“We went our separate ways for a few years. Martina had a good figure in those days. She gave me a complex.”
Hanbury glanced at Sabine and saw a slight pout. No different, he thought, than what used to slay him on Savignyplatz. “You shouldn’t have had a complex, not because of Martina,” he blurted. “No one was more beautiful than you. Martina’s type can’t hold a candle to you.” This conclusion came out spontaneously and embarrassed both of them. They were silent for a while.
A woman came along to clear away empty cups and plates and muttered accusations about them standing there so long. “Can we do this again?” Hanbury asked outside. Sabine hesitated before nodding yes. That evening she showed he
r husband the photos of her father. “It’s how I remember him.” Schwartz again asked if she had invited the consul for dinner. Sabine replied she doubted he’d have the time, given his many social obligations. A week later, Sabine casually informed her husband she and Tony had met for lunch. They were in the sitting room that was lined on one side with books and on the other with austere portraits of Schwartz’s Prussian forbears. A clock ticked. Schwartz continued reading. “Good,” he said slowly. Some minutes later he added, “And you talked about what?”
“His work. My work. We had another talk about what happened between us. I understand better now why he ran away. Perhaps we should invite him for dinner.”
“Why not? He must have interesting experiences to talk about.”
“He had one today. Herr Geissler took him into the cellar. They spent half an hour there. I asked Tony afterwards what they did. He said they looked at books. Books as far as the eye can see. There’s twice as many books downstairs as upstairs.”
“Does he know anything about books?” Schwartz said, looking up.
“I don’t think so. Piles of old books that are new is how he described it.”
“I thought Geissler only went there by himself.”
“As far as I know Tony’s the only one he’s ever taken down.”
“Well, Geissler has a new friend, and so do you,” Schwartz said nonchalantly. “Maybe we should all have dinner.”
Schwartz went back to his reading. But Sabine saw her husband’s concentration was broken. He ceased turning pages. A frown came on his face, as it did when he was preparing for difficult university debates.
Sturm was in form, on account of being in the East, driving down Karl Marx Allee, heading for Normannenstrasse. Hand it to the backseat, he thought. Not many other drivers were asked to navigate their diplomatic cargo to ports of call as exotic as this. “One of the great streets in the city,” Sturm said admiringly of the wide avenue.
“Looks copied from Moscow,” the consul replied. “Stalin’s taste, if you ask me.”
The Berlin Assignment Page 30