by Uwe Tellkamp
Tannhäuser’s ship sailed away,
and Herr Richter-Meinhold, a gaunt man in his seventies, formerly a producer of maps, walkers’ maps among others (yellow-and-red covers, the paper mounted on linen, geographies you never heard about at school: the Hultschin country, the Iser mountains), that people guarded like treasures and that never stayed long in second-hand bookshops, especially when they showed the territory of the GDR (‘the only ones that aren’t falsified, you know!’); Herr Richter-Meinhold raised his hand (that Dresden gesture, that ‘that’s the way it is, I’m afraid, everything passes, we can’t do anything about it’) and said, ‘It’s really cold, like all those years ago, during the bombardment. By the way, Herr Tietze, Hauptmann’s later writings are full of hidden emeralds. Not necessarily diamonds. But certainly emeralds. I knew his secretary, Ehrhart Kästner. He was a librarian in the Japanese Palace and he lived up here. No one remembers.’
‘No.’
‘I actually met Hauptmann. It so happened that my aunt was in the Weidner Sanatorium, from where he observed the air raid. I visited her and saw him. Unforgettable, that Goethe noddle he had.’
‘Anyone who has forgotten how to cry will remember at the destruction of Dresden.’ Sandor, on a visit from Ecuador, ten years old at the time of the bombing, turns away in silence. They remember. ‘Everything used to be quite different up here. Nothing’s what it used to be. No comparison. No, no. Today it’s Dresdengrad. A province of the UGSSR: the Union of the German-Speaking Soviet Republics.’ Ruins are still standing after years and years. Electrification along with bombsites, ugly dual carriageways, draughty tenement blocks, fifteen-storey blocks rammed into the famous, now gap-ridden Canaletto skyline. And in the old days: ‘We used to be a capital. A royal capital! Yes, well … in the old days …’ They sigh. Photos are taken out. The view of the Frauenkirche from the Brühlsche Terrasse. A lamp with needles of light in Münzgasse. The conjurations began, the Dresdeners’ longing for Utopia, a fairy-tale city. The city of alcoves, of quotations from Goethe, of music-making in the home, looks back in mourning to the world of yesterday; their tiresome, eroded everyday life is supplemented with dreams: shadow Dresden, the illusion behind reality flows through its pores creating hybrid beings à la E. T. A. Hoffmann. Double exposures. Tannhäuser sang, sang of the Army Museum, where needle-guns were aimed at Napoleon, Saxony’s days of splendour and soldiers marching to ‘Preussens Gloria’, uhlans’ lances and cuirassiers’ helmets of the Belle Époque (and I heard the musical clock: Dresden … in the muses’ nests / the sweet sickness of yesteryear rests), wraiths groping their way in the gas war of the trenches, the blue-cross gas of Ypres, the sappers danced, Verdun, Doctor Gottfried Benn, a poet going round the morgue, Otto Dix painting animals in human form and the shattered glass of the photo of the old Frauenkirche, Dresden … ‘I will give this pearl the setting it deserves’ … The Synagogue burnt.
How does one drink wine in Dresden, the city with the guilty smile? Tannhäuser’s ship sailed away, to Canaletto’s archipelago … Bells sound on 13 February. From all parts of the city people pour to the centre, place candles by the devastated Frauenkirche, two great ruined walls stretching up into the sky like arms begging for help. The boys’ choir of the Church of the Holy Cross sings Mauersberger’s Requiem. Driving home at night, in the Hoffmanns’ Lada or the Tietzes’ Shiguli: in this perspective the ‘Woda’ indicator flashing across the dashboard is as big as the birch tree on the gloomy bulk of the ruined castle and looks like a phosphorous needle restlessly scanning the sooty remains of the stepped walls where by day suites of rooms and the lines of paintings burnt into them can still be made out.
‘The Great Hall in the castle, what splendid concerts there were there. And kings ate from the swan dinner service, at a table with a thousand pieces of finest Meissen china,’ Frau von Stern, a former lady-in-waiting, would tell them. ‘Chandeliers hanging down like coral reefs of light! They tumbled down, lumps of glass on the floor, melted and fused over people, the faces, the faces.’
‘Florence on the Elbe, such an Italian softness, a smiling city!’
‘And the social situation? How did people really live back then? A beautiful façade for a lot of misery? Weren’t there 100,000 out of work in 1933? Weren’t the murderers among us?’
‘Oh, that’s enough. If they hadn’t elected the Nazis, it would still be smiling.’
‘You can’t be a proper Dresdener if you can say things like that, you don’t love your city.’
‘For you love’s glossing over things, is it? Come off it! Sometimes I think you need a bit of that. Basically you wouldn’t even be happy if the old Dresden were suddenly to reappear!’
‘I’m not going to say one more word to you!’
Who is talking? The Tower-dwellers, they talk at the soirées and Frau Fiebig’s roses bloomed, had the fragrance of dust, eau de Cologne and furniture polish, shining clean silver spoons dipped into the Dresden custard pie from Wachendorf’s bakery, outside the frost patterns grew, creeping over the river and the stairs and the clocks; in the evening the Tower-dwellers would sit in their apartments telling each other stories, they told each other about chandeliers found in the loft or in forgotten chests (‘somewhere out on the prairie’), covered in soot and unsightly – for the layman, but in their eyes immediately valuable for the engraved detail that careful, expectant rubbing had brought to light; the Tower-dwellers were familiar with every screw of these chandeliers and if they weren’t, they became uneasy, for they had to know where every screw came from, had to know every hand that had worked on the chandelier and I sometimes asked myself: What’s the point? as I watched them. What did it give them, what adventurous form of satisfaction, to know the name of the master craftsman who had cut that tiny screw? Was it despair at the incompleteness of the world, despair at a missed detail that might cause everything to collapse?
Target coordinates N51°03´/E13°36´. At 9.55 p.m. a radio announcer in the Albertinum cellars reports the approach of large formations of Lancaster bombers of the Royal Air Force … ‘I will give this pearl the setting it deserves!’ The first marker bomb falls on Ostragehege, the grounds of a slaughterhouse in a bend of the Elbe between Friedrichstadt, Übigau and Pieschen. At 10.13 p.m. the first bombs explode in the centre of Dresden
to collapse, to destruction, to loss, was it despair at the passage of time?
and hear the voice of a Dresdener whose right hand, as if suffering from compulsive checking, keeps running up and down the fastened buttons of his coat: ‘I loved my city but … I survived because it was destroyed,’ said Herr Rosenbaum after a long silence.
The Tower-dwellers … Do they want a hermetically sealed world? Was their god the god of the sphere, of clock faces, of ships?
Star of the Sea Evening Star sank, the needle went into an idle loop, the fishes and Amphoridea on the wallpaper froze, doors closed, the photographs on the walls clouded over, Max Lorenz lowered his sword, the roar of the waves of time died away, the good ship Tannhäuser ran aground
Niklas remained in his frozen posture, I stood up to turn the record over (and I heard the musical clock: Dresden … in the muses’ nests / the sweet sickness of yesteryear rests)
Meno wrote
30
Young woman on a windless evening
Calm: the day seemed to be drifting like a boat after one last stroke of the oars, no longer straining, not yet at its goal, the sky, in which only a few light-as-a-feather cloud-eyebrows were raised in astonishment, expanded to balloon-blue, into which the roofs of the old Academy stuck up like sail-fins; in the park beneath it watercolours of green, the white and purple rhododendrons, were already submerging into twilight. For one moment, when a shimmering burst of swallows had dispersed in the saffron-yellow above the treetops in front of the Dermatology Clinic, there seemed to be an equilibrium of all the balances in which the sense impressions of the late afternoon had risen and fallen: the clitter-clatter-clump, clitter-clatter-clump of a nurse�
��s hurried steps; the metallic pink and white of coats and caps; patients in bathrobes strolling round the park with X-ray photos under their arms; doctors with their hands buried in their coat pockets, in which they moved them impatiently as soon as a nurse came within greeting distance; the scent of apple flowers drowsing down from the gardens on Händelallee; the whine of the electric carts; cars puttering past on Akademiestrasse.
Then it returned in waves and orders, only for moments, his weary body, the piercing brightness of a lamp aimed at him, demands, a student who nodded to him and, as if he wanted something from him, stopped as if uncertain what to do; it lopped off the threads back to childhood that had fluttered out for a long second, Josta’s letter, that Richard felt for. He had stood up and left without having given the student an encouraging look; he hadn’t been in the mood for discussions about lectures, for proposing a topic for a thesis or whatever else the young man might be concerned about. They were always coming with requests, these young people, and they were always similar, and if they wanted to be surgeons then they had to be neurosurgeons or, even better, heart surgeons; and if they had questions, they were almost always complicated and almost never simple; they didn’t seem to be interested in why a violin bow was able to produce a certain note, why all rivers flowed when the Earth was round and consequently there ought to be some rivers that were faced with an uphill course. Or why you could carry a letter from a woman round with you and not know whether you should be pleased or afraid, and why a letter, nothing but a piece of paper, could weigh so heavy.
He didn’t read through the letter again, he knew it almost off by heart. Why don’t you come, why do you stay away from me, why do you avoid me when I’d like to see you and our paths cross in the Academy, Lucie’s asking after you, we have a right to you as well, I don’t know how long I can stand this, you’ll have to make up your mind some time or other, or have you had enough of us already, of me, is this your ‘just going out to get some cigarettes’?
Richard went back to the clinic. He’d arranged for an operation and had some appointments in the Outpatients’ department for hands. After the operation he went to the ward to have a coffee and something to eat. His secretary was still there. ‘You go home,’ Richard said, ‘you can just as well do the operation reports tomorrow.’
‘Frau Fischer from Administration rang. She’ll call again.’
‘I’m not in.’
‘She said it was important. It’s about Doctor Wernstein.’
‘I’ll be in hand Outpatients in five minutes. She can call me there if she likes.’ Outpatients was full and he let the telephone ring. He would have ignored it but the nurse assisting him picked up the phone. ‘For you.’
‘Can we meet, Richard? Have you read my letter?’
‘Good afternoon, Frau Fischer, what is it?’
‘Can I wait for you, outside Administration today? It’s less noticeable than in the park, if anyone should see us,’ Josta said quickly, perhaps expecting him to object in the hackneyed phrases concealing the secret language they’d worked out for telephone conversations when others were present; ‘It’s a bit awkward at the moment’ meant ‘8 p.m. at the place you suggest.’
‘It’s a bit awkward at the moment.’
‘Or you can come to my place. You can always say things took longer than expected in the clinic.’
‘Could you ring me again tomorrow? Thank you.’ That meant: no. He hung up.
It was still light when Richard left the clinic. He had taken his time changing, even though it was getting on for eight when he finished with the last outpatient; he had even wondered whether to have a shave, but had put his razor back in the cupboard when it occurred to him that there was a discrepancy between a long day at work and a smooth chin smelling of aftershave that might arouse doubts and further suspicion. He recognized Josta from a distance, she was standing on one of the forsythia-framed paths by the Eye Clinic talking to a few younger doctors who were pulling in their stomachs. He was furious that she hadn’t stuck to their agreement, at the same time he felt a sudden spurt of jealousy when he saw her coquettishly playing with her ponytail, throwing back her head, sniffing, as if casually, at the forsythia twig she had in her hand when one of the doctors went up and down on his toes as he spoke. Of course, she saw me ages ago, Richard thought, and now she’s making it clear to me that she only needs to snap her fingers. Josta left the doctors and headed, about fifty metres in front of him, for the Administration building. She was wearing a light dress and had her coat over her arm. He knew that the picture would stay in his memory for ever: a young woman on a windless May evening, the folds of her dress swaying to and fro, a slow-motion image amid the blurred brightness of the other passers-by.
‘Why are you so late? Why did you make me wait? Have you any idea when we last saw each other?’
‘You shouldn’t phone me at the clinic.’
‘Is it asking too much that I’d like to see you?’
‘Josta … they know about our relationship. I’m having my arm twisted. They’ll make it known, if –’
‘Who is “they”?’
‘– if I don’t collaborate with them.’ He swallowed, exhaled audibly. ‘Write reports, gather information.’
She frowned, looking past him. He observed her out of the corner of his eye and was astonished at how differently from Anne she reacted; the expression on her face swung between arrogance and coolness, as if she had not so much feared as hoped for something like that, as if, he thought with alarm, she had wished for it.
‘One day you’ll have to make a decision.’ Her voice broke. ‘If you leave me, I’ll kill myself.’
‘Really?’ That was the cynic speaking that every surgeon recognized inside himself, the sceptical, brutal detachment to which no one was immune after a few years in the profession. He regretted it immediately. ‘What’s this about Wernstein?’ he said, incapable at the moment of finding any way of apologizing.
‘He’s going to have problems,’ Josta replied icily, ‘perhaps because of you? How did you put it? Reports, information –’
‘Josta –’ He felt for her hand, she pulled it away. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. Please. I’m sorry.’
‘Kohler and your Clinic Party Committee have submitted a complaint. Disparagement of socialist achievements,’ Josta said after a while.
Kohler. Müller’s favourite from the General Department. Very efficient as far as clinic management, as it was now called, was concerned. Apart from Müller and Administration, no one seemed to like him.
‘What nonsense is that now?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s on the Rector’s desk.’
‘What is he proposing to do? Call a meeting, the Arbitration Commission? Dismiss Wernstein?’
‘I just wanted to warn you in advance. It could be that this time he’s going to have recourse to drastic measures, recently there’ve been a lot of people from the District Committee here and even from Berlin. There were nasty arguments and one of those characters, you could smell where he came from at ten metres, threatened him openly. Suggesting he was perhaps out of his depth as principal.’
‘Come, let’s walk on a bit. I don’t want people to see us here together. They might think you were letting out secrets. What is it this Kohler actually wants? Have you seen his complaint?’
‘Only the reference and a couple of lines of the letter, they were clear enough. – He wants to get on. Next month he’s being transferred to your section and Wernstein’s in his way there. They’re suggesting he be taken out of the rotation system and transferred.’
‘They want to get him out of the clinic?’
‘Müller’s already talked to the head of Orthopaedics in Friedrichstadt.’
‘And I know nothing about it. Damned schemers. – Will you wait for me outside? I’ll fetch the car.’
He parked in a side street not far from her flat.
‘Won’t you come up? At least for a few minutes?’
‘You know I can’t’
She said nothing and stared at the street. Some girls were playing Chinese twist, a three-wheel lorry loaded with barrels lurched past. ‘Do you love your wife more than me.’
‘Leave it.’
‘Why can’t we be together … Always having to hide, always “You know I can’t” and “Leave it” and “Goodbye” … Recently Lucie was talking about you in the kindergarten, that you always go away in the evening when you’ve been to see us. “You’ve got a funny dad,” the other children told her.’
‘But I told you she was to keep her mouth shut!’
‘I can’t forbid her to talk, I can’t control her all the time.’
No, she couldn’t. After all, it was quite natural for a child to talk about her father; what would he have said if Josta had told him that Lucie never spoke about him. ‘Give her my best wishes.’
Without looking at him she squeezed his hand and got out. He wound the window down. ‘Josta!’
She stopped but didn’t turn round. ‘Please forgive me.’ She nodded. The girls playing Chinese twist raised the elastic. A window was opened above them, a man in braces over his vest put a cushion on the window seat and scrutinized the girls.
‘Another thing I wanted to say –’ He fixed his eyes on the man’s unshaven face; she didn’t react. ‘A lovely dress you’ve got on.’ She stayed there for another second, then slowly put on her coat and walked off. The man stared after her. On his way home to Anne, Richard stole a branch of forsythia from a garden.
Next day was the consultant’s round, a white-coated gaggle swept through the North wards. The duty assistants held X-rays for Müller and his senior doctors to see, the ward-doctors murmured explanations, nurses took the bandages off the cuts with sterile tweezers and gave gloves to the doctors inspecting them. Müller kept looking at his watch, snatching the X-rays out of the assistants’ hands, stabbing at them with his forefinger and throwing them down on the beds. Even the patients could feel the tense atmosphere, lay there rigid, arms along their sides, looking back- and forward between Müller and the doctor reporting to him. By one of the patients’ beds there was a glass bedpan with a splash of urine left in. ‘Is it beyond the bounds of possibility for the nurses with responsibility for this room to empty the piss out of the brandy snifter when the consultant is doing his rounds. What kind of slovenliness is that, Nurse Lieselotte?’ The nurse in charge of North I turned pale. ‘But there’s that proverb about master and man,’ Müller went on. ‘Herr Wernstein can’t find the charts for two patients, lab results are missing, the abscess in Two is merrily gathering pus … What a casual approach to medical treatment in my clinic!’ Richard raised his hands in protest. ‘The man in Two has been put back by the anaesthetist, we are aware of the problem, but he’s on Falithrom –’