by Uwe Tellkamp
‘Oh yes, our dear Dresdeners,’ Arbogast mused, ‘they only want to go back. Neo-Gothic, Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Monarchies. Their greatness is when they can have something “back”, can rebuild it … Their style is a purloined mishmash, eclectic, not primary … and yet overall it does have something of its own and it’s charming too. Perhaps that’s the way art will go in the future: doing something again, though paying tribute to time, thus making what has been into something secretly new, its depths perhaps now revealed, something, therefore, that can be truly appreciated. An art of translation, so to speak … You understand? Translators are the most precise readers, or so your brother-in-law has told me. Who’s interested in reality when we can wish … This whole opera house here’s a dream: something that has no purpose, no necessity, given shape in bricks and mortar. And, as ever, not cheap at that. Hundreds of millions for – bubbles …’
‘But very beautiful bubbles,’ Richard ventured to object.
‘Yes, very, very beautiful’ – Arbogast cleared his throat – ‘bubbles.’ Then, with a nod of the head, he left Richard on his own.
What a strange guy! He watched Arbogast go. The Baron’s walking stick rat-tat-tatted on the floor, as if he were checking the soundness of what was underneath.
Anne was tired, Meno poured her a third cup of coffee from the vacuum flask; she gulped it down, impatiently flashing her headlights when cars coming in the opposite direction left it too long dipping theirs. The regular ‘ba-bum’ every time the Lada went over an asphalt join between the concrete slabs had sent Philipp to sleep, he had his head in Regine’s lap and didn’t even wake up when they jolted over one of the many potholes, each time making Anne quietly swear.
Meno felt restless too. He felt oppressed by the dark countryside all round, the occasional lights in the villages seemed like periscopes from undersea zones staring out over a leaden, misty ocean; but they were abandoned, or so it seemed to Meno, they were part of a fleet drifting in the darkness of the polar sea, the crews, stuck like Cartesian divers to breathing tubes, benumbed with sleep. What had happened to this country, what illness had infected it … ? The hands on the clocks trundled the hours along, time seemed to flow like cold treacle. Philipp Londoner was worried, there were vague and contradictory rumours coming from Moscow, the Kremlin seemed to be in turmoil, the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party was said to be in his death throes in the government hospital … Meno came to with a start when Anne hooted the horn: they were driving behind a convoy of timber lorries, the overtaking lane was blocked by a motorbike escort. After a few minutes they were waved past imperiously. A motorbike escort for timber lorries? Meno had a closer look as they drove past: cylindrical shapes, tapering at the front, could be made out under the tarpaulins; at the wheel of the articulated lorries were soldiers of the Soviet army.
‘Rocket transport,’ Hans said, breaking the silence, ‘those are SS-20 rockets, camouflaged as loads of uncut timber.’ He knew that from a friend at school, he said.
‘Davai, davai,’ one of the motorcyclists shouted.
They overtook and lapsed into silence again. Meno was thinking of the Honichs, who had brought strife and something like nudist-beach easy-going ways into the House with a Thousand Eyes … Things were certainly pretty noisy. Herr Honich did early-morning exercises with the window open to booming folk music (‘I love to go a-wandering …’), knocked at Meno’s door to invite him to join in the keep-fit session (as soon as he switched the radio on that was the end of Meno’s ability to concentrate), he needed it, he said, spending all the day in a sitting position; morning exercises strengthened one’s concentration and woke one up … Herr Honich seemed unconcerned at Meno’s rejection that grew more pointed with every day. But the woman got on Meno’s nerves even more. She claimed to be entitled to use the balcony, rang at the most inconvenient times and protests could not stop her flinging the balcony door open, thus allowing the warmth in his living room to pour out. Meno had rearranged the furniture and bookshelves to compensate for the reduction in space in his apartment but the little nooks and crannies that created aroused Frau Honich’s curiosity, no muttered curse could keep her away; she knocked on the bookcase, squeezed through, asked if she might come over when she was already standing by his desk, smiled at Meno, who, with a pained look, quickly hid his manuscripts. What was he doing, she wanted to know. Working. But what on? On poetry perhaps? Oh yes, on poems, of course; but he didn’t need to hide them from her, she thought poems were suuuper (she drew out the ‘u’ like a rubber band; at this adolescent expression Meno had to bend down to keep his fury under control), perhaps he could … Oh yes! she exclaimed, he was an expert, he knew all about that, she was sure he could teach her how to write poems! It was something she’d been longing to do for ages and now she’d met someone and someone who lived right next door into the bargain, if that didn’t mean something, she said teasingly, shaking her finger roguishly at him. She wanted to learn how to do it.
The next day Meno rang Coal Island and complained. However: according to such and such a regulation, they explained, Citizen Honich had the right to use the balcony in his apartment and he could not lock her out of his apartment if she wished to make use of that right. Why were the tenants of 2 Mondleite always making difficulties? They had no time for that kind of thing.
Stahl thought they should fight back and regularly took out the Honichs’ fuses. Then they sat in the dark and the pop music (Oberhofer Bauernmarkt, Regina Thoss, Dorit Gàbler) died away. Herr Honich countered this by threatening to report Stahl because he listened to West German radio and had repeatedly responded to repeated requests that he participate in socialist competition with comparisons from the animal kingdom; his wife Babett was a witness.
‘Penny for them, Mo.’
‘Oh, this and that.’
‘Problems?’
‘Not particularly. How about you?’
‘They’ve lengthened our shifts. One doctor and one nurse have left the country. There are intrigues going on in Richard’s section. One of the doctors, the Party Secretary, seems to be spying on him. He has to train him. They don’t like it when knowledge is beyond their control and in hand surgery they’d have problems finding someone to replace Richard, at least in Dresden. Robert has a girlfriend. He’s a bit young, I think. But he does know all about the birds and the bees. Barbara has her head full of wedding preparations. Ina already has something on the way, it seems. Look, over there.’ She pointed to a line of windmills, turning in the empty countryside in front of a blue-green strip of bright sky, as if in slow motion, with flocks of crows silently drifting up and down round them. Regine said nothing. Meno looked out of the window.
‘May I?’ Sperber, the lawyer, pointed to the empty chair beside Richard that was usually reserved for the theatre doctor’s partner. ‘Your wife’s not coming, of course.’
‘How do you know?’
‘One knows one’s cases, one knows one’s colleagues cases,’ Sperber said with a smirk. ‘And one’s friends’ problems. You discussed Frau Neubert’s case with me … Oh, that’s not a breach of client confidentiality. A certain exchange of information is necessary, we have to work together if we want to have material we can use against the prosecuting counsels – what do you think of it?’ Sperber’s gesture took in the whole auditorium, which was gradually filling up; people were standing at the balustrades, craning their necks in the stalls, expectant faces filled with pride; many had handkerchiefs in their hand. ‘Is that not something special our little country’s managed to achieve?’ Sperber asked without waiting for an answer. The standard expression was ‘our state’ or ‘our socialist GDR’ (an odd adjective, Richard thought, as if there were another one); at ‘our little country’ Richard pricked up his ears.
‘If you like, you can come and visit us sometime. The invitation includes your wife too, of course,’ the lawyer hastened to add. ‘We would be delighted to have the opportunity to get to know you better. One moment.’ He f
ished a visiting card out of his little leather handbag and pressed it into the right hand Richard, nonplussed, held open. ‘The Freischütz isn’t really my thing, all that Romanticism and merrymaking at the shooting competition on the village green. A beautiful dream for which we’re gathered here and every one of us will understand in their own way. But the music’s admirable and for our lord and master’ – Sperber nodded cautiously in the direction of the official box – ‘it’s probably just the right thing. Only last Saturday he shot a twelve-pointer. Will you excuse me for a few minutes.’
Sperber went off, appearing up in the VIP box a few moments later, where a prolonged session of handshaking began.
The train was late; now, after all the rush, they were standing on the platform, waiting. This would have been the time to say farewell but the station announcement had talked of an hour’s delay. The light in the Mitropa café was pale, slimy; cockroaches scuttled across the tables as if caught in the act. On the menu was soup as green as weathered copper, mixed-vegetable stew, schnapps and beer. Hans felt nauseated, wanted to go out again. Meno bought a packet of Marie biscuits. ‘Do you like reading?’ he asked Hans outside.
‘It all depends. Most of all Karl May.’
‘Here, take this. You might get bored on the journey.’ He handed him a volume of Poe’s stories, illustrated by Vogelstrom.
‘I’m sure I won’t, but thanks.’ Hans took the book and stuck it in the inside pocket of his coat.
‘Isn’t it cold?’ Regine moaned when they came back. ‘I hope nothing goes wrong now.’
‘Do you know why there’s a delay?’ Meno asked. Regine, in tears again, turned away.
‘Frozen points. The train’s coming from Rostock,’ Anne replied. They’d made a kind of bed on the suitcases for Philipp, covering him with various articles of clothing, but he wasn’t asleep, he was staring up at the arched ceiling with little spikes of crusty ash hanging down, intestinal hairs of a Gulliver in the land of Lilliput; hundreds of pigeons were roosting on the crossbeams, heads under their wings, packed close to each other so that none could be a danger to the others during the night, Meno thought, they probably kept each other warm as well. The loudspeakers over the platform crackled, a woman’s voice in broad Saxon extended the delay into an indefinite period. Regine put her hand over her mouth and leant forward, it looked as if she were covering a yawn, but she was screaming into her hand. Hans took Regine to one side, they walked up and down. There was no one apart from them waiting on the platform. Railway police were checking a few drunks on platforms some way away.
‘Scream, if you want,’ Anne said, ‘it won’t bother me, let people hear it.’
‘So that they can arrest us after all?’
‘Hans,’ Regine begged him softly.
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ There was steam coming out of Anne’s mouth, Meno looked at his sister closely. She’d pulled her orange scarf right up to her eyes, perhaps out of embarrassment; she was wearing a chapka Barbara had made and buttoned down the earflaps. Meno filled his pipe. Now Anne took Regine’s arm, they were walking round and round, discussing how to deal with her effects. The Vietnamese tea chests could be sent to Jürgen’s address in Munich; Anne was to take the money for it from the sale of the furniture Regine had had to leave behind.
‘What did you have in mind?’
Regine turned to face Meno, who was sniffing the strong vanilla smell of his tobacco. A suspicious expression appeared on Hans’s face, though Meno had only asked out of curiosity and to pass the time. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘Richard thinks that as soon as you’re over there you should bring an action against the state for confiscating your paintings, even though there’s no chance of success, of course.’
‘The paintings have gone, Anne, and Jürgen’s sculptures too. That’s the price we had to pay.’
‘Ebony.’ Sperber examined the grandfather clock beside the lacquered door and the two delicate chairs where Arbogast and Joffe were sitting chatting. ‘What do you, as an expert, say?’ he asked, turning to Richard, who was standing beside him, glancing uneasily now and then at the door with the shining ‘Box’ over it. ‘I often went to see your father in Glashütte. He has an excellent collection and was so kind as to advise me on the purchase of various pieces. You admired some of them the last time you came to see me.’
The door was opened, the General Secretary let Barsano and the ex-Federal Chancellor go in first. Richard looked at the buffet, there were servants in ceremonial livery, frozen in bows. On the tables with damask cloths were butter knives with rounded blades. Looking at the butter knives, then the Comrade Chairman’s brightly shining face and his neck, stiffened by a snow-white, starched collar, Richard started in horror as it occurred to him how well suited to being cut through or hanged such necks seemed, even those of the ex-Chancellor and Barsano; yet they consisted of the same substance – vulnerable human flesh – as the necks of so-called ordinary people and Richard automatically started looking for a mark that branded them. Perfidious, forbidden thoughts!
‘I’m familiar with that look you have on your face at the moment, half pleasure, half horror,’ Sperber whispered. ‘It’s the expression associated with crime.’
‘Is that intended as a joke, Herr Sperber?’
‘I like to think I have some knowledge of human nature’ – the lawyer gave a brief smile – ‘and you get a thrill out of taking risks. There’s some attraction in having a conversation like this here. And I have to say such thoughts are not unknown to me. It’s the fear of the crime they might commit that drives young people into my profession. I’m interested in the depths people can sink to. I have quite a collection.’
‘How do you collect them?’
‘Not in the form of deep-sea charts or sections of the seabed, as you might assume. – Don’t shake his hand, if you’re introduced to him. He doesn’t particularly like that, and he’s the one who determines the degree of familiarity.’
‘You feel sorry for them.’ Anne nodded in the direction of soldiers standing guard by a tank transport train.
‘What are you going to do?’ Regine asked as Anne looked in her purse.
‘Take them something to eat.’
‘But they’re Russians.’
‘They get cold too. Come with me, Mo, I can’t carry it all myself.’
They went to the Mitropa café, bought tea, potato soup with sausage and rolls; Meno and a grumbling waiter with cigarette burns in his snow-white jacket carried the teapot. The soldiers were standing by an outside track on the other side of the station. Suspicious, almost fearful, they felt for their Kalashnikovs when Anne showed them the bowls they’d brought. Meno said in Russian that they’d brought them something to eat, tea to warm them up. The soldiers, children’s faces with shaven heads and caps pushed back, looked longingly at the tea, but were hesitant about coming closer; one ran to the front of the train where an officer had jumped down from a carriage and was knocking the dust off his flat-peaked cap. They conferred. A second officer appeared, clearly of a higher rank than the first, for he reported to him. The second officer took his cap off, scratched his head, turned his hat in his hand for a while, went back, knocked on the carriage. After a while a third officer appeared, to whom the second reported this time.
‘Well, I’ll get back to my place of work,’ the waiter said. ‘I simply can’t believe it. And anyway, I’ve just got over a cold. No offence meant.’
He stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled off. The three Soviet officers exchanged glances. The soldier facing Meno and Anne stood, motionless, with neutral, apprehensive expressions, now and then giving the bowls, Anne’s coat, Meno’s shoes a quick glance. The waiter returned, walking between two tracks. ‘What’s going on here, citizens?’
Silent and unannounced, a train arrived at Regine’s platform. Anne put the bowls down on the ground and was about to run over.
‘Stop!’ one of the policemen shouted, fiddling with his revolver b
elt. ‘Where are you going, citizen?’
‘Our friends are over there … the train –’
‘That’s the through train to Munich,’ the other policeman said. ‘What business is it of yours?’
‘We were accompanying our friends –’
‘And were going to try to emigrate illegally, I presume.’
‘What?!’ Meno exclaimed, completely baffled. The superior Soviet officer went over to the policemen and pointed at the bowls, the pot of soup, the tea.
‘What a load of nonsense!’ The waiter threw up his hands in despair.
‘We must ask you to follow us.’ The first policeman went in front of Meno and Anne, the second grasped the arm of the waiter, who was laughing. Across the station Regine and Hans were shouting and waving. When a whistle sounded they set off running, stumbling and encumbered with their thirteen pieces of luggage, Hans stopped once to put Philipp, on his shoulders, who, as far as Meno could tell, was merrily directing them with his little arms.
‘We will investigate what your true intentions in the vicinity of the Soviet armed forces were. Move!’ the first policeman ordered.
43
A wedding
The Hoffmanns’ barometer indicated ‘changeable’. The first three days of May were cold. There was hail and snow, then the sun appeared, pale and still half asleep; suddenly, as if it had come to an abrupt decision, it climbed out of bed, full of energy. On the fourth the bees started to swarm. Waves of dandelions broke over the gardens on the slope above the Elbe. Bird cherry and sweet cherry blossomed. On the thirteenth Meno entered plum and pear in Libussa’s spring calendar, two days later the Cellini apples. When Meno looked out towards Pillnitz from the Langes’ conservatory, the white blossom covering the still winter-dark trees was like down from thousands of torn pillows.