City of Angels: or, The Overcoat of Dr. Freud / A Novel

by Wolf, Christa

  And? Peter Gutman asked. Would you want to go back and correct the chance? Cross the Elbe this time? Be that other person you would have become?

  I would probably have become a teacher, which is what I actually wanted to be. I don’t know if I would have written anything, because the conflicts I had in that society were always what drove me to write. I would not have met my husband. I would have had different children, or no children. Different aspects of my personality would have come out and others would have been the ones I had to suppress. Would I have lived in a row house at the edge of a big city? Which party would I have voted for? Would my life have been boring? I would have been too old to be a ’68er. I would never have visited the East. I would have spent my vacations in Italy. Now that the Wall has come down, I would go as a foreigner to see the foreign land where German is spoken too, but I wouldn’t have understood the people there. Because I would think that the life that I, that we, had led was the true one, the normal one. And I would have been blameless.

  Okay, Peter Gutman said. That’s enough.

  He left. I wasn’t tired yet, I took down the red folder. Not counting the last letter, from May 1979 and by “Ruth,” not L., which informed Emma that her friend had died, there was only one letter left. In it, L. apologized that so much time had passed since the last time she’d written.

  Don’t think, my dear Emma, that I’m not thinking of you. On the contrary, I think about our years together more than ever. Those were also my first years together with my dear gentleman. You have probably guessed why I haven’t written in so long, Emma—my dear gentleman is dead. Even now it’s hard for me to write it down so simply. I long for him, for his physical presence, as powerfully as ever. I still expect to see him standing in the door when I turn around from my desk, I still feel the same pain that he isn’t there, that he’ll never be there again.

  He was in despair. All his research for the past few years was devoted to the question of where humanity is going. He never gleefully prophesized the downfall of our species, I can attest to that. The political events of recent years—the McCarthy era, the U.S.-backed coup against Allende in Chile and everything that happened in and with that country since—they finished him off. He had grown certain that the barbarism we could still theoretically escape was spreading unstoppably all over the world. He left this world of his own free will.

  I’ve grown old, it’s no fun. Being close to death is no fun. I still work, though not as much as before, of course, because I love my work, and also because you get poor in a hurry in this country if you don’t work. I see Dora more often now, she is still the same brave woman she always was, she is putting her husband’s papers in order and I help sometimes. I’m tired.

  My friend Emma could not answer this letter anymore. She definitely received it but she was already in the hospital. Thyroid cancer. I never saw her look defeated or afraid. She had tricked one of the nurses into revealing her diagnosis; she then prepared for her death by giving away everything she no longer needed and burning her papers. Once, when I could not conceal my grief, she said: Ach, you know, I lived through everything a person can live through in this day and age. That’s enough.

  * * *

  I needed distraction. Ann, the CENTER’s photographer, had been offering for a long time to give us a tour of the slums of Los Angeles, where, everyone told us, we should under no circumstances drive alone. I had a new friend with me: Therese, whom I had met just a few days before and already felt close to. She was a journalist who had come from Germany to report on the upcoming mayoral election in Los Angeles for a German newspaper. She had been here many times before, she craved this city. She seemed to know everyone and everyone knew her. She would certainly come with Ann and me to drive through the areas of the city off-limits to whites. Therese beamed as she caught sight of the areas we were driving through, certain intersections, various individual buildings. She was in her late forties, blond, thin, with short hair and gray eyes that seemed veiled, though the veil dissolved more and more the longer she spent in the city. When we merged onto the freeway in Ann’s old Peugeot, Therese sighed with happiness. She would introduce me to a new circle of friends but I didn’t know that yet.

  Ann lived on Santa Fe Avenue in an artist’s co-op that had been set up in a former factory. Only artists who made less than $25,000 a year were accepted. The compound was surrounded by a high, impregnable fence and secured with a complicated entry system; the heavy door could be opened only with a specific entry code. Necessary, I’m afraid, Ann said, we’re in a very dangerous neighborhood here. Don’t think you can just go out for a walk. —Doesn’t that depress you? I asked. Ann said that a person can get used to anything. And there’s nowhere else in the city you can find such big apartments and studios for such an affordable rent.

  I had to admit she was right. Giant rooms with high ceilings, enough space for a kind of permanent exhibition of her photographs on the walls and on cords stretched across the room, space for a darkroom, a kitchen area, and a living space with table, chairs, and a jukebox. This is living, Therese said, and Ann and I looked at each other: Therese wished she could live like this.

  The residents had put in a cactus garden in the courtyard between the buildings; a painter waved us into her studio to show us the copies of Pompeian wall paintings she had made for a paying customer. A stroke of luck.

  But then we went down into the underworld. Ann showed us the giant garbage pile stretching out to the horizon right across from the artist’s compound, on the other side of a wide street: it was leveled off in places into a kind of lunar landscape with the wind whistling over it, blowing clouds of dust and small pieces of garbage. I raised no further objections to living next door to something like this: the low rent for artists explained and excused everything. Two men came toward us; Ann knew them, they lived in the garbage dump, she said, in sheds they had built themselves out of wooden and metal garbage. They were both carrying something in their hands—I couldn’t tell what the things were, but they were apparently offering them to us for sale. Not today, thanks, Ann said in a friendly voice, and the two men waved at her and peacefully withdrew.

  Ann drove us toward downtown, through neighborhoods that were more and more run-down. She would never get out of the car here, she said. Groups of homeless people were crouching by the walls of the buildings, on the side of the street, only a few of them moving. All black. Ravaged streets. Ann was heading somewhere specific and arranged something with someone over her cell phone. When I stop, she said, get out and run as fast as you can to the only store that has unbroken shop windows and a normal door, someone will open it and go right inside, fast. That’s how it happened. A young man was waiting for us behind the barred door, opened it briefly, and whisked us inside. Ann didn’t quite make it: a man was on her heels, she got free by giving him a cigarette, then a dollar, and slipped through the door, and the man pressed his cheek against the outside of the window and pointed with his finger. Ann kissed the cheek of the black man where he was pointing, through the window, and then he was satisfied and left.

  We found ourselves in an oasis: a refuge for the homeless people. The young man had set up the back part of the room—secured with strong bars, and where he himself painted—as a workshop where the homeless could make wooden toys, beautiful things in simple shapes that were easy to sell since the only other toys on the market were plastic. They don’t buy alcohol with the proceeds, he said, that’s the miracle. They buy tools and raw materials so that they can make more toys. The key thing, he said, was that no one pressured them, no one asked them anything or tried to convince them of anything, and also that they could come and go as they pleased, or go away for a long time and come back later. They were simply accepted the way they were. And they, or at least some of them, accepted what he was offering: that was the second miracle, he said.

  Ann felt the need to lighten things up a little so she drove us through a Mexican neighborhood she especially liked. She shoppe
d there; it was poor, but colorful and lively. We ate lunch at a restaurant called Serenata de Garibaldi, and Therese implied that this city, Los Angeles, was something of a refuge for her. No, she said to a half-question from Ann, she still wasn’t divorced from her husband, he was still insisting that he couldn’t live without her. Ann said if it was her she would take the risk.

  The afternoon was drawing to a close and we drove downtown again through the poor neighborhoods. Now the homeless people were gathering everywhere around the missions and public shelters set up by the city, like iron filings around magnets, to get a bowl of soup and a place to sleep before night fell. Now we could see for the first time how many there were—a dark, gray-black mass in long lines. Almost all of them black, many of the faces expressionless. One couple sat next to each other in the gutter: they were young, they laughed, I took them for lovers and pointed them out to Ann. She said: Lovers? Well, maybe. But there was no way to be sure that he wasn’t just her pimp. She had long since stopped taking photographs in these parts of town, by the way, because it was dangerous. I could tell that a sense of shame kept her from documenting these people in their degradation. Instead, she photographed us, the privileged guests of the CENTER, in the most flattering way possible, and showed a row of the enlarged photographs in a kind of gallery along the hall on the seventh floor. I was unable to see the gallery of photos as anything but obscene.

  By the time I got back home, back to the MS. VICTORIA, I was utterly exhausted. It wore a different face now: not just an oasis but a fortress, a bastion of defense against this city’s poverty and misery, which we were powerless against. I paced back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, I couldn’t sit down at the word processor, couldn’t write anything up; I ate little and drank two whiskeys one after the other, which I almost never did, without feeling any effect. Then I took the mail I had fetched without looking at from the CENTER that morning, took it out of my Indian bag, and paged through it. A fax was there, an article from a well-respected German magazine by a well-respected journalist, and unfortunately I forgot myself and read it. It went beyond everything so far, everything I had almost gotten used to over the past few days. I felt like I was breathing another kind of air now, I was in serious, unavoidable danger. I had to make a decision that night.

  I am trying to remember what I did that night—I couldn’t take any notes at the time. I went to bed. I brought dear Fleming’s poem with me. “Be undismayed in spite of everything; do not give up, despite everything.” I repeated the line over and over until I could say it in my sleep. But it was only midnight. What now?

  THEN I STARTED SINGING

  I sang the whole night through, every song I knew—and I know a lot of songs, with a lot of verses. I drank two more whiskeys straight down but I didn’t get drunk. The phone rang several times, I knew who was trying so urgently to reach me but I didn’t pick up. I sang “An jenem Tag im blauen Mond September,” I sang “Glück auf, Glück auf, der Steiger kommt,” I sang “Es leben die Soldaten so recht von Gottes Gnaden.” “Du Schwert an meiner Linken.” Songs from different eras of my life mingled together in my mind, suddenly I heard myself singing “Was fragt ihr dumm, was fragt ihr klein, warum wir wohl marschieren” and quickly broke off.

  I still remember the feeling I had that the overcoat of Dr. Freud was hovering above me: it had heralded that I would learn much about myself that night and, since that was dangerous, it would protect me. We would see if I really wanted to know it, as I always claimed. It didn’t surprise me that an overcoat was talking to me.

  I sang “Als wir jüngst in Regensburg waren,” I sang “Am Brunnen vor dem Tore,” I sang “Der Mond ist aufgegangen,” then I sang “Spaniens Himmel breitet seine Sterne,” and “Da streiten sich die Leut herum wohl um den Wert des Glücks,” and then I sang “Im schönsten Wiesengrunde ist meiner Heimat Haus,” but also “We Shall Overcome” and “Au clair de la lune.” I sang “Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust,” and “Grosser Gott im Himmel, sieben Heller sind mir noch geblieben,” and “Stehn zwei Stern am hohen Himmel,” and “Guten Abend, gute Nacht,” and “Kein schöner Land in dieser Zeit,” and “Wohl auf, Kameraden, aufs Pferd aufs Pferd,” and “Die blauen Dragoner, sie reiten,” and “O Strassburg, o Strassburg, du wunderschöne Stadt,” and “Das Lieben bringt gross Freud,” and “Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz,” and “Ik weit enen Eikboom de steiht an de See,” and “Up de Straat steiht en Djung mitn Tüdelband,” and “Lasst uns froh und munter sein,” and “Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden,” and “Es geht eine helle Flöte,” and “Alle Vögel sind schon da,” and I didn’t let myself take a break and I brought song after song up out of an inexhaustible reservoir, I sang “Die Gedanken sind frei,” and I sang “Es zogen drei Burschen wohl über den Rhein,” and “Drei Lilien, drei Lilien, die pflanzt ich auf ein Grab,” and “O du stille Zeit,” and “Hohe Tannen weisen die Sterne,” and “Im August blühn die Rosen,” and “Du hast ja ein Ziel vor den Augen,” and “Die Blümelein, sie schlafen,” and “Fremd bin ich eingezogen,” and “Sah ein Knab ein Röslein stehn,” and “Der Mai ist gekommen,” and “Am Weg dort hinterm Zaune,” and “All mein Gedanken, die ich hab,” and “Willst du dein Herz mir schenken,” and “Es, es, es, und es, es ist ein harter Schluss,” and “Der Frühling hat sich eingestellt,” and “Winter ade,” and “Hoch auf dem gelben Wagen,” and “Auf der Lüneberger Heide,” and “Im Frühtau zu Berge wir ziehn vallera,” and “Dat du min Lewsten bist,” I sang for hours and hours and lightened my heart, and sang “Wir lagen vor Madagaskar,” and sang “Wo die blauen Gipfel ragen,” and sang “Wir sind durch Deutschland gefahren,” sang “Der Landsknecht muss die Trommel rühren,” sang “Das Frühjahr kommt, wach auf, du Christ,” and “Am Grunde der Moldau, da wandern die Steine,” and “Wem Gott will rechte Gunst erweisen,” and “Auf, auf zum fröhlichen Jagen,” and “Ich ging im Walde so für mich hin,” and “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott,” and “Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud,” and “Die Glocken stürmten vom Bernwardsturm,” and “Im tiefen Keller sitz ich hier,” and “Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh,” and “Kein Feuer, keine Kohle kann brennen so heiss,” and “Abend wird es wieder,” and “Als die goldne Abendsonne, sandte ihren letzten Schein,” and “Von all unsern Kameraden, war keiner so lieb und so gut,” and “Steige hoch, du roter Adler,” and “Masslos gequält und gepeinigt,” and “Wer recht in Freuden wandern will,” and “Wie herrlich leuchtet mir die Natur,” and “Sonne komm raus,” and “Wo man singt, da lass dich ruhig nieder,” and “Unser Zeichen ist die Sonne,” and “Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter,” and “Wacht auf, Verdammte dieser Erde,” and “Leise zieht durch mein Gemüt liebliches Geläute,” and I sang “Ade nun zur guten Nacht,” and “Es blies ein Jäger wohl in sein Horn,” and “Im Märzen der Bauer die Rösslein einspannt,” and “Und in dem Schneegebirge,” and finally “Freude, schöner Götterfunken.”

  Then it was morning. The first light came through the tangle of weeds outside my window and I peacefully fell asleep. A few hours later I was sitting at the narrow end of the big table at my machine, I could see a low ridge of the roof and there was a blue bird, big and beautiful, with shimmering feathers, that I had never seen there and I never saw again. It came right up to my window, sat down on the ledge, tilted its glittering silver head to the side, and looked at me. I knew that it was a messenger, and I understood its message, which cannot be expressed in words.

  I dutifully wrote down everything that came to me.

  That afternoon I went to Woolworth’s to buy a lamp for my desk. I already had the long cardboard box under my arm and was standing in line for the cash register when a young black man came up and spoke to me, rather rudely. He seemed unkempt, with frizzy black hair peeking out from under a small cap, bad teeth, a pockmarked face. He pressed a package of candy into my hand with a dollar, I should buy it for him, he had to go somewhere in a hurry. I could hardly understand his slang, which seemed to offend him. I said I don’t need the dollar, I can buy it with my
own money. No, he didn’t want that. Maybe he had to find a toilet in a hurry, I thought. It took a long time before the only cashier, uneducated like all the cashiers here, had rung up the customers in front of me and put their purchases in bags. I paid separately for the package of candy and took the change. Then I stood there, my box under my arm and the candy and change in my hand, and waited. He didn’t show up. Was he playing a trick on me? Trying to take revenge on a white woman for something? Should I just leave? Then, suddenly, when I turned around, he was standing behind me. Here you are! I cried, relieved, and handed him his candy and the change. He was as if transformed. He beamed, took the candy and money, gave me a long and heartfelt handshake, and thanked me over and over again. We parted in perfect harmony. Apparently it had been a test, and apparently I had passed it.

  Along with a pile of new newspaper clippings in my mailbox at the CENTER was a letter from Ruth, inviting me to a discussion with a Jewish group that met regularly though infrequently and whose leader, if you could call him that, was a friend of hers. Kätchen, who had been tending to my incoming and outgoing mail especially carefully in recent weeks, put some new faxes in front of me, facedown. Are you okay? I said: No. She said: I didn’t think so. What’s the matter? I invited her to join me for lunch. I tried, despite the linguistic hurdles, to tell her what was happening. She tried to understand. She had read the American newspapers. She said what everyone said first: But it was such a long time ago! She liked me. She wanted to make me feel better. I knew that she was horrified by the very word “Communism,” the same as almost all Americans. Suddenly the muscle in my esophagus spasmed. I couldn’t swallow. I had to let my spaghetti get cold and try to hide from Kätchen that I was not eating anymore. I couldn’t drink either. After ten minutes, the muscle cramp relaxed, but from then on it kept coming back and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.