The American Fiancee

by Eric Dupont

  “I’m wondering, what do I mean to you?” I asked her as we walked to the subway.

  “What a funny question! You’re my friend. That’s what you mean to me.”

  “But we both have tons of friends.”

  “You Americans do, yes, but we Europeans have fewer friends. Two or three in a lifetime, no more.”

  “And am I an American friend or a European friend in your eyes?”

  “You’re a citizen of the world, Gabriel.”

  She went on to assure me she loved me with all her heart, but she had to go back to Germany, where she had hope of finding a better job than working as a language teacher. Claudia had written her thesis on courtly love in the literature of the Middle Ages. She hoped to teach at Humboldt or the Freie one day, but they’re hard to get into.

  When Claudia left Toronto in August 1999, I knew I wouldn’t last long; it was only a matter of time. I knew it as soon as I saw her: we were made for each other. I could either accept an apathetic but peaceful existence at Holy Canadian Martyrs, or risk everything. It didn’t take me long to come to a decision. I would have to keep working on my German, its irregular verbs, its strange syntax, its devilish declensions, and, of course, the incomprehensible existence of a third gender, neither masculine nor feminine, the intriguing das.

  I read in the Berliner Morgenpost this morning that people are eagerly awaiting the latest version of Tosca that Bruno-Karl D’Ambrosio is getting ready to film in Rome. It must be said he left—how should I put this?—a whiff of controversy behind him here in Berlin. I think that’s the right expression. He produced Wagner’s Rienzi. That was Adolf Hitler’s favorite opera, did you know that? It’s hardly ever performed nowadays. Not even the Bayreuth Festival will touch it: it’s too hot to handle. But D’Ambrosio is up for anything. To get the audience warmed up, he dressed all the singers and walk-on parts as Nazis. A third of the audience left as soon as the curtain went up, some of them spitting on the floor in disgust on their way out. But D’Ambrosio wasn’t done yet. He was determined to make sure all of Berlin could smell his shit, so he decided to include a gas chamber as part of the stage set. There was only one performance. I’m happy and proud, you know, that at last you’ve been given a role equal to your talents. But are you absolutely sure you want to be in a D’Ambrosio film? What should we expect? Are you sure Puccini wouldn’t be better served by a more conventional production? I’m a little worried for you, to be honest. And for Anamaria. I’ve always had a lot of respect for her.

  My train’s pulling into the station. I’ve already traveled the length of the line two or three times both ways.

  Gabriel

  * * *

  Blankenfelde–Bernau

  May 17, 1999

  Dear Michel,

  It’s been a week since I last wrote, but I’ve been very busy with my German homework. You’d be surprised by my patience and tenacity, dear brother. I waited until March before I told Claudia I was in Berlin, just a note I mailed to at least let her know I was there. I was afraid of bumping into her, you see. I didn’t want her to say, “Gabriel, the swine, was in Berlin all this time and he didn’t even tell me!” I always pretended I was still in Toronto in our emails. She must have been astonished to get a letter from Lichtenberg with a photo of me in front of the Brandenburg Gate. I don’t dare call her.

  She took two weeks to get back to me. Her reply didn’t reach me until Easter. She said she was very happy to hear I was in Berlin, but it was all very restrained, very German. And that’s what I like about them. They never go overboard; their actions and feelings are pure. They don’t go in for all that Latin playacting. And the short letter she wrote me—no more than a page—evoked in its simplicity the spartan nature of the Lutheran Church, the very image of the purity of faith: “Gabriel, I am very happy to hear you are in Berlin. Of course, I would be more than willing to meet up with you as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I am leaving for Egypt with my sister in three days. We’ll be spending six weeks in Cairo. The pyramids, the Sphinx, the tombs of the pharaohs . . . Ah! If only I’d known, I could have booked a ticket for you too. I’ll be back in Berlin on Saturday, May 22. I’ll probably need a little while to recover from such a long trip. I’ll write to you when I get back. Fondly, Claudia.” You might think me discouraged by the wait, Michel, but you couldn’t be more mistaken. The wait has only stirred my passion, especially since it gives me a little longer to work on my German, my secret weapon. I’ve found my neighbor Magda to be a valuable ally. She speaks clearly and is always correcting me. It’s really helping.

  Speaking of Magda, I’ve just spent a very strange weekend with her. But first, to give you a feel for my neighborhood, Lichtenberg, I must tell you what happened to me yesterday. I live a stone’s throw from the corner of two streets that were known until very recently as Ho-Chi-Minh-Straße and Leninallee. Today they’ve reverted to their old names: Weißenseer Weg and Landsberger Allee. Magda tells me that no one used the names imposed by the regime anyway; everyone went on using the pre-GDR names. It’s a neighborhood where there is nothing but the Plattenbauten I’ve already told you about, the long buildings that go on forever and all seem to be about ten stories tall. Just imagine the Soviet satellite towns, only in Germany. The socialists were very pragmatic and very broke. They built these Plattenbauten at a feverish pace all through the 1970s, with East Germans lining up to move into them. Couples were given one-room apartments like mine. Those with children were given larger apartments like Magda’s. I don’t know how she managed to get her hands on such a big apartment just for her. I’d have to ask her, but I don’t dare. There’s a small square at the end of the street, near the tram stop. There’s a post office, too, a florist, a Turk who sells spit-roasted chicken, and a supermarket that used to be a Konsum but today goes by another name, just like the streets. That’s where I buy my groceries. Yesterday, Saturday, was a bit of an adventure. It was a beautiful day and I rushed to the supermarket. It closes at noon and after that you’d have a hard time finding so much as a pack of dry biscuits.

  I ran into Magda. She seemed to be waiting for someone outside the supermarket. I’ve no idea why, but she pretended not to see me when I walked up to her. I had to call her name two or three times before she reacted with feigned surprise.

  “Ach, Kapriel! It’s you! I didn’t recognize you with the sun. What lovely weather. I hope it holds for our outing tomorrow.”

  We spoke for a few minutes. She must have left our building just before me. She asked if I’d come to buy groceries. I said yes. Since German supermarkets are always packed on Saturdays, I offered to do her shopping at the same time.

  “Would you like me to pick anything up for you?”

  “Ach! You’re so kind. I was just enjoying this wonderful spring sunshine, and I couldn’t face the thought of having to wait at the cash register. You’re such a gentleman, Kapriel. Here, take this and pick me up 250 grams of thinly sliced ham, a tube of Bavarian mustard, some black bread, a small pot of pickles, some cookies, two packs of powdered soup, six bottles of water, and . . . umm . . . ja! Eggs! I need some eggs, too! I’ll wait for you out here in the sunshine.”

  I took her fifty marks and went grocery shopping for both of us. I found her outside. I gave her the food and her change. She didn’t look happy as she peered into the bag. She didn’t like the cookies I’d chosen, she explained. How could I have known? Germans make all kinds of cookies. Bahlsen alone must have a dozen sorts. Cookies are to Germany what sushi is to Japan. And since I don’t even eat them, don’t ask me which ones are the best.

  “These ones are a little hard to chew . . .”

  She could always dunk them in tea or coffee, I explained. I really didn’t want to have to go line up all over again. She gave me a sad look, sighed, and took the bag. I felt a little sorry for her. I imagined Suzuki at that age, all alone in Outremont, her eyesight too bad for her to go to the supermarket, and I hoped someone would take pity on her in thirty years’ time
and buy her cookies that were easier to chew. So back I went into the supermarket to get her some softer cookies. As luck would have it, I didn’t have to wait too long to pay. Magda was still there when I came out, waiting for me outside. She’d been rummaging around in my bags and was eating one of my bananas.

  “Those are my bananas, Magda!”

  She almost choked. She hadn’t thought I’d be back so quickly.

  “Yes, they looked so tasty. You know, since we couldn’t afford them for forty years in the GDR, I still consider them a luxury. I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back, of course.”

  “Not at all. My treat.”

  “Did you find me some softer cookies? You really are an angel, Kapriel.”

  And all this in German, dear brother! No one is more surprised than I am at the progress I’ve made. Magda wanted to take my arm on the way back. She made a point of calling out “hello!” to each of the neighbors we met. “Look, Kapriel. That man with the wooden leg. His wife ran off to the West in 1985. The regime made things so hard for him because of her that he tried to end his days by throwing himself in front of the tram. The doctors saved him, but not the leg. Say hello to the poor devil.”

  Magda knows everyone. I think she only said hello because we were walking arm in arm.

  “Let’s stop here at the snack bar.”

  It was a stand that sold waffles in winter and grilled sausages in summer. They also had cigarettes and cheap booze by the bottle. Magda wanted to buy a small bottle of Chantré, a type of brandy, the cheapest there is, I think. She drank a glass or two before we moved on. She chatted away to the woman who worked there.

  “Look, the wall comes down and here I am getting married to a handsome Canadian! Charming, isn’t he?”

  She was a little drunk. I had to walk her home, at a snail’s pace. She was unsteady on her feet and clung to me like a life preserver. The children belonging to the woman back at the stand had gone over to the West before the wall came down, she told me. She had a daughter in Cologne and a son in Munich, but they never visited.

  It took us a good twenty minutes to cover the three hundred meters that separated the supermarket from the door to her apartment. She asked me in, but I didn’t dare. To be honest, I was glad to be rid of her. I left her there with her shopping. That afternoon I went to the gym and when I came back I bumped into Hilde from the third floor, who had something to tell me.

  “The TV people will be coming by for their money.” “What money?”

  “Money for state television. You have a television in your apartment, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you’ll have to pay.”

  “That’s funny. Magda never mentioned it.”

  “Magda doesn’t pay!” she laughed. “She stays clear of the inspectors. She pretends to be dead when they get to the ninth floor.”

  “Well, she’s very much alive. I’m just back from the supermarket with her.”

  “What?”

  “From the supermarket.”

  “They let her in?”

  Hilde was about to let me in on a good one.

  “No, I went in. I saw her outside and offered to buy her groceries for her.”

  “Ah, that doesn’t surprise me.”

  “How come?”

  “They caught her red-handed. Twice! Since then she’s not been allowed in.”

  “But how does she do her shopping?”

  “She waits for someone to do it for her.”

  “She was shoplifting?”

  “How do you expect her to live on what they give her every month? It’s enough for wine and beer, but not luxuries. Twice they caught her with smoked salmon in her bag. Once she even had cheese hidden away in her brassiere. Not bad, eh? When you think of all she got away with, to only get caught twice! She’s not the only one either. There are always two of them waiting outside for someone to get their groceries for them. Sometimes I do it for her. She’s my neighbor, after all. But I’m not always in Berlin. I tried having a word with the manager, but he didn’t want to hear it. The worst possible kind of Wessi. Lots of elderly women just can’t get used to life in a unified Germany. It’s hard. I work, so it’s different for me.”

  So Magda was stealing cheese and smoked salmon. At least she had taste. I told Hilde I was going to the Schrebergärten with Magda the next day, and that I was to be ready at noon.

  “She loves going there. She’ll want to show you off. Be careful with Magda. She’ll get too attached to you.”

  “But she’s almost eighty and I’ve just turned thirty.”

  “So what?”

  That evening I watched a little Tosca with Placido Domingo and Kabaivanska on the DVD you sent. I’m starting to realize something, Michel. It’s actually the story of an honest, innocent woman who comes up against the forces of evil, who’s caught in the vice-like grip of history. Isn’t that it?

  The next day Magda rang my bell at eleven forty-five. She was wearing a summer dress with flowers on it and a little makeup. She had an apple-green barrette in her hair. She looked radiant. I felt like I was going to a wedding with her.

  “Ready, Kapriel?”

  Truth is, I wasn’t quite ready, but she seemed so excited to be spending the afternoon with me in the Schrebergärten that I didn’t dare make her wait. She had her Sunday cane with her, the one with the wooden knob.

  “A Saxon artisan carved it,” she told me proudly.

  The cane was a real work of art. I thought to myself that one day, when Suzuki was getting on in years, I’d give her one just like it. Fortunately, the Schrebergärten weren’t far. There were community gardens just like them in every city in Germany, Magda explained. Little pockets of greenery, small plots with fences between them, where Germans built tiny homes they only used in the summer. They planted flowers and vegetables and spent entire weekends contemplating the sun. The avenues of lilacs and peonies gave way to a Biergarten, where a few old folk were having a bite to eat.

  “Here we are!” Magda announced.

  I could tell by the sound of her voice that we’d arrived somewhere she was very fond of. She seemed to know everyone sitting at the tables. They said hello. “Das ist mein Kanadier, Kapriel Lamontagne,” she replied to anyone who asked who she was with. Her Canadian! As though she’d caught me with a net! Magda ordered us beer and food. Some kind of bitter-tasting wheat beer that had been dyed green.

  “Such a lovely place. Best to enjoy it now before it’s overrun with Wessis.

  Prosit, Kapriel!”

  Wessis are West Germans. I got the impression Magda didn’t especially enjoy their company. She took a swig of the green beer and brought her glass down hard on the wooden table.

  “Decent folk can’t even go out in Berlin anymore. Ever since the wall fell, we’ve been allowed to travel, sure, but the problem is the whole city is overrun with Wessis. Not even Wessis from West Berlin, from Kreuzberg or Charlottenburg where I went to school: people from the Rhine Valley, from Bremen, from all across the Federal Republic! Bavarians! Pfui Teufel! They buy up all the apartments and ruin the scenery just by being here. A real scourge!”

  A couple in their sixties were sitting nearby. They smiled at Magda’s rant. I asked Magda if she might be exaggerating a touch.

  “You don’t know them! Ignoramuses, frightful barbarians. Money is the only language they understand. I won’t hear otherwise. They come over here like they just conquered the place, they look down their noses at us and belittle everything that happened before they got here. A plague, I’m telling you. What I’d give to have my wall back!”

  Those sitting nearby raised their glasses in agreement.

  “And don’t try to talk culture with them! All they know is American pop, if that! Stomachs filled with Big Macs and heads with Michael Jackson. Cretins, the lot of them. Won’t you have another beer, Kapriel? It’s my round!”

  Magda had already finished her glass. The sun shone high in the sky, the birds were singing, and Claudia
would be back from Egypt in less than a week. There were plenty of reasons to celebrate. I never drink more than one beer, but I let Magda lead me down a path of decadence that Sunday afternoon in Lichtenberg. Our food arrived and Magda ordered two more green beers. Feeling a little tipsy myself, I told her what I was really doing in Berlin. Until then, I’d always said it was to learn German, which wasn’t that far from the truth. I’d never have mentioned Claudia if she hadn’t asked me directly.

  “But why a Canadian does he to learn German want? They don’t speak German in Canada. Did your ancestors speak German?”

  “As it happens, yes. The Lamontagnes had the same name as you: Berg. Strange, isn’t it? Their name was Gallicized in the eighteenth century.”

  “Germans. Really? Do you know where they came from?”

  “Not really, no. I know virtually nothing about them. Thing is, there’s another reason I’m learning German. It’s less about the past than the future.”

  The beer was going to my head. I noticed the dye had turned Magda’s lips and tongue green. You could see how green her tongue was every time she laughed, which made her look a little like an iguana. Don’t ask me why, but I told her about meeting Claudia in Toronto. I told her the lot: the courtly love, the gallant knight in shining armor who performed amazing feats so that his sweetheart would find him desirable. And my feat was learning German, so that I might win over Claudia’s heart and become her German-speaking lover.

  The people sitting at the other tables lowered their voices or stopped speaking altogether as we chatted, not wanting to miss any of our conversation. But I was too drunk to care what these Ossis might think as they listened on from the neighboring tables while a Canadian poured his heart out in his bad German.