by Lutz Seiler
The three or four days on the island were an essential and primary necessity on the road to freedom, which Kruso explained to Ed frequently and in ever greater detail. In addition to this, there was the support system. This was essentially limited to three elements: the soup, the ablution, and the work, which naturally was voluntary and took place on the beach or at the covered tables on the terrace of the Klausner and mostly in the mornings.
At first, Ed could only associate one dim memory with the ablution — a burning sensation in his eyes and the ‘Roman’ who had flitted across the courtyard at night like a ghost. The work consisted primarily of making jewellery, which was astonishingly easy to sell to the tourists. There were mostly earrings (twenty marks a pair) made out of the bands from dead migratory birds, collected in the bird sanctuary. ‘Sometimes you find a really old bird. I mean a cadaver that still has the old rings, from Heligoland, or rings from the Radolfzell or Rossitten bird observatories, unbelievably valuable pieces …’ Yet Kruso acquired a much greater number of rings directly from the banding station on the island, which Ed had got to know on one of their forays. The bird taggers there greeted them like old trading partners. Kruso not only acquired the rustproof material for his secret manufacturing from them, but also borrowed rare tools, fine pliers that were strange in some special way and resembled a dentist’s instruments. And he let them explain their work with birds in the most minute detail, down to the finer points of drawing up the so-called tagging reports, as if that were the actual point of the visit. He had lengthy discussions with the taggers about species of birds Ed had never heard of. ‘A hundred thousand rings a year, simply incredible,’ he called to Ed, who was feeling nauseous from the flapping of hundreds of wings in the surrounding cages. ‘Too many rings, that’s why they’ve given up their research,’ Kruso explained when they left the central tagging station. ‘Hormones that trigger the migratory instinct — that was once their subject. Can you imagine, Ed? Even for a second? That is something we truly need to know more about. Instead, they now write up their reports. A report for every single bird!’ The wire that had to be pulled through the earlobes came from another source. ‘Dental wire,’ Kruso whispered, as if speaking of the Hiddensee Treasure.
The profit from this small, but lucrative manufacture flowed only into the ‘Esskay Fund’, primarily to cover the cost of the drinks on allocation evenings. The fund was kept in Kruso’s charge. The regular distribution of the pilgrims into emergency quarters, the undisputed high point and core of the organisation, resembled a celebration, which was to lack for nothing. The thought that he had recited Trakl at one of those celebrations, of all times, embarrassed Ed. He withdrew from the organisation. He was an excellent worker, that much was certain. He mastered the daily inferno of pots and cutlery, and yet he still didn’t fulfil the spoken or the unspoken requirements for becoming a fully fledged member of the Klausner.
Nevertheless, Kruso had chosen him.
Finding sleeping quarters for all the castaways was, without a doubt, a difficult, fundamentally impossible task. Kruso acted as quartermaster. He divided the shelters into permanent and open-air quarters, the latter being special, as he called them ‘consecrated spots’ at the foot of the moraines. First and foremost were the esskays’ rooms — a not inconsiderable number of sleeping accommodation spread across the entire island. The remaining system of emergency shelters and the wide distribution network was of a complexity that constantly amazed Ed. It was an expression of Kruso’s strategic talent, an almost military predisposition that allowed him to see his hiding places as a system of bases and to develop his logistics accordingly. On their forays, Kruso inducted Ed in the particulars of the clandestine quarters.
The sheepfold in the former ‘Peoples’ Friendship’ agricultural cooperative, most recently the nationally owned farm ‘Ummanz’ at the foot of the Dornbusch: capacity 10–12 castaways.
The donkey stable belonging to the theatre director Walter Felsenstein, below his villa; a small, but very sturdy building with an upper floor able to accommodate 3 people over the donkeys.
The tower (Kruso’s boyhood room on the grounds of the Radiation Institute): capacity 5–7 castaways.
The cutter owned by the fishermen Schluck, Schlieker, Kollwitz, Krüger, Gau, and Augstein, and the freighters Johanna and Hope in the ports of Kloster and Vitte: total capacity 10–15 castaways.
The large wooden barn belonging to the Weidner family in Grieben, which was partitioned into various stalls for bicycles, carts, and an unused horse carriage, which could serve as a pallet: capacity up to 8 castaways.
The secret brick shed behind the former estate above the Schwedenufer, surrounded by overgrown woodland filled with rubbish. Behind the port, a narrow flight of stairs led up to it, but you had to leave the path and make your way through a section of thick undergrowth. First, you came upon the rusty skeleton of an enormous machine once used for threshing or woodworking, and then, to the left, the lodging; this stone building was considered the esskays’ headquarters, and served various purposes, as Kruso put it, about which he offered no more than a few vague hints: capacity 10 castaways, more if absolutely necessary.
The writer Gerhart Hauptmann’s bed; you could climb a fence at the back of the property and, crouching, descend the small slope to the house, where one particular window was always left unlatched. The esskay who supervised the museum made sure the window was unlatched, and was also responsible for returning the bed to its appropriate museum-quality state: capacity 2 (slender) castaways.
The tiny brick house on the path behind the Hauptmann house. It belonged to the biological station and was so small that you could only spend the night there on your feet, ‘good for two people to sleep leaning against each other’. ‘It’s not as bad as all that,’ Kruso downplayed it when he noticed Ed’s incredulous look.
The cinema tent in the small copse when the projectionist didn’t already have illegal guests of his own.
The equipment shed on the Vitte sportsgrounds, just two hundred metres from the ‘Carousel’, the actress Asta Nielsen’s round house: capacity 4 castaways.
The stone caves along the road between Kloster and Vitte, a rough, almost inaccessible, but very secure shelter, hidden deep between towering blocks of granite behind the so-called promenade, a dune reinforced with stone and covered with tar: capacity 3 castaways.
The gravedigger’s wooden shed, a particular favourite among castaways. A sign was nailed to the door labelled ‘office’. Next to the door stood an overturned wheelbarrow missing its wheel, and a chopping block. There was a crate with masonry tools, a freshly oiled trowel, a sledgehammer, a pointed chisel, and a flat chisel. “… the ancestors’ / ancient tool. / This shatters the stranger’s breast …” suddenly echoed from Ed’s verse hoard. Narrow graves with crooked, weathered stones stretched up to Gerhart Hauptmann’s granite cliff. Bits of grass from the last mowing hung on them, and they resembled a herd of hairy, ailing animals. Kruso touched one of the stones in passing. Only later, when Ed returned to the graveyard, was he able to decipher the inscription: ‘GOVERNOR OF THIS ISLAND rests here since anno 1800 and dwells in sacred realms.’ The gravedigger of Kloster was one of the few esskays with a year-round contract. His hut stood on the property’s furthest edge, not far from the grave of the unknown sailor, which was overgrown with brown conifers. There was also a small white rock with steel letters, under which Kruso hid the key to the hut. ‘It can’t be bad for the castaways to kneel at least once in this spot, even if just to get the key.’ Capacity 3–4 castaways.
The old transformer house in the forest between the lighthouse and the Klausner. It looked like a caretaker or tollkeeper’s hut at the entrance to the Dornbusch hinterland, where there was a pond surrounded by reeds and old willows to which Ed immediately felt drawn. Wood was stacked against the back wall of the transformer house. Hidden under the wood was the key, which opened the massive pa
dlock after a fair amount of jiggling. Sleeping in the transformer house was much too dangerous, Kruso told Ed, so it served as a kind of archive, a storage area for tarpaulins, blankets, and sleeping bags necessary for sleeping outdoors. One of the spots specially consecrated for that purpose was nearby. ‘Sleeping here is a dream, you should try it at least once,’ Kruso whispered, as if they were already surrounded by darkness. In fact, the location of this sleeping spot did seem marvellous — one side directly across from the lighthouse, the other with a view of the reeds and the lights of Rügen. As if completely hidden, you lay in a hollow that was not visible from the barracks.
The so-called lamp workshop, a clinker-brick building on the lighthouse keeper’s farmland, surrounded by high reeds and sheltered by enormous, constantly rustling chestnut trees — near the bluff, and only two hundred metres from the lighthouse. First, there was a wooden trellis-work fence that was easy to climb over, then a door that could be lifted from its hinges. Replacement lights for the lighthouse were stored in the workshop, light bulbs the size of a child’s head with carbon filaments as thick as a finger, and next to them a range of discarded reflectors, ‘in which it’s better not to look at your reflection as a castaway,’ unless ‘the island has already penetrated you deeply enough …’ ‘A holiday from unhappiness,’ Ed whispered to himself, but Kruso heard him. ‘No, not a holiday.’ His left eyelid began to twitch, and his voice became hard. ‘It’s Hiddensee, Ed, you understand, hidden? The island is their hiding place, the island where they can find themselves, where they can turn inwards, that is, towards nature, to the voice of the heart, as Rousseau put it. No one has to flee, no one has to drown. The island is the experience. An experience that enables them to return enlightened. An experience that makes it possible for them to live their lives until the day that quantity turns to quality, when the measure of freedom in their hearts suddenly transcends the constraints of the circumstances, the moment when … It will be a giant throbbing, a single thunderous heartbeat.’ Kruso lay his hand on one of the large NARVA lamps. I wouldn’t be surprised if it started to glow, Ed thought. Capacity 4 castaways.
When Ed returned to his room on the following day, a clean, fresh brick had been placed under each leg of his table. The height was good. The wood cooled his forearms. He took out his diary and wrote.
THE ROUTE ON DAYS OFF
‘You don’t have to,’ the voice had whispered, ‘only if you want to.’ It was only when he stopped moving that Ed became aware of the smooth movement that had enveloped him like sleep. The first rays of sun fell into the room, the fleeting shadows of swallows soaring and plummeting on the wall, on his bed, everywhere.
‘I’m C.’
Ed listened.
He felt skin, the protruding bone of a shoulder blade, a mouth not far from his ear. He smelled the odour of someone else; it smelled good, and he embraced it.
You don’t have to.
As Ed followed an imagined sequence of events he had not decided on himself and penetrated her deeply again, he realised he was not dreaming this time.
Ed heard the rushing sound of pine trees, of the surf, far below. Desire vibrated at the base of his spine.
‘But if, I mean, if you did fall sleep, then …’
‘You don’t have to apologise.’
That was his voice — there was no doubt. His voice, his heart, racing, his breath, his sweat. The woman lay at his side, her head on his chest. He couldn’t see her face. She had a mole, high up, on her auricle, like a crumb.
‘Didn’t you notice me at Kruso’s table?’ she whispered with the usual reverence castaways expressed when mentioning Kruso’s name.
‘Kruso’s table?’
‘You don’t have to pretend. I’m really honoured to have been chosen.’
‘Chosen?’
‘There are people who start asking about it on the ferry, they all talk about it.’ She assured him that she thought them careless. At the same time, she shifted slightly, and Ed felt her pelvic bone against his thigh.
But I’m Losh’s friend, Ed wanted to interject; he hadn’t yet said these words. He slowly turned to the side a bit, and now he recognised her. She was the woman who had fallen asleep at their table, her head on her arms. Short, stringy hair. Unbelievable that she could sleep through the ruckus of an allocation. That was the only reason Ed had looked at her several times.
‘I don’t think we were at the same table.’
‘I’m sorry, I just fell asleep. One night on the beach, one in the forest, I was completely worn out.’
‘If you fell asleep, then how did …’ Ed fell silent. His member was touching her warm stomach. He wanted to stay this way forever. His entire life long. The woman smiled at him, and Ed saw that she was happy to have found an accommodation.
You don’t have to.
Just this one, spoken sentence. An offer. Fair and friendly.
As a rule, Kruso’s route around the island was determined by the hostelries’ days off. He met waiters, house managers, and barkeepers, and sat with them in the empty bar rooms or often in the kitchen, while Ed waited for him at the bar, savouring the silence. He never had to pay on these occasions, and was often readily served even though the establishment was closed. A few of the esskays already knew Ed from the allocation evenings that he had recently taken part in, but just to show support for Kruso. He helped serve drinks and distribute food, and he kept an eye on the eternal soup that had to be stirred now and again. In the course of the evening, each castaway could count on a generous portion.
As if there were a friendly taboo, his Trakl debacle was never mentioned, even though the esskays often attempted to enter into conversation with him. Ed secretly admired their capacity for living, their cheerful dispositions, and their frank, open expressions. They breathed differently, Ed thought; they took longer breaths in and breathed out more slowly, as if the sea had expanded their lungs and liberated their thoughts. Every one of their movements gave the impression they were engaged in some essential activity; their lives themselves were essential, independent, filled with their own interests, and although more than once Ed had felt a longing to be part of this circle, their eyes, glowing with the sea’s reflection and the island’s luminosity, remained so foreign to him that he was never truly able to take up the thread of a conversation. Another obstacle was that no one asked where he had come from or what he had done on the mainland. When Ed mentioned that he (actually) was a student, the light of the sea faded from their eyes. As if everyone had always been a waiter or a dishwasher, and had never wanted anything else in life. Scarcely anyone spoke about the real reason they were here. It may not have been a rule — it simply wasn’t interesting.
What Ed liked most was sitting on the verandah of the harbour hotel. In the back corner of the front porch, which seemed to be made of a few rickety window frames joined together, there was a shabby leather sofa that seemed like a relic from a long-gone era. Almost invisible in his corner, Ed had a good view of the harbour, the docking boats, the streams of tourists, and the crazy boy who ran up and down the dock shouting commands at the top of his voice as if he knew exactly what was what this season.
There was nothing better than sitting there alone, looking out over the clean, empty tables, and daydreaming. There was nothing nicer than leaning back, stretching an arm over the back of the sofa, and stroking the cool smooth leather with his hand, which was chapped from the dishwater. Nothing more pleasant than lifting a glass slowly to his mouth, breathing into it, and feeling his own breath on his face.
Ed imagined how she must have stood in his room at some point. How she would have undressed without a sound, and hesitated a moment, shivering, perhaps. Her slender body, her uncertainty as she felt around in the dark. The window open, as always. No light from the sea, just the back and forth of the surf that offered a proposal, a secret plan for all the nights to come.
Even Ed’s f
avourite dish (a fried egg with roasted potatoes) was known among the esskays. In Kruso’s wake, he had attained a certain renown on the island — Edgar Bendler, Kruso’s companion. It didn’t bother Ed that Losh didn’t let him stay at his side for the discussions about preparations for the Island Day, for example, which was planned for the first of August and seemed to be a source of concern. The friendliness with which Ed was served was coloured by this gentle demotion. He sensed it. He was seen as one of Kruso’s instruments (nevertheless with respect), still somehow ridiculous in his devotion and feeble in his overall appearance — Ed, the onion, the silent one sitting quietly in his corner, not able to carry on a decent conversation and staring fixedly out the window, as if there were something more going on out there than the inane to and fro of the day tourists, hundreds of whom grabbed the handle of the dining-room door more or less firmly, bewildered by their bad luck in landing on the island on the harbour restaurant’s day off. No, Ed complied with what he called Kruso’s circumspection, if, in fact, it was circumspection, and not simply benevolence and an attempt to spare a friend, in whose head verses marched like soldiers going off to war — the daily grind that was the lot of any GOVERNOR OF THIS ISLAND, in short, to keep him for something else, for what was most essential …
Ed did indulge in such fantasies on occasion. Am I not like a child in his hiding place, Ed thought, enclosed and very quiet, but whose heart beats faster every time the door handle moves and who feels more forbidden with every move of the door handle?