I find it easier to lie in the evenings. In the mornings, when a cool light illuminates everyone’s faces, leaving no shadows, I usually feel dreadful. In the clarity of these early hours my behavior seems to weigh more heavily, my conscience appears keener, my morals sharper. Later in the day my sense of morality disappears. At night it’s nonexistent.
The landlord asks whether I could come work this weekend. The local heritage association is having a gathering, and he’s going to need more staff. He has a pretty little dance hall beyond the bar, and that’s where the meeting is being held. The evening is a real challenge. It always starts harmlessly enough—the chair gives a speech about the beauty of the local area and how important it is to preserve our heritage—but this is just an excuse to drink to excess afterward. At the start they’re all sitting in their seats, chatting with their neighbors. But as the evening progresses, chaos sets in. Sooner or later everyone has moved from their seat and, because we mark all drinks on people’s beer mats, we have to run around matching the right beer mat to the right person. Some put their beer mats in their bags, others lose them. It’s hopeless.
Many of them wear traditional outfits, and I have to put one on, too. Marianne thinks it’s “fetching,” as she put it. But Johannes just makes a face.
They play all the old easy-listening favorites and sing folk songs. I join in with some of them—the ones I like best—and occasionally one of the elderly men comes and spins me across the dance floor. Then the next one is already waiting and I’m passed around like a trophy. That’s when it starts getting dangerous. I have to slap wrists because their hands are everywhere. Much to my irritation, their wives ignore this behavior. I can only hope it will be over by midnight. Most of them are around sixty; they won’t be able to keep at it for much longer.
Just before one o’clock the ballroom is indeed empty, but five stragglers are still sitting at the regulars’ table. They’ve had so much schnapps and beer that even the landlord doesn’t think they’ll be able to make it home. One of them is Riedel, the former village policeman. He’s been retired for two years at least, but he still knows everything that’s going on. They say that he had his sights on Henner for years and made life difficult for him. When Henner’s wife left, it came out that the police and the Stasi had assigned her to monitor Henner—at least this is the latest version of the story. In his youth Henner was politically active, and he used to spend time with a musician called Lutz, who wrote political songs and was later sent to prison. At any rate his problems started when his wife moved in. To begin with everything was normal, but then suddenly the police checks at the farm became more frequent. Henner, Lutz, and another friend would sometimes meet there. This friend purported to be a horse breeder, but in fact he was a set painter for the state theater. After Ursula, Henner’s wife, had been there for a while, the policeman would arrive with a colleague on those very evenings when Henner had company. The colleague was almost certainly with the Stasi. The Stasi may have thought of itself as an entirely secret organization, but in these villages everyone had a pretty good idea of who worked for them and who didn’t.
They confronted Henner with a record of the things he must have said, but only a few people could possibly have heard. He soon worked out the connection between Ursula and the police visits, and he challenged her. She denied everything, but the next morning she disappeared with all her stuff. One drunken evening not long after that, Henner punched Riedel in the face. When they came to the farm to arrest him, he put up one hell of a fight and spent a few weeks in prison. In the end the only thing they could pin on him was a charge of obstructing the police.
Henner never again let a woman stay on his farm for long, and after his spell in prison his drinking got serious.
There he is at the table, the village policeman, waving his arms and holding forth about how great it is that Germany will soon be one country again. At that moment Henner enters the room. He’s stone-cold sober, and he’s probably come because of me—he knows what the heritage association is like—but when he sees the policeman he goes straight to his table and sits down.
The old men are drinking whatever they can lay their hands on. Schnapps, vodka, brandy, everything at once. And then something happens. I bring another round to the table, and the policeman puts his hand on my bum and says, “If I were any younger, I’d have this girl here and now.” He laughs like a nutter. I wriggle from his grasp and go back to the bar. Then Henner stands up. He steps behind the policeman’s chair, grabs him by the collar and hauls him to the door. “Stop that!” the landlord shouts. “I don’t want any trouble here. Go home, Henner, go on, go!”
I run after them, while the others stay sitting as if nothing had happened. They’re outside, just by the door, and I really believe Henner’s going to kill the policeman. He has his hand around his throat, the policeman is choking, and I say firmly, but in a calm voice, “Leave him. I’ll go home with you right now, but leave him, please—leave him, leave him . . .” I don’t know how often I repeat it, but all of a sudden the policeman is lying there on the ground, retching. Henner takes my wrist and drags me away. He’s so incensed that I don’t recognize him anymore. I try to free myself from his grasp, but he doesn’t let me go. He kicks the gate open with his foot and pulls me in. He even kicks the dogs when they greet him, and then he pushes me away. My wrist is hurting like mad. He bolts into the house, sending various things flying. The pan containing the leftovers from lunch hits a wall, and he smashes up a chair. I stay by the door, watching him. I’m not afraid. The worst is over after a few minutes, and the kitchen is in a dreadful state. “That miserable bastard, that wanker, that fucker . . . ,” he spits out again and again, but this outburst eventually fades. When he’s ready to sit down, I go to the fridge to fetch vodka, which never runs out here, and half fill two glasses. He drinks slowly, without looking at me, and then he empties my glass, too. I go behind him and put my hands on his temples, leaning my head on his. He seems paralyzed still, as if he didn’t know I was there. His head is slumped forward, there’s no tension in his shoulders; he’s sunk into himself.
I stand there until I can’t take it anymore. Then I tell him, “I’ll come back tomorrow. I have to go home now, Johannes is waiting. But I’ll be back tomorrow.” I stress the words because I don’t think he can hear me. Tomorrow is Sunday. I have no idea how I’m going to be able to get away from the Brendels’ on a Sunday, but that doesn’t worry me. Henner has never needed me as much as he does now. He nods and I urge him to go to bed. And he does; he gets up and staggers over to the bedroom. When he lies down, I sit on the edge of the bed and place my hand on his head. He takes my hand and holds it tightly for a while. Then I leave.
The next morning I sleep in, and by the time I come down for breakfast later than usual, they already know what’s happened. The drinking session, the argument, my intervention, and how I went home with him. Gabi from the tavern was here to get milk and eggs, and she told them everything.
Johannes asks if I’ve taken leave of my senses, going home in the middle of the night with Henner, that brutal man—everyone knows how abusive he can get. “Home . . . ,” he repeats, slapping his forehead. I hardly know what to say; I splutter and stammer, saying I thought I could calm him down. I was afraid something far worse might happen if I left him alone. Johannes interrupts me and says, “That’s just my point. Something far, far worse might have happened—you and Henner, alone at his house, given the state he was in. You’re so naive, Maria, it really gets on my nerves.” I try to justify myself, but it’s pointless. They all agree with him. I can count myself lucky that he didn’t “violate” me—that’s the word Marianne uses, and she says it over and over again. She seems to like the word, or maybe she’s jealous and wouldn’t mind being “violated” by Henner herself. I have bad thoughts when they go on at me like this. What was I doing at his place for so long? The landlord said I was at Henner’s for ages. At least an hour, he said, he saw me leave. Any longer and
he would have called the police. He could have raped me three times in that hour, I say. And the police couldn’t have done a thing about it. As far as I’m concerned, the landlord can go to hell, and that’s that.
Neither Alfred nor Frieda says anything, but I can see that Alfred is smiling. I’d love to stuff his half-eaten roll down his throat, and then follow it with another. Siegfried is the only one who talks any sense: “Henner wouldn’t do anything like that; he’s not the type.” I’m so grateful to him for that.
After breakfast I gather together a few things and say that I’m going to my mother’s. Johannes says he wants to drive me. He’s not angry anymore, but I am, because of how he talked to me in front of his parents. With a shrug and an awkward wave of his hand he lets me go down the steps, shutting the door behind me. Then I go to Henner’s.
In the kitchen everything has been tidied up. There is no reminder of last night. Henner is sitting at the table, eating. When I enter he doesn’t stir. He doesn’t even raise his eyes. I walk past him almost silently, and take my bag into the room next door. Then I get a chair and sit next to him. He watches me out of the corner of his eye and keeps eating, undeterred.
He should be the first one to say something. I know how to be silent, too.
How long do we sit there like that? I don’t know.
For a very long time.
I find it hard to gauge time in this house. Sometimes hours are like days, and at others they pass like minutes. But when nothing has happened for what seems like ages and Henner has long since finished eating, I put my hand on his cheek. He groans and looks down at the table. “I would have killed him,” he says, and when I say nothing he adds, “and myself, too.” Those are words that stand between us like walls.
Now I don’t know what’s right, but I think what he’s saying is true. Then he goes on: “You don’t need me, Maria. You’re seventeen! My God, what are you doing here?” He stares at me. It’s not that I need to think about it, but I hesitate before saying, “I want you! I’m old enough; Grandma Traudel was only seventeen. You can’t just send me away like that.”
His eyes are still fixed on me. I’d been expecting ridicule, but there’s nothing . . .
“I’m not sending you away,” he says. “I just want to say: you can see what it’s like here. You’ve seen what I’m like. I’ve got nothing to offer you, nothing at all.” As he speaks he waves his right hand dismissively. I am surprised by how much this affects me. I have to swallow several times before I can say, “I don’t care. I just want to be near you. That’s all.” He gives a tired smile and pulls me over to him sluggishly. We sit there, slumped, more silently than the silence on the farm, and for a long time, for a very long time.
We spend the rest of the day in bed. We don’t talk much, we just touch each other, and he reads me the last chapter of The Brothers Karamazov. At one point Alexey says, “Certainly we shall rise again, certainly we shall see one another, and shall tell one another gladly and joyfully all that has been.” I want him to repeat it straightaway—it sounds so beautiful, so full of hope—and my delight makes Henner happy, too.
20
I’m home by the evening. I don’t say much, apart from that I’ve still got homework to do, and go straight upstairs. In the next-door attic room Selma has given birth to five tiny kittens, sired by some stray from the village. Another event that Johannes has immortalized on film. I don’t know how many photos he’s taken so far, but it must be in the hundreds. They’re scattered on every surface and are a reminder that time is passing. His first pictures have already aged. I look completely different now, something he’s noticed, too, but only because of the photographs. When I’m right in front of him he doesn’t seem to see it at all.
I’ve arranged with Henner that he picks me up from school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ll tell Johannes that I’m going into town with some school friends, or to the park for an ice cream. Saturdays are when I visit my mother, and I do actually go to see her in the mornings, but before lunch I take the path through the woods to Henner’s and stay the night.
September, with her glorious late-summer days, gently fades. Henner and I have gotten used to the rhythm of our lies and our love. We see each other regularly, and whenever we drive past the track that leads to the Brendels’ farm, I hide by lying flat on the backseat.
The initial magic has vanished; our meetings have now taken on the comfort of routine. He no longer pounces on me the moment I come through the door, and sometimes we just talk. The fear of being discovered has given way to a realization that the truth doesn’t always come to light. It makes me wonder what else goes on in secret that I’ll never find out about.
I’m not working at the tavern anymore. The landlord would have been quite happy to wait and see if Henner was going to rape me. When I tell this to Henner, he becomes sullen and says, “So that’s what the creep thinks of me, is it?” But Henner has never been bothered by what people say about him.
He seems in good spirits; he’s sorting things out on the farm, repairing fences, looking after the horses, and planning to renovate parts of the house. It’s not true that he still fetches his water from the well; he only does this in summer. He’s on the mains like everyone else and he even has a boiler.
I help him clean and tidy up the house: I clean windows, wash curtains, scrub floors, and wipe years of dust from cupboards and shelves. He’s astonished when he sees what I’ve done and showers me with endless praise until I turn bright red with happiness.
I could live like this, I think.
At his farm we hear nothing of political events. He really doesn’t have a television or a radio, only a record player, but we don’t put that on, either. There’s no time for it during the week, and on our Saturdays we read to each other from books. Henner is an artist manqué. When I tell him this he laughs, but it’s a bitter laugh. Hardly surprising that he has no friends in the village. They don’t like oddballs, particularly not the kind who read a lot of books. They turned a blind eye until he started neglecting the farm. Once upon a time Henner had more animals, as many as you could have on such a small amount of land—cattle, pigs, chickens, and the horses, of course, which stayed. He had to buy feed; the land he rented out didn’t cover the cost of the hay and concentrated feed that was needed.
When Henner’s mother died in 1965, his father and grandparents were still on top of things at the farm. His grandfather died eight years later, and his father in 1980. Henner joined the agricultural collective at eighteen and worked in cattle breeding. When he got home in the evenings, he still had things to do on the farm. The collective was not the right place for Henner; headstrong and obstinate, he had endless spats with the others, while all he really wanted to do was run his own farm. And when his grandmother was the only family he had left, this is what he did. He slaved away all on his own, but in the end it became too much. One by one he got rid of the animals, until all that was left were the horses. He wouldn’t be parted from them; he knew about horses best of all. With the money he received from the sale of the cattle he bought more horses, good studs, and within a few years his stable was known throughout the region. Compared to horses from the West they’re supposed to be worthless, but nobody around here believes that.
The Ursula affair happened in 1974, the year after I was born. Henner was in prison while I was being breastfed by my mother. I often think about that.
There is much that separates us and a few things we have in common, which I prefer talking about. Like me, Henner was a Pioneer, but he didn’t join the Free German Youth, nor did he take part in the state initiation ceremony. You couldn’t call Henner’s family enemies of the state—they weren’t even political. They just wanted to be left to run their farm in peace. Okay, Henner’s mother hated the Russians, but that was for other reasons. I don’t think they cared which system they lived under. All they wanted was to be farmers and not have to worry about taking their son to the Pioneer hall every week, to join in whatever usel
ess stuff went on there.
It was the grandmother who prevented his initiation. As a Catholic, she insisted at the very least that Henner be confirmed in a Protestant church. The nearest Catholic parish was just too far away. He could have had both, of course, the initiation and confirmation, but his grandmother said that one couldn’t serve both God and godless idols. She could be a very stubborn woman. The family agreed that the Free German Youth would have been a drain on the boy’s time, and understandably so; there were endless events, meetings, parades, and holiday camps. The farm couldn’t afford to be generous with time off.
I didn’t join the Free German Youth, either. That was mainly down to David. His fondness for me was conditional: he wasn’t interested in anyone who went along with the regime, even though later he fell in love with just such a girl and never said another word to me. By then I didn’t care, because I’d already met Johannes.
For both Henner and me there was one serious consequence of not joining the organization: we were barred from taking our school leaving exams and would never be allowed to go to college. For me everything changed when the Wall came down, but for Henner it was all too late.
I don’t know whether he would have studied. He was definitely clever enough, but he was torn between the farm and this other, enticing world opened up to him by books. Sometimes he would go into town, and it was there that he first met Lutz and the set painter. With them he could discuss things that nobody at home understood. What might he have done if he’d been seventeen when the Wall came down?
But he doesn’t want to pursue the thought. He doesn’t like talking about himself. It took ages for me to get this much out of him. He’s a funny one, Henner. He knows more about me. The only thing I never tell him is the most important of all.
Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything Page 12