This Great Escape

by Andrew Steinmetz

  Though I fear that I might be wearing thin Das Google’s welcome, I cannot resist this one final postscript:

  PS Watch the movie in English, as a German it can be very amusing about how Richard Attenborough in the SS as a German accent goes through!

  Listen to it. Sir Attenborough’s German accent is crap.

  1 Nothing. You can expect nothing more from a movie than to hold the particular firm Charles Bronson in the hand. All that squatting in the coalmines as a child and now inside the soundstage tunnels must have made for especially firm hindquarters.

  Hangin’ in Hamburg

  BEFORE LEAVING MUNICH, cousin Joerg put a bug in my ear. Be careful of Hamburg women. They can be very aggressive. He laughed, raised his eyebrows.

  Joerg had in mind the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s mile of sin. The district in St Pauli infamous for its hard-core sex clubs is where The Beatles earned their stripes, playing gigs at the Indra, The Top-Ten, and The Kaiserkeller. This was 1961, 1962. But forget the charms of the Reeperbahn, the women are also uber-aggressive in the borough of St Georg, where I have booked a very affordable room, and where the tired streets by the Hauptbahnhof reek of urine and are splashed with vomit. The cousins of St Pauli and St Georg share much. Drug abuse, prostitution, a high crime rate. I read that the Senate of Hamburg has enacted a law to ban weapons in the Hansaplatz, a ‘meeting place’ around the corner from my hotel. Taking a stroll outside, after checking in, I am comforted by the knowledge that hand guns and even knifes are verboten. Hopefully the street crews are law-abiding.

  St Georg is home to the Taiba Mosque, formerly the Al-Quds Mosque, where the Hamburg cell of the 9/11 terrorist plot gathered to worship. This is news to me, a bit of trivia that I didn’t know before arriving. Really, there is something intriguingly unappealing about the neighbourhood. Even before Michael’s father came to Hamburg to see for himself Michael’s apartment on Mühlendamm Strasse and to review the autopsy with the pathologist, he described the neighbourhood in which Michael lived as very dangerous. After establishing the seedy nature of the borough, he wrote to Eva that the last twenty-four hours of their son’s life still remained a mystery. He parroted acquaintances, all of whom noted that Michael was a social extrovert, it was simply impossible for him not to go out at night. The theatre staff who had met with Karl acknowledged that Michael adored the nightlife. If this really was so, then Hamburg was his kind of town. The Beatles returned in 1966 and perhaps Michael went to see them play one of two shows at Ernst-Merck-Halle. In hindsight I find it interesting how Michael had gently admonished his young friend Ken Taylor, years before, in Sault Ste. Marie, one day when they were listening together to contemporary music. Ken had disparaged the new sound. “Listen to it,” Michael told his friend. “It is what is being written now. It is what people are playing these days.”

  Karl theorized that Michael may have gone out to a neighbourhood bar, where someone slipped poison into his drink and followed him back to his apartment. He believed that the police’s conduct—they did not investigate the possibility of a conspiracy—was negligent to say the least. Because the police were not of suspicious minds. They saw pills and whiskey and a man living alone. They took the comatose actor at face value. They checked for vital signs but not for sediment in the glass, not for clues, the taste of a plot.

  Karl was wary of foul play. He was in shock. Having lost Michael at the precise time when, allegedly, the two were bridging a period of estrangement, he had begun to imagine things. At least this is what I thought when I first read his letters years ago. Karl is excited. He’s exaggerating. Karl is looking to lay the blame on someone, in who-done-it fashion. But now that I am here, in St Georg, in my compact room and staring myself in the mirror, my own mind is firing. I’m spooked and on guard against the unspecified but pervasive psychological menace of the place. Sordid Hamburg has put me on edge. The entire project has. The WoM is getting to me.

  I look out the window on ugly Steindamn Strasse. From here it is an easy walk to Mühlendamm Strasse, and not far to Asklepios Klinik St. Georg, where the poor boy was pronounced dead.

  I say ‘boy’, but he was thirty-two. Not a boy but a young man. I was thirty-nine when the war started seven years ago.

  Not a room in which to get quiet work done, after a day out. It is the type of room you bring a prostitute back to, a room of such trompe l’oeil micro-proportions that it turns its own tricks. What comes to mind is the following scene:

  The lights come up. There is a metal-framed bed with a sheet over it. The landlady stands at the door with a hanky over her mouth. A detective stands in the middle of the room but slightly stage right. He is wearing an overcoat and a hat which is tilted back. He looks around. During the scene he picks things up rather casually and looks at them as if they might be clues. He takes some notes but only occasionally.

  The Detective: What did you say his name was?

  Landlady: I didn’t. He was a quiet tenant.

  A room like this cordially invites night-long bouts of self-loathing and self-doubt. Its very existence writes prescriptions for sleeping aids and bottles of whiskey.

  Hamburg is where I feel closest to Michael, and where I feel most troubled. It is here where he came to end his life, or that is one way of reconstructing things. Tragedy (is) fraught by the rigid illusion of inevitability. And in coming to Hamburg myself, if I am in fact reconstructing things with a measure of accuracy, I feel I have arrived at the same threshold Michael came to, where predestination and free will meet and greet and you justly shake under a shower of cold terror. I’m shivering now, watching myself in the mirror. The mirror reflects the flat present, while in behind, silvery, it hints at infinite waters, infinite opportunity, and fascinates me with the notion that we the so-called living are improvised as of this and any moment.

  Once the War on Michael started years ago, I understood in the pit of my stomach that coming to Hamburg was unavoidable. It was expected and predictable, but it was something I put off doing because of a very basic element of distrust I have in myself, at least partly owing to my susceptibility in any situation to mimic the most desperate man in the room. Whether because of empathy or insecurity or sub-zero self-esteem, I do not quite understand it. But I know it. I know it in my bones. So forgive the melodrama, and I’ll have to be careful now, especially here, so close to Michael’s ground zero apartment.

  Already I can feel myself slipping, losing equilibrium, falling out of me, into him. Liebe Michael. My emotional twin.

  After unpacking, I repack and carry my luggage to the reception.

  “I’d like to check out, please.”

  “Room number?” The hospitality agent is dressed like a flight attendant, in a navy blazer with a gold pin on her lapel.

  “42.”

  After squinting at the screen: “Sir, you only checked in less than two hours ago.”

  Yes, in fact, the young gentleman at the opposite counter swiped my credit card. He turns around and she explains to him in German that I must be crazy. I want to cancel my room after checking in.

  “Sir, how can I help you?”

  I would like to get out before the nightmares. “I would like to leave this hotel, please.”

  “What is wrong with this hotel?”

  “It’s not my … my kind of place.”

  “What is?” I’ve been screwing around, I’m trying to rip them off, having had my thrill. That’s what he thinks. Or is he teasing me? “If you leave suddenly at this time, you will lose your money.”

  But not my life. “That’s fine.”

  “One moment, until I print a receipt. You must sign.”

  I must and I will.

  *

  Night time. A different hotel and I’m on my way out to get something to eat. The restaurant was a tip from the gentleman working the front desk. La Famiglia on Böckmann Strasse. Only just around the c
orner. Familiäre Ambiente.

  Perfect. I’m here on family business, so why not. Why not rest the head on the ample bosom of an Italian family restaurant. It’s what I need right now.

  Before leaving the hotel, I peek inside the lounge. It’s also a possibility. Bar snacks, grill, beer, and I could stay in. I wouldn’t need to merge into the Hamburg night, when already I feel fragile. There is a scrum bar-side, sports jackets and cleavage, nylons and neon. No. Not tonight. Eine familiäre Atmosphäre ist besser für das kanadische Goldlöckchen Andrew Steinmetz.

  La Famiglia is just around the corner and set at street level, a cavernous setting of white stucco walls and decorated with regional maps of Tuscany. I’m shown to a table. Menu arrives promptly. Then the host. I choose something from the chalkboard. Taglietelle mit frischem Lachs und Broccoli und Rahmnsoße. With a half-bottle of Montelpulciano. Yes. Things are looking up, so I get to work, riding a wave of optimism, riding my surging appetite, making room for sudoku beside the warm bread basket. Sudoku, I don’t mind occupying myself with a game of numbers and trial and error, nothing is nearly as non-judgemental and satisfying as math, nor as magical when it all works out. I’m thinking about this—is math non-judgemental? What does that even mean?—when the door behind me opens, letting in a draft of night air, and, in train, nails on ceramic tile, a dog, it must be.

  I turn and, abruptly, but right on time, two young men and a well-behaved mutt, stand table-side.

  The host welcomes them. Must be regulars. The mutt as well, for as soon as they are seated at the adjacent table the host disappears to fetch a blanket for ‘Lucas’. Because it is October, and the tiles must be frigid. He spreads it out on the floor.

  Next I hear barking, merely minor grumbles, and not from Lucas, no, from beneath undisclosed tables inside the restaurant. Nothing loud, only the appropriate canine greeting, creatures making their presence felt. Not a human head turns. Alles Normal. I had no idea that I was in such esteemed company. But now that I know it, my comfort level is rising, and Goldilocks begins to truly relax for the first time since his arrival in Hamburg.

  The host has the mutt lick his hand and then takes the order. He leaves and now the dog is looking at me, a bit wild-eyed. His masters are deep in conversation, ignoring poor Lucas. The old man returns with wine and gestures to indicate that he will return with bread for Lucas, if that is permitted. Of course, they signal to the old man. Let Lucas eat cake for all they care. The host turns and is heading for the kitchen when I see my chance. I wave my bread basket in his face. Bitte schön! He takes the basket from my hand and flips all three slices of baguette to Lucas.

  Despite stereotypes, Germany remains peculiar. Uptight and strict, rule-bound and organized, yet liberal in social policy and plain pragmatic about keeping restaurants dog-friendly. There is no evidence that Michael kept a dog upon his return to Germany. Romeo, the shepherd, was his last. Romeo joined the family in Berlin by 1948. I am more sure of this date than much about Michael. That’s because I wear Romeo’s tag around my neck for good luck. The aluminum is neatly engraved ‘1948 Berlin’. The profile of a dog is etched on its flat face. Registration no. 48500. It fell to me, after Eva died—inheritance is too grand a word– and it has taken me years to recognize the oddity that in post-war Berlin, when so little was up and running, the city got at it and registered domestic pets.

  You could understand that dog in a lot of different ways. Michael’s good friend from Sault Ste. Marie, Ken Taylor, is right. You couldn’t call Romeo an ordinary animal. He represented that part of their past they could love, openly.

  A different hotel and I’m well fed on salmon, broccoli and tagliatelle in a cream sauce. And a second half-bottle of Montelpulciano. I have a very full stomach and a wine buzz. It is the friendly Italian way.

  I sit on the bed and switch on the TV as I unpack. I have a marathon day planned for tomorrow.

  Brazil versus Ukraine. Kaka and Shevchenko. I’m set for the night.

  *

  Here I am bright and early in a café on Alstertor Strasse, across the way from the impressive Thalia Theatre. What we have here is a temple of the arts: fluted Doric columns, the sparkling white marble façade. Michael’s last stage. I plan to get inside for a tour this afternoon courtesy of Fräulein Asche. But my first appointment of the day is with Dr. Michaela Giesing at the Hamburger Theatersammlung, a special library at the University of Hamburg. The Theatersammlung collects literature and information on National German theatre events, with an eye for the theatre history of Hamburg. The collection comprises countless volumes and more than 380,000 newspaper clippings, systematically collected since the end of the Second World War.

  Dr. Giesing and I have exchanged emails over the past months, and she has been helpful and efficient, gathering together archival material. It was Giesing who wrote on my behalf to Sandra Asche, asking if she would please check in the Personalunterlagen for Michael Paryla’s address. I’d already queried the Staatsarchiv twice with no success. The office of the Sterberegister did not respond. In Germany, at least in Hamburg, information about the so-called dead is not easy to come by.

  The S-Bahn leaves me at Dammptor. I exit the busy terminal in the direction of the university, following the crush of students. Outside, I verify the campus address. Von-Melle-Park 3. At last I’ll meet this Dr. Giesing, someone for whom Michael is the subject of objective study. As director of the archives, she holds the key to material that might unlock Michael’s story. A corner piece of the floor puzzle. Well, I don’t actually believe it—it isn’t likely that I’ll find that something– but then I’ve come this far and under what pretext if not because I hold out hope. Why put on a method writer’s lumbering show if you can’t suspend disbelief for a measly hour?

  I keep returning to Karl’s rationale and as he put it:

  Establishing full clarity about all the unsettled details of his death has no value whatsoever for our poor boy, and yet it is a part of his short life, and we owe it to him to follow every trail to the end.

  Allegedly then, the WoM has no value whatsoever for his life, and yet we owe it to him to follow every trail to the end. The puzzle might just be the WoM, launched without a sensible exit strategy, and without any clear goal. In other words, the motivation for this trip might have been—might be now that I’m here—to find out why I have come to Hamburg. Might Dr. Giesing tell me? I don’t expect she will be as playful as all that.

  Within blocks of the station, I stumble upon the site of a monument. The stone is set on a triangular patch of grass, squeezed between dissecting roads. I step onto the grass to read the black commemorative billboard:

  In the year 1933, 24,000 Jews lived in Hamburg. Here began the way, which, for thousands of Jewish citizens of Hamburg, ended in the extermination camps of the Nazi regime.

  So I find myself at Hamburg’s Jewish Deportation Square—and surprised to be here. ‘Here began the way’ doesn’t quite capture it. But what does? Across the road, the blackened sarcophagus of Dammptor Station looms above the canopy of trees. Students on the way to morning classes and lectures—in hoodies as advertised: thin white wires indicating some mass intra-iPod music therapy experiment—take no notice of PLATZ DER JÜDISCHEN DEPORTIERTEN. Why would they? The platz emits no ambient sound.

  I take a photograph and then, in case it doesn’t turn out, transcribe the text into a notebook. I also scribble a note to self: Everywhere I look for Michael, it’s the same thing. You cannot have Michael or The Great Escape without the Nazi past and the Holocaust. You cannot have the film without tripping over family history. You cannot have us without them. This isn’t entirely true or accurate but it captures the essence of my journey.

  The archives are on the third floor of the Carl von Ossietzky Library. I stop at the ground level security office for directions. The man tells me the way in simple links und rechts; still, I manage to fall through, and find myself at the shippi
ng and receiving dock. Turning around, I retrace my steps to security and he tells me again in grim Hansel and Gretel the obvious way to the Theatersammlung. I danke schön him and I’m off, but, taking after my mentor, what leaves my lips is hesitant, a trapdoor-of-a-Dan-ke; you could say, even, a begrudging ‘you lied to me and we both know it’ type of Thank You. Poor fellow, he must get it all the time.

  Upstairs at the Theatersammlung, I find three women of tired-age toiling at separate workstations in the front office. No one moves a whisker. They have more important things to do than greet a visitor. I cannot compete with the morning newspaper, data entry spreadsheets, database interfaces, nor the window overlooking the grey campus. I know how it goes, sometimes. Whatever it is you do it can get very quiet and one can get consumed by negative thoughts about absent people, and it becomes then very difficult to put yourself at the service of a live patron. At the archives, anyway, I suspect live beings rank exceedingly low, and are of meagre interest in comparison to the aggregation of the primary materials.

  Battle Axe Einz, stationed near the door, asks if I have an appointment.

  “Ja,” I say, “um 10.00 mit Dr. Giesing.” I pronounce ten o’clock—‘zen hure’—forcefully, something I learned to do in my intermediate German class years before the war. ‘Hure’ comes out ‘oo-wah’. Almost ‘oooh-awe’. My accent does not ruffle Einz. Her temperament is fixed. Her thermostat is centrally controlled. However, I’m a bother to her, since I haven’t followed procedure. There must be some procedure, there always is. Yet I have come in cold. Whatever is eating her, my mood lightens after speaking that phrase ‘am zen hure’. Instantly I remember a whole batch of the stock phrases I learned once upon ago. Gehst du ins Kino heute Abend? Are you going to the movies tonight? Oder das Theater? Or the theater? Nein. No. Warum? Haben Sie Kopfschmerzen? Why? Have you a headache? Ja, habe ich. Yes, I have one. Ich habe Aspirin. Hier nehmen Sie eins. I have Aspirin. Here take one.