Your vandal didn’t smash anyone’s face in. Once upon a time, you’d just have entered something like this in the class register, and that would be it.”
“Not for me. And you surely should know that entries in the class register are out of date these days.”
“I know, I know. They were an offence against data protection, right? Indefensible, or what would things be coming to?”
Perhaps Brauckmann had irritated me too much; at least, in the discussion that developed in break I fell back on the argument that all the dams would be breached if this case wasn’t cleared up and rigorously investigated. I found support, unfortunately, in my colleague Frau Schacht, who waxed indignant about the thoughtless damage to school property, claiming yet again that only last week a leg of her chair had been broken off by brute force and fitted back under the seat so loosely that she might well have suffered a heavy fall.
Most of the others reacted with some degree of surprise, either greater or lesser, when I said that I thought exclusion from the school an entirely appropriate punishment for the graffiti artist. It was not Philippovich but our colleague Frau Fasold, an amiable lady of fifty, who asked, smiling, “I wouldn’t like to think you have trouble at home! Has your wife really infuriated you so much?”
After break, Elke Lampert walked a little way with me, accompanying me to the door of the room where I was taking my next lesson. When we were alone, she said, “Listen… don’t you think you were overdoing it?”
I said I was sorry, but as the perpetrator was obviously pigheaded, and was also counting on remaining unidentified, I myself thought he should be punished, if only to discourage potential copycat offenders.
“I don’t mean about exclusion,” she said. “Anyway, I don’t think you’ll get anywhere with that idea. If the stupid idiot is found at all. It’s the pressure you’re putting on your drama group that surprises me. You’re really fond of those young people. I can’t understand how you came to threaten them with cancelling the play and walking out of the group. Do you really think you could… well, blackmail them like that? You practically ordered them to give up one of themselves to suffer for it. Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick?”
I said yes, she probably was. I’d already been given a name, admittedly by an anonymous informant, but it showed that the group knew what I meant.
She asked, “Anonymous? Do you approve of that?”
Not entirely, I said, but at least it was helpful.
In the last lesson I asked Manni Wallmeroth to come and have a quick word with me afterwards. Neither Günsel Özcan nor Jürgen Dahlmann raised a finger to say that if it was about the drama group they would like to come along too. They didn’t so much as exchange glances, they looked down at the tabletop. Charlotte Keusch, the class delegate, kept quiet as well.
When everyone else had gone and the last student had closed the door, Manni Wallmeroth came up to me, carrying his backpack. I was getting my things together, and he watched me in silence. I closed my briefcase, looked up, and asked if he had sprayed those stupid graffiti on the stage set.
It was two or three seconds before he opened his mouth. “Me?” He went bright red. “You think I did it? What gives you that idea?”
I said his name had been given to me. He asked who said so. I said I couldn’t tell him. He swallowed, nodded, and then said, “That was really mean. I didn’t do it. Do you want to suspect me now?”
I said I didn’t want to suspect anyone. I just wanted to ask him once more, clearly and distinctly, if he had sprayed that slogan and the swastika on the scenery.
“How often do I have to say it?” His voice was shaking. “I didn’t do it. Someone’s trying to make trouble for me,” he said with difficulty.
I said all right, that was all, he could go. He muttered, “Goodbye,” and left the room. I stayed sitting there for a while and then went to the window. He was walking over the school yard alone, on his way to the bus stop, shouldering his backpack. His arms were dangling, and he stooped slightly. I’ll admit, I felt sorry for him. And not just that: I felt ashamed of myself.
Chapter 35
The four of us were having supper when Julia suddenly said that Erika had called her at the office and announced that she was arriving on Saturday. I was rather annoyed about Julia’s thoughtlessness in confronting me with the news in front of Ralf and Ninoshvili. However, I restrained myself. And in fact that wasn’t too difficult, because I immediately realized that the advent of my wife’s friend from Halle was more of a problem for her than for me.
There was no way that both Ninoshvili and Erika could occupy our spare room. One of them would have to be asked to go to a hotel, and I couldn’t wait to see how Julia would decide between the Georgian and her friend. I for one had no intention of relieving her of the decision and making myself useful as a bouncer.
However, my enjoyable anticipation of a refreshing quarrel in my house, whether with friend David or friend Erika, was frustrated. A solution had already been found on the quiet, and yet again without bothering to ask for my opinion.
Ralf, I now discovered, was vacating his room for a week. He was going away on Sunday because he wanted to spend the autumn half-term holiday at a chess tournament for young people in a place called SchwitteMinnenbüren. A tournament in seven rounds by the Swiss rules, with tutorial sessions by various grandmasters in the mornings. The SchwitteMinnenbüren Chess Club, sponsored by a furniture factory in the town, is very active. Its first team got into the Second Federal League not long ago.
I also learned now that Ninoshvili holds the title of International Master, IM for short, and that this rank features only just below that of Grandmaster. IM Ninoshvili had encouraged Ralf to take part in the tournament, and has given him a little coaching in his free time by way of preparation.
I controlled myself with difficulty. I said, “How delightful to hear such news at exactly this moment.” Ninoshvili cast me an enquiring glance. Ralf ate in silence. Julia said, “I’m sorry, but it all came up only today. I didn’t know anything about it myself this morning.”
I hadn’t expected my son, of all people, to provide me with this small satisfaction. Julia obviously wanted to bridge the silence that now fell and went on talking, as if the solution were still under discussion. “I’ll improvise sleeping arrangements for Saturday night. Erika can sleep on the sofa, I think, she’s spoiled enough as it is. And after that she’ll be happy, because David has offered to move out of the spare room for her on Sunday and sleep in Ralf’s room while Ralf is away.”
In the new silence that fell it was Ralf, surprisingly, who spoke up. He said, “No.” Julia and Ninoshvili looked at him in some annoyance. He said, “That wasn’t what we said. If anyone’s going to doss down in my room it can be Erika.” Then he went on eating in silence. Ninoshvili raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Of course, of course. I didn’t mean to intrude. I only thought…”
Julia said, “That’s no problem. Erika will just have to do without the spare room. She’ll get over it.”
I didn’t clear the dishes. I said I had to prepare for school next day and went back to my study. When I heard Ralf coming upstairs I felt tempted to haul him into the study and ask if he had anything against Ninoshvili. But I didn’t.
All I needed to do now was to find an ally in my own family, if no one was going to offer spontaneously.
Chapter 36
My great-aunt Laura died an untimely death. I don’t mean she was too young to die; on the morning when she failed to open her eyes where she lay in her silk sheets she was seventy or seventy-five years old, and she had lived life to the full: any amount of travel, men, Egyptian cigarettes and champagne, and right up to the last at that. But for that very reason no one had expected her to die, including me, and she’d left me 30,000 marks. I cursed the irony of fate when the notary told me.
Four weeks before, I had bought myself a used car because I couldn’t afford a new one. Well, I decided to stand up to Fate; I
wouldn’t write off my inheritance, I’d use it and save my legacy. I went on driving the used car, and immediately turned it and myself over when a bolt in the steering broke at high speed. The car was a write-off now anyway, I ended up in hospital, spent seventeen days there, and missed three exam papers which I sat at a later time.
Today Fate let only two hours pass before cocking a snook at me. I’d been wondering whether to apply for a postponement of the staff meeting that I had demanded, and now it had been fixed. After all, I had nothing to cite in evidence on the offence of introducing of a Nazi symbol into the drama group except for an anonymous accusation, and I couldn’t properly bring that up. But I shrank from humbly retracting, and I promptly found myself offside.
Trabert, who had fixed the meeting and said that he personally would chair it, began by asking for the results of my investigations. As soon as I replied, “Nothing yet, I’m afraid, or nothing I can say with absolute certainty,” there was a loud murmuring. Brauckmann, raising his voice, said, “So that’s it, is it? Does anyone but Herr Kestner still think it necessary for us to waste our time here?”
Only Elke Lampert opposed him, saying we could at least think about the basic principles for evaluating such an offence.
Brauckmann asked, “What offence? Herr Kestner’s, for drumming us up to come here for no good reason at all?”
Trabert flapped his hands. “Please, please! Let’s be objective.” I said I thought it necessary for the meeting to issue a statement condemning the graffiti and urging everyone who had any useful information to come forwards. That not only brought more loud murmuring, but also provoked Frau Jellonek to fall back on the stock-in-trade of her Religious Studies lessons. She put her head back, looked sternly at me, and said, “You really do surprise me, Herr Kestner! Do you realize what you are suggesting? That’s nothing but an entirely immoral call for denunciation!”
Trabert raised his voice. “No, no, there’s really no point in such accusations!” He shook his head and then looked at me. “But now, with the best will in the world, Herr Kestner, I don’t see that this is getting us any further forwards. I suggest that you go on with your enquiries and we can meet again after the holiday week. Always supposing you have found out anything tangible by then.”
Brauckmann pushed his chair back and said, “Excellent! I’m sure Herr Kestner will be very happy to spend his half-term on all this.” Trabert’s proposal, in short, was agreed. Everyone crowded out. But Elke waited at the door for me. When I joined her, she said, “What’s the matter with you, Christian? Do you have a problem?” I said no, and that my only problem, if that was the right word, was the staff of this school.
Two hours later, when I was sitting at my desk at home trying to work, the doorbell rang. Ninoshvili, who had been sitting in the living room, called, “I’ll go, Christian, I’ll open the door.” After a while he called, “Christian? There’s a young man here who would like to speak to you.”
I went out into the corridor, and up the stairs came Manni Wallmeroth. He cleared his throat when he saw me and swallowed hard. Then he said, “Can I have a word with you, Herr Kestner?”
I closed the door after him and indicated the chair at the desk in silence. He sat down slowly, put his hands on his knees and looked at his hands. Then he raised his eyes.
He said, “I did… okay, I did spray the slogan on the scenery. And the swastika. I don’t even know why. I didn’t mean it that way. I came into the room, and there was that can of spray paint. Lying with Christa and Dirk’s things. And then I picked up the can and sprayed that… that graffiti stuff on the scenery. It all happened so fast. I just wasn’t thinking.” He swallowed. “I wanted to apologize to you. And for not saying so at once too.” He hesitated, and then he said, “I was shit-scared.”
I stared out of the window. He went on. “I saw something on TV at the weekend. About Shevardnadze visiting Moscow. I was interested because we’d been discussing that speech of his. And on Monday I saw a piece about it in the paper. Saying that Shevardnadze had gone right out of his mind, and now lots of Georgians think he’s a traitor. I don’t know… perhaps that’s when the idea came to me.”
“And how on earth did you come to think of Brandt and Wehner?” I asked.
“I heard about them once.” He cleared his throat. “There’s two old people live in the apartment above us, they come from East Prussia. Or anyway somewhere in the East. They were among the bunch exiled from their homes or something.” He shrugged. “The old man is nuts, but he likes to tell everyone that Brandt and Wehner sold his native land to the Russians. I never took it seriously.” He shook his head. “I really don’t know why I wrote that stuff. And I’m truly very sorry.”
I asked him whether one of the others had persuaded him to come and see me. He shook his head vigorously. “No, certainly not. I thought about it all on my own.” He swallowed, and then said, “I mean, none of the others knows it was me.”
I looked out of the window again. After a while he asked, “I suppose this can’t be kept between us? You and me, I mean?”
“No, Manni. Put that idea out of your head. Unfortunately it’s not so simple. And that ought to be clear to you too.”
“Yes.” I heard his loud swallowing. He asked, “Will they chuck me out of school now?”
I looked at him. He said, “I was nearly chucked out once before.” Suddenly tears came into his eyes, and he passed the back of his hand over his nose. “But that was quite different. That was still in middle school. I shut Kai Lehmann into the cupboard. He’d nicked my homework book and hidden it. And then I knocked the cupboard over, and it fell apart in pieces, and Kai didn’t come out because he was pinned down under the back of it. But he wasn’t much hurt otherwise.”
I said, “I know that story. Did your parents get a letter at the time warning them that you might be excluded from school?”
He nodded. “Yeah. It said something like that.” He looked at me intently and rubbed at the corners of his eyes. “Don’t these things kind of go out of date?”
“No, Manni. They’re kept on record. It doesn’t look good for you.”
He nodded. A tear squeezed its way out and rolled down his cheek. He dug a crumpled handkerchief out of his jeans pocket, blew his nose loudly and wiped his eyes.
I said, “Nothing will be done before half-term. And when the staff meet again I’ll tell them you came to me of your own accord. But I can’t tell you what the end result will be. It doesn’t look good for you, Manni, and you can hardly be surprised.”
“No.” He put the handkerchief away.
I stood up. “Send a sick note along tomorrow. Maybe you’ll cope better if you don’t show your face before half-term is over. Unless you have something urgent to do?”
“No. No, nothing urgent.” He stood up and gave me his hand. “Thank you, Herr Kestner.” He suppressed an abrupt sob, turned and left.
Chapter 37
Erika arrived just before five on Saturday afternoon on the InterRegio line from Halle. Julia and Ninoshvili met her at the station with her large suitcase and bulging travel bag. I had already set out for a long walk at four so as to avoid the hurly-burly of greetings that inevitably accompanied Erika’s appearances. There was no danger that Ninoshvili might want to come with me. He had started preparations for a Georgian banquet to celebrate Erika’s arrival and in farewell to Ralf, and he had already spent all morning on them. Julia had gone into the city centre with him to find the necessary specialities. Among other items, they had found some Kakheti wine, a case of six bottles. I didn’t want to know what Julia had paid for it.
I walked through the woods in cold, drizzling rain, trudging over wet foliage as I climbed the narrow path leading to the Mäuseberg, a densely forested hill. There’s a view of the distant rooftops and towers of the city from the top of the hill. But today the horizon was cloudy.
I was feeling chilly. I thought of the day when I first went to Halle with Julia. Erika had been waiting for us in
the restaurant of the hotel that stood on a rise along the banks of the river Saale. She accompanied us to our sparsely furnished double room with shower, inspected the shower and the sheets, even ran her fingertips along the top of the wardrobe and found it dust-free. “I should hope so too, at that price!” I had gone out on the narrow balcony to get away from her chatter and her perfume.
Twilight was falling. A light rain veiled the opposite bank and the pallid apartment buildings of Halle-Neustadt, rising ahead like a mountain range. I smelled the acrid vapours of the coal-burning stoves which had told me we were in the GDR, as it then was, when we stopped for a rest in Eisenach. I felt isolated, shut out of everything the two women had in common; I heard them talking on and on beyond the balcony door, whispering and laughing. I still felt isolated when we were in the spacious marketplace that evening—four of us, because we had been joined by a thin, taciturn man whom Erika introduced as her boyfriend and whom she never mentioned again—looking at the dark walls of the Red Tower, before going into a crowded, overheated wine bar.
When I came back from my walk a warm cloud met my nostrils: the smells of the banquet mingled with Erika’s perfume. There were khachapuri cooking, warm flatbreads with a cheese filling, a soup called chikhirtma, made from lamb and seasoned with cinnamon and vinegar, and satsivi, which turned out to be grilled chicken with walnut sauce. I heard the sound of lively conversation in the kitchen. The two women were assisting the chef, who was hard at work in a red-and-blue checked apron. Erika kissed me on both cheeks, and Ninoshvili offered me a glass of Tsinandali, which they’d opened already to taste it.
I said it was still too early for me; I had to get a little more work done before supper. Erika clapped her hand to her mouth. “Oh God, oh God!” she cried, and ran out of the kitchen. As she hurried upstairs she cried, “My luggage is still in your room!” Julia said, “David left it there temporarily because we couldn’t find anywhere to put it on the top floor.”
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