David's Revenge

by Hans Werner Kettenbach

  That was how I thought. But now I’m not sure whether this way of looking at it does justice to the influence that spies can have.

  They’re interfering with our lives. Herr Hochgeschurz is gathering information about my wife and my son and using it shamelessly to make trouble. Herr Ninoshvili is driving a wedge into my family. What Hochgeschurz knows, or thinks he knows, is being countersigned by Dr Schmidt and stored in the data files of Internal Security, and my son will also probably figure in the Office’s annual report as a digit in the total figures of members and supporters of far-right organizations. Meanwhile Herr Ninoshvili is using my house as a base of operations for his business, however criminal that may be.

  They are well equipped financially. Herr Ninoshvili has funds for his trip abroad, money which would probably be enough to feed a family of four for a month in Georgia, and any extra sums that this culturally active character may need he gets by making a killing through guest appearances at Herr Schumann’s summer house and the River Laaxe Sports Hotel. Herr Hochgeschurz lives off his authority’s 220 million marks a year, and presumably from certain slush funds hidden away by the Federal Finance Minister in his own budget.

  It’s not enough for these vipers to live at our expense, they try to use us for their own ends. Hochgeschurz and Ninoshvili and their like have tempted me to try playing a part which is completely alien to me, a part that repels me. Christian Kestner, a respectable senior teacher, takes up an observation post on the pretext of wanting to eat a little light supper. He steals furtively along hotel corridors, he makes approaches to an unsuspecting beer-drinker who is feeling lonely and tries to sound him out. He pesters his wife with hypocritical questions to discover whether, after all, she is in league with a liar like David Ninoshvili.

  I don’t know anything. The agents are playing their own game with me, and I have no idea what they’re after. I don’t know whether Hochgeschurz already has a file showing that my wife left Halle and came to the Federal Republic on instructions from the Stasi. I don’t know whether Ninoshvili really stabbed that woman in the hotel and what other missions he may be here to carry out. Hochgeschurz puts now one kind of bait and now another in front of me, he has me dancing to his tune, and so does my guest Ninoshvili, with whom this whole miserable business began.

  It can’t go on like this. Something has to happen.

  Chapter 52

  Manni Wallmeroth’s mother and father, who both turned up for the Parents’ Association meeting, have confronted me with a severe crisis of conscience. Wallmeroth mère, who entered the room where the meeting was held wearing a pale blue winter coat now too tight for her and red knitted gloves, said not a word throughout the whole performance, but held her head slightly lowered most of the time and looked at her hands, which she kept clasped in her lap.

  Wallmeroth père, a short man of forty in a black leather jacket, spoke only once, and that was when—as discussed with the principal—I had told the meeting at the start that the student Manfred Wallmeroth had admitted to spraying the graffiti. Herr Wallmeroth cleared his throat several times as he managed to say that Manfred had told him he didn’t know why he’d sprayed that swastika on the stage set, the boy was very sorry, and he was terribly upset. Frau Wallmeroth didn’t look up while her husband was speaking.

  Dr Lawrenz made sure that I didn’t capitulate. After peeling off his dark-blue trench coat and stowing his silk scarf in its sleeve, he had greeted me with a handshake and a silent nod, and didn’t deign to look at me again after that. Instead he talked, while I was sitting on his left, to the deputy chair of the Parents’ Association on his right, quiet Frau Dahlmann, straightening his white cuffs in his dark-blue sleeves and checking the knot of his tie.

  In his opening statement—“I’ll come straight to the point, but first allow me a few reflections that I believe to be relevant”—he held forth first on the general condition of youth as depicted every other day in the press and on television. It is far from being his way, he said, to play down anything. Much of what young people get up to these days definitely calls for stern retribution. However, we must also ask ourselves whether this subject is not deliberately exaggerated by the press in order to boost circulation.

  He smiled, and adjusted his cuffs again. “Sex and crime—let’s not delude ourselves, the public likes to read about such things.”

  In this gathering, said Dr Lawrenz, no one would need to ask whether racist excesses like those seen in Mölln and Solingen could or could not be tolerated. “Murder is murder, even if it is committed by young people who have been led astray. However, ladies and gentlemen,” continued Dr Lawrenz, propping his elbows on the table and letting his gaze wander over the faces present. After a significant pause, he said that only if you were serious about tackling such abuses could you understand what the point at issue in this assembly was.

  Here, a lad of eighteen had not thrown an incendiary bomb, he had not endangered human life, let alone killed anyone. He had sprayed a political slogan and a swastika on a piece of theatrical scenery, full stop. But now—“Forgive me, ladies and gentlemen, but I do have to make this point clearly”—now some people were acting as if the boy had committed a serious and violent crime, almost as if he were on a par with the murderers of Mölln and Solingen.

  Here I blew my top. I said, “Forgive me, Dr Lawrenz, but no one present has made that ridiculous comparison. You are the first to have thought it up.”

  The gynaecologist ignored me, and directed his answer at our audience. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to let me finish what I have to say.” I said that if he was going to continue in the same vein I couldn’t promise that.

  Dr Lawrenz let the air out through his nose and smiled. Then he said that if we were to make comparisons, he would recommend a comparison with the violent brawl that had taken place in the school yard not long ago. Everyone knew that some younger children had been brutally manhandled by older students on that occasion. But obviously no one had come up with the idea that those violent criminals should be excluded from school, not even the same members of the teaching staff who were now anxious to inflict the severest punishment possible in the circumstances on Manfred Wallmeroth, leaving him with a stain on his character for life.

  Here Herr Ileri, Hasan’s father, raised his hand and called out, “Hang on a minute! Those younger children were seventeen themselves! And they did their own kicking and hair-pulling, not to mention throwing hefty punches!”

  Dr Lawrenz, after addressing short but sturdy Herr Ileri as “My dear sir”, said that he had not been saying the participants in that fight ought to be excluded from school, although the matter could certainly have been discussed. He had merely suggested that a double standard was obviously in operation at this school.

  Before I could cut Dr Lawrenz short again, which he urgently needed, I received unexpected support from Herr Meier-Bosbach, a district court judge. He rose and said, “Dr Lawrenz, are you aware that the use and dissemination of Nazi emblems is an offence as defined by Paragraph 86a of the Penal Code, and in some circumstances can bring with it a custodial sentence of up to three years? And that the graffiti artist in this case is undoubtedly of the age of criminal responsibility?”

  There was loud murmuring. Dr Lawrenz asked indignantly, “Do you want to put the boy in prison too?” A discussion ensued between the two gentlemen, not that it contributed anything to the matter at hand, since the district judge and the gynaecologist were chiefly concerned to prove which of them was cleverer than the other.

  The meeting of the Parents’ Association was proceeding swiftly towards its final phase when Herr Steinbrecher, an insurance manager, stood up and called out, “This may all be very interesting, but I’d like to know exactly what’s going to happen. Does the boy get excluded from school or does he not?”

  I said the staff meeting called for the day after tomorrow would decide on that. With the best will in the world, however, I added, I couldn’t foretell what the decision woul
d be, as I hoped they would understand.

  Dr Lawrenz was not happy with that. He said that at this point he would like to discuss a question that he had been asked to raise by some members of the Parents’ Association. Certain parents were obviously wondering about the purpose of the series of lessons about the Georgian civil war that I had included in my history curriculum.

  I said the purpose was quickly explained, if indeed it wasn’t obvious anyway. The Georgian civil war, I continued, was a perfect example of the disasters and suffering that blind nationalism had brought down on mankind at all times and in all parts of the world.

  Dr Lawrenz smiled and asked not me, but his audience, whether it wouldn’t be more desirable for the young people to concentrate on German history instead. I said, “Please don’t worry about that. German history, unfortunately, can’t be left out of any discussion of the subject.”

  The cause of the agitation that arose at this point in the meeting was clear to me when Heuberger raised his hand, Lawrenz greeted this request to speak with a couple of nods, and said, “Yes, go ahead, Herr Heuberger!”

  Heinz-Karl Heuberger is deputy editor of the local newspaper, and with his occasional comment pieces he ensures the preservation of a balanced attitude by dwelling, in forthright terms, on the old values that obviously mean nothing to some of the editorial staff. Herr Heuberger is in his midsixties and a grandfather several times over, but he has also had a daughter by his second wife, who is twenty years his junior. This girl attends my history classes, and I have not yet formed any opinion of her, either positive or negative.

  The journalist, who knows a great deal about the Third Reich—and I suspect rose at least to the leadership of a small troop of men under that very regime—but whom I have never known to write a knowledgeable column about Georgia, said that there could be other opinions about the Georgian civil war besides the one that I had so simplistically put forward. I said, “Please go on. I should be interested to hear them.”

  Herr Heuberger propped both hands on the back of the chair in front of him, and rocked his torso slightly back and forth as he spoke. He said that so far as he knew, the trouble in Georgia was a matter of conflict between the old Communists and the free forces of the country. It was generally known, he added, that Shevardnadze had led the Georgian Communist Party, while Professor Gamsakhurdia was the country’s rightful and freely elected president. Shevardnadze had overthrown him with the help of the army.

  He was also sure, he said, that I knew Gamsakhurdia was the son of a great writer whom the Georgians honoured as a national hero, and that he had been part of the Georgian Helsinki group, for which he had been persecuted and thrown into prison by the Shevardnadze regime.

  The insurance manager stood up, told the woman sitting next to him in loud, clear tones, “I’ve had enough of this!” and left the room where the meeting was being held. He started a general inclination to make a move, watched by Dr Lawrenz with a disapproving shake of his head. I raised my voice above the sound of feet and the scraping of chairs, and told Herr Heuberger that his own views might perhaps be a little simplistic, but I would be very happy to discuss them with him some time. Herr Heuberger himself did not seem to welcome that idea this evening. He let go of the chair he was holding, waved my offer away with a smile, indicated to his neighbours, by shaking his head, that discussing anything with me would be a waste of time, and walked out.

  When I was home I rang Trabert, who had been going to attend the Parents’ Association meeting but then obviously preferred to stay at home, relaxing with his stamp collection and his three cats. I gave him as much of a brief account as I felt able to present. He grunted a couple of times, and when I said that was about the gist of it, he did not reply for a moment. Then he asked, “What do you think the atmosphere was like?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well… Dr Lawrenz was certainly representing a rather extreme view. But how do you think the parents would take an exclusion—the majority of the parents, I mean?”

  I said that I suspected the majority didn’t want to be bothered with such things. Herr Trabert muttered something, thanked me, and wished me goodnight.

  Chapter 53

  This afternoon my son confided in me for the first time in a long while. Unfortunately that is not a reason for undiluted joy, more of a cause for concern.

  He wasn’t at home when I got back from school, and Ninoshvili was out as well. Around four I heard Ralf come upstairs. He went up to the top floor and slammed the door of his room behind him, as he sometimes does when he’s in a bad temper, but also just to let off steam. I thought nothing much of this piece of bad behaviour, and went on working.

  A quarter of an hour later I heard him coming down the stairs, and thought that yet again, after making a start, he’d lost interest in his homework and was going out to take his mind off it. But he opened the door of my room, came in, and asked, “Can I have a word with you?”

  “Of course.”

  He closed the door, sat down on the chair beside the desk, and cast a glance out of the window. Then he looked at me and asked, “How long are you just going to sit and watch all this going on?”

  “All what going on?”

  He folded his arms. “Julia and David.”

  I stared at him. He said, “I saw the pair of them just now in Kaiserallee. They were in Möhlmann’s shop, looking at watches. I waited on the other side of the street until they came out. They were in there quite a long time. And then I followed them for a bit, as far as the Café Wertmüller. They went in there.”

  He stopped, but he didn’t take his eyes off me. I cleared my throat. It felt dry. I asked, “So? Why shouldn’t they look at watches and go to the café?”

  He gave a derisive grunt. “You should have seen the pair of them. People must have thought they were newly-weds. Walking down the street arm in arm, enjoying themselves. David gives Julia a kiss on the cheek, and she lets him. Even seems to have liked it.”

  I turned to the book on my desk, pushed it a little way off, then drew it towards me again. “Ralf, your mother is an adult human being. She knows what she’s doing.” I looked at him. “Why shouldn’t she go for a walk with Ninoshvili? And show that she’s in a good mood?”

  He smiled grimly and nodded. “Are you taking the piss? You’re not blind, are you? Right from the start David fancied her. And she’s almost falling over herself—it’s David this and David that the whole time. Don’t you think it’s obvious?”

  I pushed the book away. “Ralf, please!”

  He said no more for a while. Then he asked, “Did you know she’s getting his visa extended?” I looked at him. He went on, “Anyway, that’s what David told me. His visa will run out some time or other. But Julia has told him not to worry. That’s what he said to me.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “Yes, I believe him. And you think it’s possible yourself. She wants the man to stay on here.”

  He was silent for a while, before saying, “You don’t have to pretend to me. How did you like it when she stayed overnight in Darmstadt with him? David told me about that too. Probably wanted to show off. Tells me he’s sold his stuff, the masterpiece that nobody wants, and it was possible only because Julia drove him to Darmstadt that evening.”

  I said, “She likes him, that’s all—she wants to help him.”

  He snorted derisively again. “Too right she likes him!” After taking a deep breath, he looked hard at me. “David’s turned her head! And I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s slept with him. You think he may have done too, you can’t tell me you don’t!”

  I raised my voice. “Ralf, don’t talk about your mother in that tone!”

  He did not reply, but lowered his eyes and began biting one fingernail.

  I asked, “And even if it was true… have you stopped to think what I could have against it? I told you before: she’s a grown-up human being.”

  He looked at his finger and went on biting the nail.
Then he said, “I’d know what to do.”

  “And what might that be?”

  Another silence, and then he stood up. “Just leave it to me.” He nodded to me and went out. I heard him running downstairs. I jumped up, went out into the corridor and called, “Ralf ? Come back, please!”

  The front door latched behind him.

  Chapter 54

  A Dr Christensen at the Foreign Ministry, with whom I spoke after going through assorted hoops on the phone, has given very friendly and full answers to my question: what would be the necessary formalities for a Georgian wanting to visit me in Germany? Dr Christensen said that as he saw the matter, the gentleman could apply at any time to the German diplomatic mission in Tbilisi for a thirty-day visa. He would have to show proof that he had been invited to the Federal Republic. However, if I sent a telex from my firm to the diplomatic mission in Tbilisi, that would probably be enough. Or was the visit not for business purposes?

  I said it was half on business, half private, but I didn’t myself represent any firm. Dr Christensen said that was no obstacle either, I could always invite the Georgian in my capacity as a private person. He could still get a thirty-day visa then, but I’d have to send my invitation in the terms prescribed to the Tbilisi diplomatic mission. I could probably get a form for that purpose from my local Foreign Citizens Office, he told me, and the staff there would authenticate the application.