by Walter Abish
As Ulrich had expected, Maria’s father, the chief of police, was not exactly overjoyed to find him there. They shook hands rather solemnly. Back for good? asked Maria’s father and then nodded, as if in agreement with some previously arrived at assessment of the Hargenaus. More than likely, a reassessment. Then with a shrill shriek Gisela came running, displaying for everyone, particularly for Ulrich, her pleasure at seeing her grandfather. Having received a small present, which caused more excitement and provoked Maria’s exaggeratedly high pitched: Oh Father, you keep spoiling her—Gisela dashed off to fetch her tray, uncharacteristically shouting at the top of her lungs for her brother to come down. But Magnus, more sullen than Ulrich remembered him to be, did not make an appearance until they were about to sit down for dinner. She’s becoming quite impossible, said Maria, when Gisela returned with her tray of objects. She’s analyzing everyone. You best watch out. Ponderously Maria’s father put on his glasses. For some reason, this motion seemed to Ulrich to be as calculated as Maria’s arch remarks and asides. Was it that her father wished to convey to him a clumsiness, a slight helplessness, as if thereby intending to suggest that he as chief of police presented no threat to Ulrich or to any of the Hargenaus? In any event, after carefully examining every object on the tray, he selected a white innocuous-looking, inasmuch as any object on that tray was innocuous, seashell. Ulrich glanced at the tray and saw that the tiny swastika was no longer there.
Helmuth’s name was not brought up until after dinner. I hear that he has a new group of friends, said Maria’s father. When Ulrich did not reply, he added, I don’t know what to make of your brother.
Maria then mentioned that he and Helmuth had had a falling out.
That must have been after you were shot, said her father.
Uncle Ulrich shot? Both Magnus and Gisela looked at him expectantly.
Well? said Maria. Are you going to keep us in a state of suspense?
Later, in speaking of an antiterrorist film that was being made with the participation of the Würtenburg police department, Maria’s father said to Ulrich: It may interest you to know that one of the leading actresses in the film is said to resemble Paula.
Will I learn something from seeing the film? asked Ulrich.
The chief of police laughed. Undoubtedly.
How to recognize a terrorist on the street, or in the living room?
Perhaps, in your case, how to avoid any contact with them … and on that subject … If you don’t mind receiving some advice. I would stay clear of Paula’s associates …
Associates? Ulrich instantly on guard. Whom do you have in mind?
Maria’s father, vaguely: No one in particular. Nowadays, one can’t tell any longer who is on whose side. It’s a silly game. I was trained to deal with criminals, and now I find myself having to be on the lookout for the most improbable people … some may have been or still are your friends. It must have occurred to you by now that most of the terrorist groups have, to some degree, been penetrated by our people … Sometimes I don’t know who is leading whom. Are we being set up or are they? Ah well … You can’t really believe that Paula is leading such a charmed life simply because she bears the name of Hargenau. Despite what you or your brother may believe, the Hargenaus aren’t really untouchable.
When he and Maria’s father left together, her father insisted on dropping him at his place.
I see you still live here, said the chief of police when they stopped in front of the apartment building.
I like it here.
When you visited the police station with your brother, you jokingly referred to one of your neighbors. You asked if we would run a check on her. Is she by any chance still living here?
No, said Ulrich. She moved out a long time ago. Haven’t seen her since then.
Well, said the police chief before driving away, come and see me sometime. Call me first, and we’ll have lunch together. Can’t promise you anything as good as the Pflaume … but—
You’ve been to the Pflaume?
Oh no. I just know of its reputation.
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2
How different could it be?
Her house was not a great distance from the beach. At the most a ten-minute walk down the perfectly straight tree-lined road, a road that led past the large estates, a few of which had been boarded up for the winter, to the drawbridge, a prewar stone and steel bridge with a loud clanging signal that went off whenever the red-and-white striped wood barriers at either end were raised or lowered. When crossing the bridge on foot she invariably chose the side on which stood the squat stone tower with its glass-enclosed control room from which the uniformed bridge attendant had an unobscured view of both sides of the narrow channel; the door to the control tower, an institutional-green metal door, was for some reason always left ajar no matter how bad the weather, a clear invitation for whoever crossed the bridge to peer in. What was on view, so to speak on display, resembled the interior of a ship. A porthole, a small metal cubicle containing a spotless white washbasin, a small round mirror attached to the wall above it, and to the left the gray metal circular stairs leading to the octagonal-shaped room above. Daphne, whenever she passed, would always shout a greeting up the stairwell. Hello, Gottfried. Sometimes, although it may have been against the rules, he would rapidly descend to exchange a few words with her, all the while looking to the left and right to see if any boat was seeking entry into the bay or exit into the North Sea.
What did they talk about? Mostly the weather, fishing or some of the local sport events. Soccer, Hamburg/Bremen 5–2. The traffic across the bridge was heaviest in the morning and whenever one of the boats from the East Frisian Islands had docked. To reach the beach, all she had to do after traversing the bridge was to cross the recently repaved coastal road and walk over to the bathhouse, a low bunkerlike building sunk in the pale yellow sand, facing the North Sea, facing in the far distance the East Frisian Islands. From the beach, which in late May was still deserted, one could hear the faint plaintive sound of the boat as it edged away from the pier, and at other times, the shorter, friendly, almost perky beeep, beeep, beeep, whenever one of the outbound boats passed its sistership coming from the opposite direction.
When Paula visited Daphne in late March, they took the boat to one of the Frisian Islands for the day. Took the early boat out and the last boat back. It was out of season and the beaches were deserted. What made you decide to move to Gänzlich? I don’t know, Daphne had replied. I was driving through and took a liking to it. It may have reminded me of the Ohlendorff beach where we first met.
Memories of that first encounter. Was it already two years ago? Paula had been fond of the Ohlendorff beach. Fond of the untidy working-class beach where she and Daphne had met.
The East Frisian Islands were a forty-minute ride from the mainland, give or take five or ten minutes, depending on the weather. Wangeroog could be reached from Bremerhaven, Wilhemshaven, or Carolinsiel. Spiekeroog could be reached by boat from Neuharlingersiel or Carolinsiel. Langeroog could only be reached from Bensersiel. The island of Juist as well as Baltrum, the smallest island, could only be reached from Norddeich.
What did the drawbridge attendant, Gotfried Mühler, know?
Very little about politics. Only what he heard on the radio, or what he read in the local paper. But he knew that nothing could be accepted at face value. He knew that if he continued to arrive punctually at his work five days a week, and continued to press the lever that would raise the bridge whenever a boat wanted either to enter the bay or exit into the sea, no one, not a single person in the world, would find fault with him. Yet, when he permitted Daphne and her friend Paula to inspect the control room and to work the lever, he was running a certain risk, albeit a very minor risk. At worst, if he were caught he would receive a reprimand, and perhaps one day’s loss of pay. When Paula asked him what would happen if the bridge was destroyed or damaged, he told her that it would inconvenience a lot of people … a lot of fishermen, espec
ially those who happened to be at anchor in the bay. But it won’t bring down the government, said Paula laughing. And he too, laughingly, agreed.
What else did the drawbridge attendant, Gottfried Mühler, know?
Nothing that he wanted to reveal. Nothing that he cared to share with anyone until the right time. There are people like that. Secretive. Ingrown. Moody and, above all, humorless.
On their visit to one of the islands, the one closest to Gänzlich, Daphne and Paula had cycled past a row of recently constructed bunkerlike beachhouses with projecting balconies and terraces, with narrow observation slits instead of windows facing the road, while on every floor of the sides facing the sea picture windows were incongruously set between turretlike projections, the large windows presenting to people on the beach an intimation of the elaborate and luxurious interiors. The new houses were so out of character for the island, so out of keeping with the deliberately modest exterior of the other beachhouses, that many people from the mainland made the trip over especially to have a look at them.
Still, notwithstanding the architectural excess of these buildings, buildings that incidentally had caused a great outcry among the rest of the island population, the people who came to the islands came to enjoy the sun and to celebrate the summer—another glorious summer.
Year after year. Despite the pockets of great wealth. Just another relaxed, leisurely, timeless summer spent on the wide, beautiful, unspoiled beaches of the East Frisian Islands. There was always a strong wind, the water was icy, and it rained quite frequently, but it was beautiful. Unpolluted? Well, reasonably unpolluted. A timeless summer spent visiting the small fishing villages on the mainland and admiring the flat calm landscape undisturbed by change, a landscape that inland, at least, in many respects resembled the landscape of the Netherlands with its many windmills set in fields of bright flowers.
Then it was May, and before one knew it, June. Another summer. Easily, some might say, the most glorious summer of the past thirty-four years. Thirty-four? Certainly.
The vacationers began to arrive in the first days of June. For the local people it was not all that difficult to predict to which part of which island they were headed, since each section of each island seemed to attract a specific type or group, so that in summer all the sections represented a clear breakdown of wealth, of age, of class, with all the signifiers: the clothes, the beachwear, the games that made identification possible. Some of the visitors came for only a week or two, others stayed the entire season. After all, why bother to chase all over Greece or Yugoslavia or even Turkey when the most magnificent beaches existed, so to speak, in Germany’s own backyard? Some came to fish, others to surf or play tennis or ride horses along the wind-swept beaches. The former reinforced concrete fortifications along the sea had long been destroyed, another reason why the architects designing the row of modern—“innovative” was the favored term—houses seemed to compete with each other in trying to capture and replicate the massivity and dynamism of those former fortifications. Of course, one could characterize it as a playful (?) revival of a period forty years ago when Germany, all of Germany, was brimming over with anticipation and filled with a zealous sense of its mission, or was it merely a long suppressed longing for perfection that had finally surfaced?
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3
Could everything be different?
Yes. For instance, Ulrich could have lost all interest in finding her.
Her house, only a brisk seven- or eight-minute walk from the bridge, is one of a group of neat two-story frame buildings with sloping roofs and wood shutters. Each house has a small fenced-in garden and a small garage. Some houses have tool sheds, others have had another room added to them. But nothing about the community would indicate that it is only a short distance from the sea, other than the occasional driftwood sculpture in the gardens and, here and there, nailed to a door or attached to a mailbox, an ornamental fish, or a whale, or a three-master, or simply an anchor. Just from looking at the buildings it is not too difficult to determine how these year-round residents have come to regard themselves, their priorities, their values, their existence. By and large, a pleasant life. A life into which outsiders, especially the summer people, are not made to feel welcome. Of course, over the years there were bound to be some changes. A few more houses, a few more cars. TV antennas on the roofs. But nothing that was excessive or flamboyant. Nothing that would indicate a change in the daily routine of their lives. Nothing that would diminish between the inhabitants the distance, the required distance—not aloofness—that was intrinsic to the guarded cordiality, to the Höflichkeit, the politeness of their discourse, of their daily exchange. How else could they, over the years, maintain a consistency of politeness and respect?
In this small community, did it really matter what anyone may have done or failed to do in the war? In fact, if they did anything, it was the predictable. They hung out flags, attended mass rallies, and minded their own business. The young men joined the navy. Some exuberantly, others less so. But all with a somber sense of duty, Pflicht. They served on destroyers, cruisers, submarines, or manned shore defenses on Helgoland or on the East Frisian Islands. One or two may have joined the air force. As for the large estates. No change there either. It is still old money. Old furniture and paintings. Old servants, some on the edge of senility. Chauffeur-driven cars. Here and there a retired rear admiral. An occasional bash to celebrate a grandchild’s birthday under a striped awning on the immaculately kept lawn. An occasional glimpse of a uniform. People in white. Yachting people. Tall, ruddy-faced men who once in a while drop anchor at one of the islands. But as for the summer people, that was something else …
When Ulrich Hargenau accepted Egon and Gisela’s unexpected and quite impromptu invitation to spend what promised to be two glorious sun-filled weeks in a beachhouse they had rented for the season on one of the East Frisian Islands, could he have had anything else on his mind?
Summer people were unpredictable. They came from the large crime-ridden cities, cities with sex shops and thousands upon thousands of foreign workers. To discourage the summer people, the community where Daphne lived decided against repairing the pier and removing the “no parking” signs from the side streets. In fact, had they been able to pass an ordinance to close the bathhouse to the general public, they would have gladly done it as well.
When she first moved in, her neighbors may have had their reservations, but no one tried to block the sale. Still, a single woman? Living by herself? Only in her early thirties. A bit odd. Why pick this place? But it wasn’t anyone’s business, was it?
She had bought the house in October, and a month later moved in. To her surprise—after a brief trial period she was accepted, to the extent that anyone who had not lived in the community all their life could be accepted. Still, the acceptance implied a certain trust, a willingness to accept the information she had volunteered about herself. Her father was an American? Why not. Her mother a German from Nuremberg? Quite plausible. After they had separated—no need to dwell here on the frequency with which such marriages tend to end in divorce—Daphne decided to make Germany her home. To any German, what could possibly be wrong with that choice? Why shouldn’t she demonstrate an instinctual preference for a sane and orderly life? Still, her explanation did not fully answer the question: why in this neck of the woods?
Once in a while she had out-of-town visitors. Some of them would stay for a few nights. Nothing wrong with that. Once during her absence a couple had stayed in her place for two weeks. Daphne had left, without a word to her neighbors. One morning when her neighbors stepped out of doors, there was another couple in the house next door and no sign of Daphne. The neighbors did not know what to make of it. One might have thought that she would have had the courtesy to let them know. The couple had kept to themselves. Not even a “good morning” out of them. They had rented bikes and cycled to the beach each day. Someone had seen them chatting with Gottfried. They had also borrowed books at the lib
rary. If the neighbors closely followed their comings and goings, it was only because they felt the couple might help shed some light on Daphne.
By and large, the people in the community were cordial. There was a certain amount of visiting back and forth. As a single woman, a new arrival, not a great deal was expected of her. Still, now and then people dropped in for a cup of coffee and a slice of cake. It was called being neighborly. The neighbors, when they visited, looked appraisingly at her furniture, at her books—far too many—and at her piano, and felt reassured. Gottfried’s brother, a carpenter, came to repair the sagging floor in one of the rooms upstairs and then, at his suggestion, worked on the banister which needed reinforcing. She then asked him to build some cabinets in the kitchen. Naturally, his frequent presence in her house did not escape notice. He was married and had lived in the community all his life. Did he really have to visit her house so frequently? No one jumped to any conclusions. They simply wondered about it. He in there alone with her. A bit odd. Wouldn’t you say?
She once mentioned to a neighbor, an elderly doctor, that she had studied philosophy under Brumhold. Afterward, he told his wife: All that talk about her and the carpenter is simply nonsense. Do you realize, she studied under Brumhold in Würtenburg? Is that what she told you? his wife remarked, seemingly unimpressed.
Could everything be different?
When Dietrich Mertz called her from one of the East Frisian Islands—Yes indeed, it’s me. I expect you didn’t think you’d ever hear from me again—he merely mentioned that he was staying with some friends, although it later turned out that they were not friends, but that he was staying with a successful lawyer who he hoped would invite him to join his law firm. I’m just about to take the boat to the mainland … I should be there in an hour, and I hope you’ll let me take you out to dinner.
How long have you been on the island?