Anniversaries

by Uwe Johnson

  Some were saying that the Cresspahls’ marriage wasn’t exactly hand in glove after all. No sooner’d the husband gotten his barn windproof than he started sleeping there, with his wife still under Papenbrock’s roof. Then again, they said they’d do the same if they’d had their tools stolen one quiet night, like had happened to Cresspahl. Just sayin’.

  To which others said you had only to look at them. Look how Lisbeth comes out Papenbrock’s front door every day at noon with that covered basket of hers and carries it like a maid down Town Street, uh, Adolf-Hitler-Street. She could let Edith do it, couldn’t she. But she doesn’t, she wants to watch her husband eat, the way a wife should too. People said, in fact Inge Schnürmann had seen it one morning, with her own two eyes too, that Cresspahl would stop by Semig’s house on the way to work and that the two of them would drive down the Bäk in Semig’s new car, the few steps to the brickworks. Could Arthur be teaching him how to drive? He already knew how to drive. Was it possible that an educated and licensed veterinarian felt like joining Cresspahl in his construction work? No, impossible! But Cresspahl had put a new door in the gate opening onto the road, sturdy as a church door, enough to break even the hardest knife, and he made up for the loss of light by putting glass panes in the southern gate, just where someone taking a walk would be noticed and asked to explain his business. That was a bit much. That wasn’t real nice. Especially since there’d be two people standing there staring at you, Cresspahl and Arthur Semig.

  That’s why people were also saying that this Cresspahl was a British spy, out to get Führer and Reich Chancellor Hitler. Others said that His Royal British Majesty George V was no Jew and was close friends with the Austrian. And anyway, Cresspahl had gotten in touch with the woodworkers guild in Gneez and registered in the guild rolls in Schwerin, it said so right in the papers. Well, there’s a lot that the newspapers are saying. Some people didn’t buy it and thought it more likely that Cresspahl was building an enemy radio transmitter so he could talk to his English buddies at night. Why else would he mount all that wire on the barn roof? It wasn’t your usual lightning rod. Just the other day, two rolls of wire had arrived for him at the station. Why would someone need that much wire, it’s radio, I’m telling you. Nah. He needs it for a fence so that you can’t get too close when you want to throw a rock through his windows. Okay, okay, I’m not talking about anyone in the room. Anyway, that Cresspahl’s a stubborn bastard.

  Just replaces the panes himself, with his own hands. No way he’ll give another tradesman the chance to earn a little money unless he has to. What was Heine Freese, Jerichow’s glazier, supposed to do? He didn’t get any work but still had to sell the glass to Cresspahl, to make at least that much. Go ask the painters, ask Köpcke the building contractor, they’ll tell you straight out they haven’t made a penny off him. Does it all himself. He can do it all himself. You’d do the same thing. I would too. And it’s not like he’s watching his money because he doesn’t have any. Käthe Klupsch knew for a fact that young Mrs. Cresspahl had been looking at an electric refrigerator on King Street in Schwerin. Santo they’re called, keep a temperature around forty degrees. Well Käthe Klupsch was just jealous; no husband for her, never landed one. Now Methfessel needed a refrigerator, anyone can see that. But even Louise Papenbrock got along fine without one. Cresspahl probably bought the thing to be nice to his wife. Next thing you know your own wife’ll be coming to you asking for English nonsense like that! Aside from that, he’d put more work into his workshop than into his house so far. He didn’t want people to see the kind of money he had in these terrible times, economically I mean!, he wanted to show that he needed business. Well, Elsa’d tried, she’d taken her aunt’s old sewing cabinet to him, heirloom you know, not much left of it anyway. Not to help Cresspahl out, she was just curious. And he shows up with Semig’s flatbed truck and carries it into the house and you could knock her over backwards with a feather! He’d turned it into a jewel! If you saw it in a shopwindow you’d be sad how you couldn’t afford it. How much did Cresspahl charge? Oh, not too much. It was fair. But delivering it right into the house! That’s no good. Suppose I went around to everyone’s house delivering the shoes I’d repaired! Corrupts the morals, practically. But the chests, you’ve got to admit, those chests he’d made for the move he could have sold them on the spot in the station freight room the way they looked. Just beautiful. They’d go right in your front parlor. Paint em and put em in the parlor. You know what, Cresspahl’ll paint em for you himself and charge you ten marks and put em in your parlor for you.

  Stubborn bastard, that Cresspahl. Somethin sneaky about him! The minute you hear his furniture’s come from England Swenson’s already drove it out to him, in a closed truck too, on a sunny April day! Cresspahl mustve told him to. He’d had to let an electrician into his house, he had no choice, and thats all very well for Johannes Schmidt but really, he couldve taken a better look around now couldn he! Comes back sayin the walls are painted plain white and Cresspahls probably leavin the wallpaper for later and the furnitures a bit new-looking, the whole place doesnt look lived-in yet. That Johannes, no eyes in his head. And one fine May morning here comes Lisbeth out of Papenbrocks house, with Cresspahl, and Cresspahl has the kid innis arm ands wearing his Sunday best and this time they do go down Town—I’m saying downtown, not down Town Street, otherwise I’da said Adolf-Hitler-Street now wouldnt I!—and by lunchtime theyre still not back and the kid isnt back and thats all you ever saw of the move! Now they live there. Now he’s there.

  And they said he did it alone, without Papenbrock’s help. Papenbrock had other things on his mind. You heard what Hilde Papenbrock, Hilde Paepcke, got for Christmas and for the baby, dincha? Right, the brickworks lease. You got it. He’s a Papenbrock, looks after his kids. Had a leg up on us. Not a soul knew the brickworks lease was up, and while we’re all whistling in the breeze Papenbrock pays a visit and talks his way into what he wants. Paepcke, Hilde’s husband, he’d gotten himself into some trouble. Well, no jail no foul. Just you wait. Just wait till the brickworks burns down in Jerichow too. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t hear him say anything. Heil Hitler. Piss off. Sometimes Papenbrock does things like that just for fun, take it from me. Well, there’s always something in it for him. But the gas line under Brickworks Road, he woulda gotten it next year anyway without having to work for it like that. He only did it so Friedrich Jansen would know the score, he might be mayor and head of the local party and a law-school dropout but Papenbrock’s Papenbrock. Even now. Damn right. Always will be. Jansen probably didn’t even realize he’d been steamrollered. He’s got plenty of other things to worry about. Nah. Yes sirree. He knows we know we’re doing Jansen Senior Esquire in Gneez a favor by letting his dropout son be mayor, and mayor of Jerichow, that’ll probably be Pappy Jansen’s last try for him. Yeah, Friedrich Jansen is a party veteran, member since ’27, that’s why we elected him, but we also remember him as a little boy standing on one leg in Gneez Park not daring to go home because he’d done it in his pants. And now he’s after you like the devil, going after the poor city employees for their questionnaires about Aryan ancestry and not a single damn fool’d finished filling it out. Stoffregen was pissing his pants. Stoffregen, that doesn’t sound Aryan. It sound Aryan to you? Stoffregen. Lucky for him Kliefoth knew. That Kliefoth. What Clay-Foot? Kliefoth, Dr. Kliefoth, the English teacher, the guy who bought Erdamer’s house, Berlin, no, Malchow actually, that’s where he’s from I mean, he’s teaching at the Gneez high school now, takes the train every morning. That one. Oh, him. So he hears about it and goes to see Stoffregen and tells him. And Stoffregen, Ottje, he shouldda known it himself don’t you think, he’s a teacher too isn he, and everyone wonders about their own name dont they? Not me. Yeah no kidding, Hünemörder, you wouldnt. So Dr. Kliefoth tells Ottje: It’s Middle Low German, used to be pronounced with a long o, comes from stôven, speeding past, refers to the weather when he was born. Easy-peasy. Middle Low German is Aryan, so now Ottje’s Aryan
again. No, Stoffregen can’t thank Kliefoth for it. That’s not the whole story! Think about it! What does “Stoffregen” mean now! You won’t guess. A round on me for anyone who can guess. Well? “Cloudburst.” That’s what it means, a sudden downpour, Platzregen. See what I mean? Ottje Suddenshower. And with a name like that he went chasing after Lisbeth Papenbrock, wanted to marry her. Lisbeth Stoffregen. Lisbeth Suddenshower, I don’t know, I dont like it. Good thing she went for that Cresspahl. Lisbeth Cresspahl, that’s all right then.

  That’s what people were saying, and that’s how they were saying it.

  December 6, 1967 Wednesday

  The New York Times puts a picture on her front page, under the dateline, of the young people who sat down yesterday morning on the sidewalk outside the army induction center. She did not choose a moment when the police were standing in front of the sitters with friendlier looks on their faces. She has specially made a drawing of where in the city the protest took place. Anyone who wants to go to the one today can find the location with the help of The New York Times. That probably wasn’t her intention.

  In Springfield, Missouri, there is a former Secret Service agent, Abraham W. Bolden, who claims he was sent to prison because he’d wanted to tell the Warren Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy that the Secret Service knew about the planned murder attempt before it happened.

  Twenty-five years hard labor for a GI who pleads guilty to spying for the Soviets. Nikolai Fedorovich Popov of the UN, to whom the sergeant was worth spending $1,000 on, has long since left the United States.

  The court in Queens still can’t prove that Sonny Franzese was there when The Hawk Rupolo was loaded down with blocks of cement and dropped into Jamaica Bay. He was not even present when his three friends took The Hawk, still alive, out of the trunk of their car in the rear parking lot of the Skyway Motel near Kennedy Airport and snuffed the screaming man with four last plunges of a knife.

  What sorts of things did Cresspahl want from 1934?

  That there be some truth in the lore that mosquitoes don’t go near walnut trees. He’d realized there were two walnut trees in front of his house, and somewhere without mosquitoes would be good for the child, wouldn’t it. The child could sleep with the windows open, later.

  That Lisbeth would stop scaring him. She was impossible to understand sometimes. When he went to take care of the old stove in the house, tear it out, she’d wanted to keep it. Denied ever wanting a gas stove. She could say such confused things, like: If we’re not in England we shouldn’t have things the way they are in England. He didn’t like that, it wasn’t clear. Was she sorry she’d made the family leave England? Or happy? Now they had a gas line to the house and never used it except to run the refrigerator.

  That Lisbeth would start telling him again what was going on in her mind. She had a way of shutting her face up so tight that it looked furious, and you couldn’t reach her. And she’d gotten into the habit of standing at the stove for several minutes at a time, staring into the flames. He didn’t care about the wood being wasted in the open burners; the thing was she clearly didn’t know why she was doing it, or when she was doing it, or that she was doing it. When he came into the kitchen she’d move like someone just waking up. She’d give a start, put the kettle she’d had in her hand the whole time on the fire, and turn to Cresspahl with a little shake of her head and a smile, meant to chide her own behavior.

  He wanted her smile in some other situation, any other situation, not in front of the fire. He wanted her to always be the way she was when, as the younger sister but experienced mother, she gave Hilde advice about how to handle her baby, Ulrike. It was such a funny way she had, using just the outward form of teasing, conveying things it’s impossible to put into words.

  He wanted her to go back to not being so sensitive. A bucket put down too hard, a door that the wind slammed shut, and she acted like she was being shot at. If she felt someone was looking at her coldly then a cold look was what it would always remain, no reassurance or explanations made a difference, she rejected them all. It took her half the day to recover. And now that they’d moved as close to the church as it was possible to live, praying didn’t seem to help her either. He wanted her to be the girl he’d known on the spot he wanted to marry.

  There’s plenty a man who sings with pride

  When brought to him is his new bride.

  If he really knew what they were bringing

  He’d likely cry instead of singing.

  That everything would turn out all right.

  Cresspahl wanted to get back to the point, and soon, where he could live off income instead of savings. He needed new machines, too. He’d acquired from Heinz Zoll a milling machine, a combination planer and jointer, a band saw, a slot driller, and a table saw, all in the same shape—the planer was really the only one he’d have anything nice to say about. And they hadn’t been cheap. And he couldn’t get good use out of them. Who in Jerichow in 1934 was going to order a new bedroom set, a dining table? A stepladder at most. And this Kliefoth from Malchow had actually thought you had to go to Wismar to get a good desk. He’d have liked to make him a desk. On the other hand, the orders couldn’t come pouring in too fast either because the assistants from the guild didn’t work the way Cresspahl was used to, and he couldn’t ask too much of the apprentices. It was hard to believe, but just try to find a good woodworking assistant. It’s no problem to find a master, but a master employed by another master, that never works out. Sometimes he secretly wanted to bring Mr. Smith to Jerichow. True, Mr. Smith might be a bit dull-headed some mornings, from his gin or vermouth, but once he’d sweated the alcohol out the work practically did itself under his hands, and you didn’t need to check it, much less fix it.

  He couldn’t hope to make a name for himself in Mecklenburg. He couldn’t hope for a business like Kröpelin’s in Bützow, Strobelberger’s in Rostock, Schmidt’s in Güstrow, Liesberg’s in Schwerin—neither the income nor the reputation. This backwater couldn’t support it. He would have to go on for some time making the kind of furniture you could buy at the department stores. No chance to practice the art of woodworking, no way. All he wanted was to get along in this Germany and stay in one piece.

  He wanted Papenbrock to keep Louise at home. At least if she could come over to his and to Hilde’s houses only for the children! But she came to spread her pious sayings. For each and every injustice, she knew a biblical injunction to patience and a promise of eventual rectification through the workings of God’s justice. Such homilies left Lisbeth calm and composed, so happy and serene that you couldn’t believe it would last; it didn’t last. All it did was help her not listen when he told her the name of the person who’d committed one these “injustices” of hers, and approximately how much profit he’d turned doing it. But in this respect Papenbrock let his wife do whatever she wanted.

  Cresspahl wanted his brother-in-law, Paepcke, not to get up to any mischief with that brickworks lease of his. A friendly guy, a good neighbor, but no businessman, Paepcke. His books were in a state that would make your hair stand on end. It was entertaining, of course, the way Alexander would gather his family around him on the lawn, sometimes right after lunch, and while away the livelong afternoon until evening, drinking coffee under colorful sun umbrellas, then Mosel. He played with his child—Cresspahl had never had that much time with his. And the brick workers only needed to walk past the gate and look across the street to see their boss’s work ethic. That didn’t bother Alexander one bit. He would go to Gneez for a game of tennis. And when Cresspahl put up a new flagpole for him, he wanted to pay for it. It was only right to offer money among relatives but not to insist on paying. Alexander should have saved the money. That never crossed his mind. It was nice to watch the two of them, living as carefree as children; it was troubling that they’d already forgotten how desperate their situation was before Papenbrock saved them. Cresspahl wanted, in other words, not to see the brickworks suddenly go up in flames.
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br />   He wished the Jerichowers would just tell him what they wanted from him, in words, not in stones thrown through his workshop windows.

  He wished Dora and Arthur would come to their senses and leave the country. He was now almost close friends with Arthur, to the extent that one could be with an educated man, and if Arthur wasn’t an honest-to-God Mecklenburger then he himself wasn’t a Malchow man. He didn’t want Arthur to leave. It’s just that he should go live among people who had nothing against him, and who’d give him work. It wasn’t nice seeing Semig shriveling up without work to do, like blighted wheat. And Dora was getting quieter and quieter, she was herself only when holding Gesine in her arms. He wanted them to be safe. He couldn’t tell them that.

  He wanted to be wrong about the war he saw coming.

  He wanted the three more children he and Lisbeth had agreed on.

  He wanted all his children to live until after he died.

  He wanted his family to be safe from economic hardship, political danger, fire, and lightning.

  And that is why, in early June 1934, he went to the Jerichow town hall and asked Friedrich Jansen for an application form to join the Nazi Party.

  And the following day, Avenarius Kollmorgen buttonholed him at the freight window at the station, arched wrinkles onto his brow the way a cat arches its back, and nodded, significantly, and said, with the smile he considered a delicate one: All’s well, Häärr Cresspahl? All’s well?

  December 7, 1967 Thursday