Anniversaries

by Uwe Johnson

  – She thanked you.

  – I helped her into a situation she can’t handle.

  – Give her a little time.

  – Gesine, in fifth grade she has to learn the things she’ll need for sixth. Right?

  – Right.

  – So she’ll always be behind the rest of us.

  – You’re talking like Mrs. Linus L. Carpenter III. “With all our hearts we want the Negroes to be able to live in apartments like ours. It’s just, maybe we won’t start in our particular community, with its complicated arrangements that have developed along other lines.”

  – Gesine, I’m not handing out apartments, I’m stuck being owed something I don’t want!

  Twenty-four Soviet writers, including Konstantin Paustovsky and Vasily Aksyonov, have asked the chief prosecutor to grant to Alexander Ginzburg and his friends, convicted last month of anti-Soviet activity, a new trial that would not “evoke gloomy recollections” of the Stalinist trials in the 1930s. Could you think under any possible circumstances that now, in the fiftieth year of Soviet power, a Soviet court could make a wrong decision? Can you imagine it?

  – Why isn’t Francine here?

  – I don’t know.

  – Where is she?

  – I don’t know.

  – Does she have a key?

  – I have to stay here because she doesn’t have a key.

  – What did she say when she left?

  – That she’d had enough.

  – Of you? Of us?

  – Maybe. Or else maybe she can’t stay cooped up in an apartment for so long.

  – That’s because of the one she came from.

  – Of course, Gesine. I know. I don’t blame her either. But why would she run away from her homework when this is maybe the first time she can do it in peace?

  – It’s too soon, Marie.

  – I know how she is with reading too. If it’s a comic book or a Western, you can’t get it away from her. She’s like someone who doesn’t want to wake up. But not with a textbook.

  – Teach her.

  – Listen, she’s out on Broadway, or 118th Street, people-watching or looking at shopwindows. Or cars.

  – She’s waiting for the brother who disappeared. Or she can’t break the habit.

  – And I’m supposed to go running around after her with Mathematics Five? Should I keep her here by force?

  For two days, the Vietcong dug into Hue’s Citadel have been bombarded and shot at from planes, artillery, and ship’s cannons. Yet the US marines gained only 200 yards over the course of a day. As of yesterday American losses in combat since the official start of the war stood at 17,696 dead, 109,922 wounded, and about 1,000 missing or captured. Military authorities reveal the number of investigations into marijuana use by servicemen in Vietnam, but not the number that have yielded positive findings.

  – You don’t like Francine, Marie. Maybe your room is too small for the two of you.

  – That’s wrong, and that’s not the point.

  – You think she’s ugly.

  – I do not!

  – You’ve said so.

  – I may have said so when I didn’t know her. Now I know who she is. It’s not that.

  – What is it?

  – She can’t live like we do.

  – She breathes totally normal air, it seems to me.

  – I know, Gesine. And she thinks nothing of going into all the drawers without asking. And when she gets curious about my photo collection, she doesn’t put the pictures back the way they were. Do you like when she plays the tape recorder you leave out?

  – She doesn’t understand it, Marie. It’s in German.

  – And what if she erases it?

  – To do that she’d have to deliberately hold down one button and then push another.

  – It can happen by accident.

  – Oh please.

  – Look, I’ll show you.

  – Then I’ll just take the battery out.

  – And what’ll you do if she opens the locked shelf of the bookcase, just because it’s locked, and messes up all your Mecklenburg stuff? Or sells it?

  – She doesn’t steal, Marie.

  – I’m not saying she does. Say: she takes it.

  – Because she used to have nothing, and now still has almost nothing.

  – She sometimes has more money than you give her. Count our grocery money.

  – She knows where we keep it?

  – I showed her.

  – Objection overruled, Marie.

  – No! It was so I could ask her not to unlock that drawer.

  – And now if she does it, it’s theft, and you’ve helped her do it. Is that it? That’s how we’ll kick her out? Or some other way?

  The army has stockpiled equipment to control future summer riots, put it in secret depots across the country, and drawn up a central plan, complete with maps of sewer, water, and electrical systems. In addition, immediate airlifts of the National Guard to any potential trouble spot have been preplanned. Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams have been formed, each consisting of a rifleman whose weapon has telescopic sights, a spotter, and two officers with shotguns and hand guns to provide cover fire. For this summer.

  – I suggest you apologize, Mrs. Cresspahl.

  – If you want me to.

  – And now tell me. What if Francine does learn from us that she needs to leave other people’s things alone. That nothing dangerous is being kept from her. That you discuss money first, not just secretly take it. What will she do with all that when she goes back to her people?

  – She’s going back?

  – People go back to their mothers, Gesine. How will she get along there with our ways?

  – We need to think that far ahead?

  – That’s what you’ve always taught me to do. Two steps ahead.

  – Why do you want to be responsible for more than a bed for the night?

  – You don’t get what I’m saying, Gesine.

  – I don’t get your jealousy. You know what de Rosny would say: Jealousy, young lady, is a terrible thing for a bank. Bankers have human feelings too. Believe me.

  – Is that why you’re holding that newspaper up in front of your face? Because I’m jealous?

  – Hi, Francine.

  – Hi Francine!

  – Nice to see you, Mrs. Cresspahl.

  February 17, 1968 Saturday

  “REFUGEES FIND HUE PROVIDES NO HAVEN

  By Thomas A. Johnson, special to The New York Times

  HUE, South Vietnam, Feb. 16.—When the Vietcong’s Lunar New Year offensive started here 17 days ago thousands of South Vietnamese refugees fled to Hue university on the south side of the Huong River for safety.

  Today, there are more than 16,000 people cramped in the three main university buildings, about half of this city’s new refugee population, and safety is nowhere in sight.

  Several refugees have been killed and many wounded during artillery, rocket, and mortar duels between the enemy forces, along the southern end of the city’s historic Citadel, and American forces directly across the river.

  ‘Several South Vietnamese leaving the university have been shot by snipers just a few blocks away,’ one American doctor said. A Vietcong sniper, posing as a refugee, and firing at American soldiers from a university window was shot to death yesterday by South Vietnamese policemen, also posing as refugees.

  And this morning, tear-gas fumes dropped on North Vietnamese and Vietcong positions in the Citadel, drifted across the river to choke and irritate the refugees huddled in family groups in scores of university rooms.

  The duels across the river continued sporadically all day. Several started when enemy gunners fired on naval landing craft ferrying supplies along the river to United States marines fighting in the Citadel. At other times, it was American artillery, jet fighter-bombers, or the 5-inch Naval shells from a ship offshore that caused enemy forces to retaliate at the only target within their reach.

/>   After most of the duels, refugees can be seen carrying a wounded friend or relative to an aid station.

  One man rushed to a concrete wall on the university grounds to watch a duel about 2 P.M. today. As soon as he crouched there, an enemy mortar exploded about 20 yards away and the man fell to the ground, blood running down the side of his face. He got up and ran quickly to a university building, almost knocking down a woman who carried a limp and bleeding child. . . .

  The health, sanitation and food situations have changed for the better during recent days. American and South Vietnamese medical teams have inoculated 12,000 people against typhoid and cholera and have set up a permanent station to continue the inoculation. At least two cases of cholera have been reported here.

  Work crews have cleaned up the hospital and have dug up latrines on the university ground. Tons of rice, vegetables and frozen sides of pork are distributed from each of the buildings.

  But this improved situation has its own problems, an angry American civilian official pointed out. ‘They’re selling the rice,’ Dr. Herbert A. Froewys, the deputy chief medical officer for the pacification program here, complained yesterday. ‘The rice was sent to feed these people—they’re selling it.’

  The doctor hurrying through the compound, refused to tell just who was selling the rice. But he shouted: ‘It’s going to stop! Believe me, it’s going to stop!’ ”

  © The New York Times

  “3 DEAD ENEMY SOLDIERS REPORTED CHAINED TO GUN

  Allied Officers in Hue Assert the Bodies Were Discovered When School Was Taken

  HUE, South Vietnam, Feb. 16 (Reuters).—Allied officers said today that three North Vietnamese soldiers had been found here, chained to a machine gun and left to die defending their position.

  The three men were shackled around the ankles to the stock of a Chinese-made light machine gun. They held their position with other enemy troops for two days in a school until they were overrun yesterday by the South Vietnamese Fifth Marine Battalion.

  The allied officers said the chained men were all privates. The men were barefoot and their bodies riddled with bullet holes.

  ‘They were little men, same size as me,’ a South Vietnamese marine only 5 feet tall said.

  Maj. Paul Carlsen of San Clemente, Calif., an adviser with the South Vietnamese marines, said the chain binding the men to their gun was like a heavy dog chain and had links about half-an-inch wide.

  The machine gun, which has a circular magazine and is commonly used by both North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops, can be operated by one man. It was apparently intended that after the first man was killed the two others would operate the gun until all three were dead.”

  © The New York Times

  “GERMAN POET HAILS ‘JOY’ OF LIFE IN CUBA

  MIDDLETOWN, Conn., Feb. 16 (AP).—The German poet, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, has left a fellowship at Wesleyan University with a blast at United States foreign policy and praise for Cuba, where he said he wants to live.

  Mr. Enzensberger took off from New York City today for California and a trip around the world, according to a friend on the Wesleyan campus.

  The 38-year-old poet told a university audience this week that a three-week visit to Cuba had convinced him the Cuban people have ‘a sense of joy, meaningful and significance.’ He viewed United States foreign policy as an attempt to impose the will of the United States on smaller countries throughout the world.”

  © The New York Times

  February 18, 1968 Sunday

  My sympathies, Mr. Cresspahl.

  Hello.

  When did you hear of your wife’s death?

  This morning around six.

  From whom?

  Jansen.

  The mayor and regional party leader? Jansen.

  In what form did you hear?

  In no form. Over the phone.

  What were his exact words?

  “Good morning. Your wife is dead now.”

  In what tone of voice?

  Jansen.

  Are you and Jansen enemies, Mr. Cresspahl?

  Jansen’s no enemy of mine.

  Your wife slapped Jansen in the face on 9 November 1938, 23:55 or 24:00 hours.

  Am I under arrest?

  Why would we arrest someone like you, Mr. Cresspahl. Look at all the rabble running around free.

  Then I want to go see my wife now.

  Of course, Mr. Cresspahl, right away. Just a couple more questions.

  In that case I have something to ask you, Herr Commissioner—

  Please, call me Vick.

  How did she die. Of what.

  That’s what we are trying to find out from you, Mr. Cresspahl.

  I haven’t been in Jerichow since Tuesday morning. You were the one who came and picked me up from the Güstrow train.

  And which train did you take to Güstrow?

  The Berlin–Copenhagen.

  And before that? Where have you been since Tuesday?

  In Wendisch Burg. With family.

  The whole time?

  Before that in Malchow am See.

  Can you prove it?

  I have a hotel bill.

  With whom did you have contact during this time?

  I was checking on my parents. Their graves.

  We’ll find everything out, Mr. Cresspahl. We’ll find everything out.

  How did she die?

  You had a fire, Mr. Cresspahl.

  Yes.

  So, you already knew that?

  No.

  Your in-laws live in Jerichow, you have a telephone, JErichow-209, and you want me to believe that—

  My line was dead.

  Ah, right. The fire truck drove into a telephone pole.

  Yes.

  How did you know that? You can speak freely.

  You just told me, Mr. Vick. No one answered at the Papenbrocks’.

  They couldn’t. They’d long since left for Brickworks Road.

  There was no phone on the train, no time in Güstrow, and I was going to try them from here in Gneez but you had me picked up.

  I said “You had a fire” and you said: Yes.

  Yes.

  It doesn’t surprise you in the least.

  All that wood on the premises, it burns easy.

  But it didn’t start in the workshop. That didn’t go up until later.

  Where was my wife.

  At midnight, in Jerichow on Market Square, and before that at the Jews’ place when the accident happened.

  What was she doing at the Tannebaums’?

  Don’t treat me like a child, Cresspahl. I’m a two-hundred-and-twenty pound man. Don’t you read the newspapers?

  Yes.

  But not today.

  Not today.

  I see. And nothing struck you as out of the ordinary in Wendisch Burg. Your family lives in the middle of the forest.

  My sister lives with her husband who operates a sluice, in the forest.

  I want to tell you something, Cresspahl. What happened last night, across the whole Reich, is not what we’re here to discuss. I don’t want to hear anything about it.

  What kind of accident was it, Mr. Vick.

  A Jew brat got shot dead.

  Walter? Marie?

  Marie, Mr. Cresspahl. Marie Sara Tannebaum. Your wife—

  My wife doesn’t even have a gun.

  It’s none of your concern who the culprit was. Who made the mistake. Your wife was merely there.

  And then she slapped him in the face.

  That’s right. Ah, here we have the report from Wendisch Burg. You were there. You might have said up front that your other brother-in-law is with the Reich Agricultural Corporation. Here. Look at this. We have no secrets here.

  Then the fire started.

  We don’t know when the fire started.

  Where did it start?

  The fire department was called this morning, 4:30 a.m. The fire had just broken through the roof.

  Through the roof of the
house?

  Of the barn. Where you had your workshop. Do you have enemies, Mr. Cresspahl?

  Was it arson?

  We don’t know. Everything was burned to the ground, everything west of the former stalls. The fire burned through three of the four doors leading east from the workshop. The fourth, at the southwest corner, was locked and bolted. The fire got there last. The ceiling had only just started to smolder, but the oxygen must have been used up.

  It used to be the fodder room.

  That’s where your wife was.

  Was she dead?

  No. She died while being carried out.

  Did she die from the fire?

  She wasn’t burned to death, if that’s what you mean, Mr. Cresspahl. As of now the doctors have declared the cause of death to be asphyxiation.

  Yes.

  Explain to me, please, how the workers in the house could have not heard anything. Or seen anything.

  All the windows on the east side have shutters. If any panes broke there the glass would have fallen inwards, not out onto the stone. If the fire spread from the threshing floor and the barn stalls, through the workshop and the jobs in progress, then all the light would have gone up or west. No one lives to the west. If the fodder room’s still standing then the glass in the south door must’ve been the last to go. Alwin Paap must have heard that.

  Like you were there in person, Mr. Cresspahl.

  Yes.

  Alwin Paap was not who called the fire department.

  Then it was Friedrich Jansen from across the street. He might have noticed the light when the north gate started burning.

  It was indeed Jansen, Mr. Cresspahl. Does that make anything come to your mind?

  Mr. Vick, can I go see my wife? It’s three hours until the next train.

  You won’t need a train, Mr. Cresspahl. Now tell me something. Earlier you spoke somewhat disparagingly of Jansen.

  I said that I had no quarrel with him.

  You’re too good for that.

  I’m a carpenter. Jansen’s a regional party leader. What would I have to fight about with him, Mr. Vick?

  Let us say, for the sake of argument, arson.

  Impossible for someone from the outside. Anyone who tried to break into the workshop wouldn’t get far without making a lot of noise. It’s not like a fire, contained by the walls and the roof. My wife would have heard something. Paap definitely would.