Anniversaries

by Uwe Johnson

  Justification: Unconsciously ingrained norms save time.

  Repetition spares consciousness, starves it.

  Living and forgetting a whole day—forgetfully reinserting oneself into a long since written-off time, the Monday feeling of working people seven days ago and seven times seven days and seven times that.

  Repetition may be enough to inculcate certain principles—Socialism, capitalism, order, chaos—but to sustain them takes authority. They persist for the sake of the father; to please him; out of fear of school or other agents of society that threaten expulsion for disobedience.

  What remained of this day was not its evening but the Friday evening during which a plane tree in Riverside Park had been cut down and sawed to pieces, branch by branch. The motor sounded like a small motorcycle, enough for a dream escape in a secret trip along the river in the fog. But now there’s a place missing: The tree, and not the tree but its repetition.

  How many more times will I be carried through the tunnels dug into the stone beneath the city of New York for its subways and arrive between the forest of pitprops at the station and intersection of Ninety-Sixth Street and Broadway?

  When will Marie be caught and trapped in repetition?

  How many more times?

  March 26, 1968 Tuesday

  De Rosny, the ideal man for these times.

  The East Germans and the Soviets have suggested extending a substantial credit to the new Czechoslovakia, so that the West Germans can’t give it—a suggestion in the form of an ultimatum.

  De Rosny, on the phone, his vocal cords perfectly relaxed: Sounds like good news to me! Whose nose is that skin off of, Mrs. Cresspahl? We’ll just keep going!

  It is not exactly he who does the keeping going.

  He can set a company’s policy in simple terms: He sees it from above.

  His first line of defense is: The West Germans tried to demand that the Czechoslovaks reopen diplomatic relations in exchange for their hard cash. Well, de Rosny is de Rosny and all relations with him are diplomatic in nature.

  His main line of attack is: The ČSSR needs money from the zone of the dollar, not the soft money of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. In this realm, he is the Palatine Prince. Nothing is likely to happen against his will.

  Sleeps well. Is instantaneously present again upon waking, with no desire for the protective miles of the dream. For him, sleep is the pause between battles, dreams the defects he makes sure are repaired. He drops himself into the day as though into cold water, uncomplaining. Enjoys the massage. Radiates friendliness, so that his staff will bounce it back to him. Enjoys his breakfast, alone with the plans that have wonderfully developed and ramified and blossomed in his sleep.

  Anticipation makes him impatient. He could get from Connecticut to New York City by helicopter!—were it not a statistical risk for a life like his. A game like his life.

  He knows about other ways of life. Alone in the car with his man Arthur, he enjoys his contact with Arthur’s way of life, and the tall black man, dignified with the practiced gestures of service and gradual aging, tells his boss about his wife’s health problems, children’s academic progress and setbacks, neighbors’ parties and conflicts. De Rosny sits in his box seat, watching the children play far below.

  Arthur has saved for more than ten years and hoped that de Rosny would pay him in something other than his salary and health insurance. Then he asked for one single hot stock tip.

  De Rosny tells the story complacently. His chauffeur approaches him, thinking him pleasantly disposed, and asks him about money left lying on the street. A de Rosny doesn’t bend down to pick up such money. (He doesn’t talk about money, he talks with money.)

  When the story doesn’t get quite as much of a laugh as usual, he adds: Anyway, he gave Arthur a raise, instead of a hot tip. The afterthought comes out so obviously belated and contrived; a fact might have made it there faster.

  Why shouldn’t de Rosny supply the Soviets for the ČSSR? He has his secrets too, rarely discussed with enemies, like elegant schoolboy schemes.

  Arthur’s work might be a game of Parcheesi (Now Don’t Get Mad); de Rosny’s subordinates’ might be chess; his own is probably more like poker but with incomparably higher stakes.

  So he sits down and loses thousands at a time—he’s not in a position to get mad. His repetitions are experience, as he sees it; he suffers setbacks to make room for the triumphs. Both, for him, are the feeling of being alive.

  He doesn’t need to worry about manners: they were instilled in him by family tradition, private schools, universities. The machine that takes care of his life automatically, imperceptibly supplies him with money (cash and symbolic), clothes as convention requires, apartments in world capitals, houses on coasts. Since he’s doing it, what he does is right. His place in the restaurants of the world is undisputed, and he sits there alert beneath his friendly demeanor, bored beneath his epicurean mask, waiting. The moment a pastime invades his privacy, he breaks it off.

  Among equals, he is not so equal. De Rosny, of the de Rosnys. First among second chief executives, to keep his hands free. Counts his victories, only then his dollars. Not vulnerable. Dangerous. Generous.

  Terrible, what happened with his wife.

  Untouchable. Sympathy prohibited. Unapproachable even that way.

  When he spends a night in the city, it’s to work.

  Chooses secretaries for their unobtrusiveness. So they won’t bother him.

  Firm in his belief that where he has given orders, something happens.

  Leaves his exterior to others’ doubts whether his handicap refers to golf or bluffing; uses his own doubts not for self-reflection and enlightenment but to fall asleep in amusing fashion.

  Sleeps well. Knows how to wait.

  March 27, 1968 Wednesday

  When Stalingrad fell back into Soviet hands, Wilhelm Böttcher had his son home on leave: the same Klaus who had been trying since 1934 to escape from the paternal woodworking shop—first into the Hitler Youth, then into the Reich Labor Service, until finally in April 1939 the army relented and “took” him. In February 1943 he came back, twenty-two years old, slept for three days, and on the fourth spent an evening in the City of Hamburg Hotel in Gneez with Dr. Weidling, one of the teachers to whom he owed his defeat in the Gneez high school. Now the two men were on equal terms. True, Weidling was there as a Tank Corps captain from somewhere or another, but he was not allowed do discuss his counterespionage assignments; his student had pinned to his tunic an Iron Cross 1st Class, Wound Badge, Attack Badge, and all the other hardware so necessary to his male pride. Only five years ago, Klaus Böttcher had been too skinny, runty, and weak-lipped for his soldierly bearing; now it fit him like a glove. Later that evening Dr. Kliefoth joined them, another of little Klausie’s former enemies, but all Kliefoth could tell Cresspahl was that Klaus Böttcher the clever talker had kept quiet, using the two older men merely as drinking companions and to get the name of a doctor who could extend his leave.

  Whenever Klaus had run into Cresspahl on the street, he’d stopped him and reeled off stories in a shrewd, self-satisfied way. They were stories about things that had taken place far away from Gneez, from the paternal hearth. Cresspahl thought of his colleague’s son as one of those people who wouldn’t dig potatoes in the middle of a field but preferred two rows along the edge so that they’d have something to look at while they worked and would be distracted visually at least. He no longer thought the kid was trying to pick up unguarded remarks, just that he liked flexible back-and-forth situations that allowed him to make amusing suggestions, and liked to talk about them. Cresspahl listened to him now as a harmless, even mildly amusing ne’er-do-well.

  In 1938, in the Labor Service, Klaus was in danger of having to do the same work as everyone else. But he’d escaped needing even to learn how to hold a shovel—when no one else said they were a tradesman he reported for carpentry duty and from then on lived as a free man. The quartermaster nee
ded to replace thirty stools his predecessor had burned or sold, and must have regarded Labor Serviceman Böttcher as a miracle worker. Un-deterred by the absence of wood, Böttcher stole a load of railroad ties from the Schwerin–Ludwigslust line, sawed them up in a little woodworking shop twenty miles away, and built the quartermaster his thirty stools, plus twenty for his own inventory, to give himself greater flexibility in his business dealings. That was how he became the head of the carpentry division, could get his friends who had figured out Klausie’s strategy to place orders with him, and could get out to Neustadt-Glewe whenever he wanted. – That’s probably not how it was in your day?: Klaus Böttcher had said, in his provoking way, meant to solicit from Cresspahl not annoyance but appreciation.

  How someone like Klaus Böttcher lived in 1940, in Bromberg, Poland: Avoiding ethnically German girls whose fathers worked in the party. He found the German civilians quite unappealing on the whole: “down and outs” living in Jewish villas, arms traffickers, confiscation profiteers, currency speculators. Instead, Klaus—

  What? Sounds like a vacation, Klaus.

  You got that right, Mr. Cresspahl. ’Cept that there was summer school, you know?

  No.

  Learning Russian, in this officer-level school there.

  Whaddaya want with Russian, Klaus!

  Cause it’s off against the Russians next! Next year.

  What’s your division’s insignia again?

  Yellow braid on the right shoulder. Nothin special, Mr. Cresspahl.

  —he went out at night with a Polish girl, showed up every morning in the barracks at six sharp, responsible for training and instruction. It was easy with Pervitin. (– “Pervitin”?: Cresspahl asked.) The leave regulations had been relaxed since the regiment was from Schneidemühl and the men’s names were enough to identify them as relatives of the locals. Still the men had to go out in pairs and no Poles were allowed on the street after ten. So Klaus got his girl a military coat and cap and strolled through town at night with her like that. Army personnel had to keep their weapons with them even in restaurants; Klaus gave his girl a little lady’s pistol so she could defend herself against any ethnic Germans who gave her a hard time. He celebrated Christmas with the girl’s friends and taught them the German way: it’s important to have a good time, but no boozing under the Christmas tree. Then Klaus was ordered to report to the commander. On his desk lay Klaus’s letters, photos, all taken from the Polish girl. The first lieutenant knew Klaus from their training together, from nights in the Residenz Café in Schwerin, called him by his first name, bawled him out for therapeutic purposes when Klaus tried to ask about the girl. – So now are you going to denounce me for racial defilement?: Klaus had ended by asking Cresspahl, in his sly, amused, almost desperate way. – If only I knew if she’s still alive!: Klaus had said, for once not the man of the world, not proud of his deeds, not sure of his life plans.

  The second-to-last day of his leave, Klaus had one more story to tell about his life. People were sitting in Böttcher’s parlor, ill at ease. Every person there may have known the secrets they themselves shared with Böttcher but not why all the other people were there. But first they had to discuss things like hairdressers no longer being forbidden to give perms. It was true, but would it last?

  Cresspahl and Kliefoth were the only ones there from Jerichow. The awkwardness was due not only to the presence of a party member from the Gneez tax office but also to Klaus’s uncertain, hesitant manner. He sat hunched between his parents on the sofa, not a hint of the staunch upright staff sergeant but a boy who really wanted a longer vacation. Klaus brushed his hair back from his forehead, shook it forward again, tried to keep his distance from the group with gruff “No, no”s and strange looks, until Mrs. Böttcher walked over to the sideboard, opened the liquor compartment, and put the bottle of kümmel in front of her own cherished boy, to pour at will. – If I cant go to sleep then I wanna know why: she said.

  I cant tell you anything. Theyll shoot me.

  Klaas, dear, we’re your parents. Thats Kliefoth, thats Cresspahl—

  Dont be mad, I cant.

  Come now, Böttcher! Pretend we’re in school.

  Allright. Allright. We were drivers, a bunch of us, fifty or so. Supposed to bring 180 Belgian cart horses from Bialystok to Smolensk, on foot, to the horse depot. Twelve miles a day. At night we put the horses into stables, or sometimes where people lived. There wasn’t enough room in there for the animals, the drivers wouldn’t go in with them. The horses would get scared and start kicking. And me in charge. What a shitshow.

  Klaas.

  The SS?

  Well there you have it, Mr. Kliefoth. The SS aren’t hated, I wouldn’t say that, but they fight to the last man, you have to give em that. But theyre Nazi, they should be the first to bleed. That doesn’t bother us. Sometimes during an enemy approach I would park a couple trucks across the road, set em on fire, and then, with a badge I’d nicked from the MPs on my camouflage coat, lead the SS Death’s Head division right to the Russians.

  You deserted, Klaas.

  Otherwise I wouldnt be sitting here!

  You did the right thing.

  Um—

  Go ahead, my boy.

  Well, I was wounded.

  Oh, God! You were wounded. Klaas.

  Now stop it. I was in the military hospital in Schaulen, and I looked out the window. There was a fence around something, shanties and whatever was left of a town. They were keeping civilian prisoners in there. Dressed in kind of rags.

  What did the SS do to them?

  Nothin, Mom. Not while I was looking.

  And then?

  Yeah, Dad, who wants to watch something like that!

  Aha.

  You see what I mean.

  Well say it.

  Well in Smolensk we were immediately confined to barracks. No going out. I didn’t think they meant me too, as the guy in charge. So I went for a walk outside of town with a friend—

  Klaus!

  We didn’t find what we were looking for! We found a heap of dead bodies in a forest on the edge of town. Five, six feet high. Like this. Shoulder high. Civilians. Stacked up, like for burning.

  Partisans. Saboteurs.

  Children, Herr Kliefoth?

  No, Klaus, no.

  Children. Women too. Like they’d been coming home from work. From shopping.

  You got a photo, Klaus?

  We were about to take one when a squad turned up, MPs, took us to the SS. They were going to shoot us on the spot.

  How can you put yourself in danger like that, Klaus!

  The danger was already there before we got there. Anyway. Report on the double. Marching orders. We had to swear.

  Swear what, my boy?

  That we didn’t see it! That it never happened, Mom.

  Impossible.

  Is it?

  How could they let you go on leave then? You’re free to tell the whole story.

  But the leave’s the reward. For swearing it never happened.

  Do you believe this, Herr Kliefoth?

  The SS does things like that.

  And not the army?

  The army!

  Klaus wouldnt have to do something like that?

  No.

  I can’t believe it.

  Wouldna helped me either way.

  Children?

  Children.

  But they’re Germans, the SS!

  You got that right.

  The children, they were civilians?

  Gimme a break! It wasnt that dark. One of them, one of the girls, just a little bit different and she coulda been Cresspahl’s!

  Cresspahl, do you believe this?

  Yup.

  March 28, 1968 Thursday

  is the day, starting right after lunch break, for Professor Kreslil, the teacher from Budweis, Bohemia, who left his students behind almost twenty years ago and now tries to scrape out a life on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with Czech translations, writin
g documents in Czech, and giving occasional private lessons in his language. At first he tried to maintain a teacherly air, sitting behind his desk thoroughly prepared, surrounded by teaching material, as though he were responsible for not just one single student but the thirty at a time he once had. With his teacherly trappings it looked like he was trying to prove how indisputably he was earning every penny of his fee. For the old man needed the money. His America wasn’t the land of reassuring fairy tales of success; all he needed it to be was somewhere far enough from Czechoslovakia. Where he lives, the Upper East Side, is no longer the closed community of the affluent but an unprotected herd of crumbling four-story buildings on the edge of the German and Hungarian neighborhood. Finally, the rendering of scientific or mechanical processes in another language does not come easily to him, since he used to teach languages, for as long as the Germans and, later, the Czech Communists let him. The moment of giving him the check at the end of each lesson was embarrassing for him, suggesting as it did the instant transformation of his efforts into mere money; yet it was a relief not to be cheated out of his money, and he thanked Mrs. Cresspahl in an old-fashioned, nearly worshipful way. – I am very much obliged to you: he was still saying in late November.

  He was the one to turn their Thursday afternoons into social, even friendly occasions. When Mrs. Cresspahl walks in he is incapable of not standing up, walking over to her, making a bow, and kissing her hand; she for her part did not insist on beginning the lesson at once in exchange for her good dollars, so the occasion gradually deteriorated into trial conversations, then real conversations, after the first month taking place in Czech, which was no longer the sole rationale for her visits. Moreover, Professor Kreslil likes to offer a lady elaborate compliments instead of praising her like a schoolchild, however pathetically her throat may have managed to bring out the consonant-heavy syllables. It was Kreslil, in his courtesy, who offered to spare the lady and customer her walk deep into the East Nineties—suggesting walks, accepting invitations to Riverside Drive, and even showing up at the bank, a distinguished elderly gentleman, gaunt in his shabby, loose-hanging clothes, his carefully composed features held strictly in place out of sheer bewilderment at the sight of a sixteenth floor in a bank, until he walked through Mrs. Cresspahl’s door with a solemn bow and a grave expression but one that has recently taken to showing signs of fun along with recognition.