Anniversaries

by Uwe Johnson

  She’s relieved to hear that she’d acted within her rights. Reluctantly, because she was just about to go out riding, she brings the second visiting party of the day across the hall, opens the kitchen door, marvels at but allows the visitor to lead her into the living room instead and seat her safely in an armchair so that she won’t fall at the moment of the news that her only son, the focus and pride of her old life, has allegedly and by hearsay met his death in northeast Europe, in a plane he’s known how to fly for four years. She sits there as if waiting for an execution. Then comes the blow, and the slump of the head and the sagging of the body to make it look smaller. Then, all in Platt:

  – Dyou believe it, Gesine?

  – Im supposed to. I have to.

  – Burned up n buried n now theres nothin?

  – Thats how he wanted it.

  – Now you can jus stick me in tha ground too.

  – Youre gonna live a long time yet. You were off to go ridin somewhere n put the fear a God into that horse. You need to take care a his business.

  – But I got a letter from im, written on Sunday!

  – Postmarked.

  – Written, see?

  – I see it. But its your sons lawyer, sayin—

  – Dyou have an inheritance certificate with you, Gesine?

  – Lets not have any a that.

  – You won’ kick an ol woman outta her house.

  – You can stay here forever.

  – Are you pregnant, Gesine?

  – Nope.

  – Dyou wish you were?

  – How could I bring up another child without im.

  – Littl Marie. Hows she holdin up?

  – Ive been afraid to—

  – Can you come stay with me?

  – We need to go to Prague.

  – But he just died.

  – He wouldve wanted it that way: first you do what you need to do.

  – Jå. Thats how he is. An once youre done with Prague?

  – Marie has to go to school. You should come stay in New York.

  – Thats so far away from im. What, youre leavin?

  – The taxis waiting outside. I have to catch the bus. Maries waitin at home. You can come with.

  – No. Im gonna go for a ride.

  In Spring 1951, Robert Pius Pagenkopf enlisted with the Armed People’s Police at the Aero-Club in Cottbus. He was the only one of the three hundred and seventy high-school students at that time to do so; a lot of students were leaving school after eleventh grade then, since many parents felt that that was the equivalent of diplomas from the old days when there’d been a one-year military service requirement. These young people decided to go to the West, most not realizing that compulsory military service was awaiting them there with open arms. Pius went for the other side. Since we’d only been acting like a married couple, he made the decision by himself.

  I wantd to be alone, Gesine.

  Pius, if I was bothering you—

  Stop it, Gesine. You were the girl for me.

  Pius, Id—

  Its fine. It’s just that, later, I always compared other girls to you. That wasn’t good for me. Marriage is hard, Gesine.

  Y’left me sittin alone at our desk.

  You would have gone your own way after graduation, without me. I could tell we’d be separated, I wanted to break it off myself.

  To be alone.

  All this peace struggle shit, Gesine. They were right you know, Sieboldt and Gollantz.

  Like there’s no political reeducation in the army!

  There it’s service, Gesine. In the army my superior has to be able to believe what I tell him, and no member of the force can doubt that I believe it. There’re no more winks, stiff smiles conveying and commending your lies in one. There I can think whatever I want and no one has to hear it.

  That means you’d never have another friend, Pius.

  I thought I still had you, Gesine. We’d managed to create that.

  And what did you plan to do if there was a war?

  Then I’d be where they pushed the button. In the end, what I did with the plane would be up to me—I’m in command, I decide.

  Pius’s first enlistment was for three whole years; a cold glory hung in the air around our desk with plenty of room left over for Student Cresspahl as she sat through the last year of school in 12-A-II, alone, in a much smaller room on the fourth floor—one of fifteen students, alone at her desk, with a window view of the cathedral and the courtyard. We tried to talk Pius into staying through the Abitur. Even his father, the functionary of merit in the party administration in Schwerin, was scared, notwithstanding the significant boost to his reputation this new “societal activity” on his son’s part would give him. You can lose a son that way. Helene Pagenkopf stuck to weeping for weeks; when Pius took the woman in his arms and stroked her shoulders, you could see how big he’d grown. Six feet tall, plus another couple inches. When we said things about the advantages of a terminal certification of knowledge in the sciences and humanities, he smiled at us for still believing in such things. As if the science of equine dental anatomy, say, would be of any use in later life. Whatever physics he’d need in the coming years, the air force would take care of teaching him. Student Lockenvitz was jealous of Young Friend Pagenkopf for the tactical savvy of his plan, not so much for the course of action itself, which was not an option for him anyway, given his eyesight. And yet he too would talk to Pius, encouraging him to consider the value of a Latin proficiency certificate, recognized by universities around the world; then Pius looked stern, keeping his dark eyebrows rigid, apparently feeling pestered.

  Pius’s decision was such a rare jewel in the crown of the New School’s educational aims that he could easily have slacked off for the rest of the year and still received final grades that matched his standing in January. But being lax and being Pius were two very different things. Pius stuck to the syllabus and thereby kept Student Cresspahl in the habit of school-work—the form that learning is meant to take in one’s youth. The thing is, he knew what his future held, which gave him a perspective far wider than that of school. In a ninth-grade class in 1951, the FDJ had a competition for selling their newspaper, Young World; it was won by a resourceful fellow who deposited his whole bundle with Abel the fishmonger on Street of National Unity, which cost him some money but saved him from having to pester passersby. It was the talk of the day at school. Pius just shrugged. Made you feel like a kid next to him. In 11-A-I there was a boy named Eckart Pingel who avowed in Contemporary Studies: In the Soviet Union they also have the biggest pigs! That was going to take him down a notch in class; Bettina Selbich put in a request for disciplinary proceedings. The thing is, Ol’ Pingel wasn’t just any father, he was the foreman at the Panzenhagen sawmill—proletariat nobility. Word started going around the working men of Gneez that Pingel’s Eckart was getting thrown out of school just for telling the truth. That was why he was allowed to talk his way out of trouble at the teacher’s conference, invoking recent Soviet advances in breeding the common domestic pig. Bettina threw the excuse right back at his head; he could recite from the textbook his class had unearthed for him (his school class). Now it’s true, Eckart Pingel avoided mentioning his scientific findings too often, but everyone knew it about him and he wore it as a badge of honor that he’d hit on it first. Pius laughed too, but just by snorting some air through his nose; it came across as rather disparaging. His belonging among us, as one of us, fell from him layer by layer like an onion; he looked at us as if from a great distance. He was almost grown-up. There were evenings he spent in the Danish Quarter—without telling his mother, but without making a secret of it either. Afterwards his body would smell different, and to his silent, eyebrow-raising surprise, his friend Cresspahl started expanding her morning toilette routine to include perfume. Pius also went to bars frequented by the railwaymen of Gneez, including the Linden Pub, where the women conductors sometimes danced on the tables. For the assembly to conclude the 1950–51 sch
ool year, Gabriel Manfras proposed that the FDJ school group “delegate” Youth Comrade Pagenkopf from its ranks for service in the Armed Police; Pius looked at him so hard and so long that Manfras, who in no way had the guts for such service, finally turned red in the face for once. Pius was “bidden farewell” by the students and faculty.

  He went to Cottbus for military basic training, was accepted as a fighter pilot, promoted to PFC and then corporal; he signed one letter as a “cornet.” Mrs. Selbich remained part of the life of 12-A-II, as homeroom teacher, and suggested to Student Cresspahl that she read to the class from his letters, so as to share the edification of Pagenkopf’s patriotic example. Cresspahl was tempted. For the letters discussed how mail censorship was handled “in our outfit”: the recruit had to hand in his private letters in the guardroom, unsealed. That makes a person careful about what he puts down. Another thing the recruit has to learn: that the Comrade NCOs read the contents of incoming letters aloud to one another with gusto and commentary—not so good when they’re written by a woman who’s not his mother. When it is his mother, that can turn out badly too, for instance if she writes that she’s worried about her “child,” who has now been unmasked as a momma’s boy. – To hear the old-timers tell it, it’s worse here than in the army: Pius told us in writing; he sent his news via civilian mail, contrary to regulations. Gesine would’ve loved to make all this public in class, as a model case of Stalinist vigilance. But she had the feeling Bettinikin would snatch the letter out of her hand the moment she brought it to school; it contained, among other things, forms of address like the Russian word for “little sister” (Pius was a year and a half older than her). She denied that they were corresponding.

  Gesine had an awkward time with her own letters to Cottbus. First, she had to avoid calling him what she was used to calling him, because she didn’t want to hang a nickname around his neck, especially with the extra weight that’d be added in the barracks—but for her he was “Pius”; he was “Robert” and “Rœbbing” for his mother. Second, how could she tell him in a letter that would be read by others that three “bourgeois” people from Gneez had been sent to take a course in Socialist orientation; of course they all distrusted one another; but as soon as they walked into their room in Schwerin the first one covered the keyhole, the second one blocked the window with his back, and they both gave the third one advice as he scoured the room for the microphones; they came back to Gneez after four weeks in total harmony, sworn friends, and were appointed revenue officer, dairy manager, and head of personnel at Panzenhagen. A whole new network of relationships (though well known in its essentials) was forming throughout the city—it sometimes no longer mattered that X had known Y for some twenty-odd years: now how could she write that without blowing his political credentials for forever and a day? That’s why she was relieved when he asked again what’ll happen to Abel the fishmonger in England: He’ll turn into Able, so he’ll change his shop sign to “Ebel,” so then people will call him Eeble, and then he’ll, and so forth. Glad, too. For she took this to mean that he was being taught English again, and in case of emergency might be able to transfer into civil aviation. The whole Pingel family had left in a westerly direction after Eckart’s “early graduation,” clearly not happy with the school—that was another item not suitable for correspondence. What she liked best was when Pius came to visit and went for walks with her around Gneez Lake and had brought her a present. Because Cresspahl was once again feeling up to exertions of paternal force and had privately threatened the tobacconists from Jerichow to Gneez if they ever sold his daughter something she might smoke. So Pius turned up with cigarettes from China, brand name Temple of Great Joy (men in Pius’s squadron could volunteer for duty in that People’s Republic). There’s a photo from this visit—our only photograph.

  In 1953, Gesine Cresspahl took up residence in the state of Hesse, West Germany, and was worried that she might have lost Pius, too, in the move. She had every reason to think that Pius had learned to disapprove of such freedom of movement; and surely he wasn’t allowed to correspond with residents of enemy countries. But the old friendship was rust-free! Pius now sent his letters home to “My dears.” Gesine was included among his dears, otherwise Helene Pagenkopf would much rather have kept writings from her son’s hand than dutifully forwarded them to Röbbertin sin Gesin. In 1954 Pius extended his term of duty and became a professional officer, a lieutenant by Christmas, and Gesine complained to her Robertino (having finally brought herself around to that form of address) about how hard it was to get by with her English in an American-occupied province. By then Pius had his Himalayan cattle firmly under control—the Yak-18 for training, the Yak-11 for doing—and was allowed to come back from the Soviet Union; stationed in Drewitz: squad leader (acting). Gesine sent the elderly Mrs. Pagenkopf a tiny electric shaver that a young man might use; Pius was now flying MiG-15’s—in formation, but one time on his own, which was why he was transferred to be in charge of parachutist training in 1955. Gesine thought this was a demotion and that Pius had been grounded, or gegroundet, as it was called in the hybrid language spoken where she was working now. That can happen to a person for health reasons or as punishment. So she was happy to hear that he was uninjured; he had taken his fighter on a joyride under the autobahn bridge that crosses Zern Lake west of Potsdam. Eventually his regiment forgave him: First Lieutenant, Merseburg.

  In January of 1956, the custodian of East Germany admitted that he was training young people to fly for reasons other than their own enjoyment of the pastime; those “clubs” of the Armed People’s Police were now part of a National People’s Army, NPA. As if a People weren’t National already. Six months later the air force of the Red Army, now known as the “Soviet” Army, started asking around among its underlings in the GDR: any pilots available? They should be ones whose flying ability had stood out to a marked extent. Comrade Pagenkopf, for this predicate had now been granted him, had his file card pulled from the registration offices of Gneez and elsewhere; his personal data was now entered into “the most desirable passport in the world”: the one with the emblem of the Soviet Union. Gesine didn’t send out many notices of the birth of a healthy baby girl in July 1957; Pius gave the child a doll inside a doll inside a doll, with instructions for use: In this country they call the smallest, innermost one, which can’t be opened, the soul. Major Pagenkopf started another round of basic training: on MiG-21A, 21B, and 21C’s, to prepare to tackle the MiG-21D, an all-weather interceptor (known to NATO as: “Fishbed”). Gesine was undergoing a rigorous training course too, at a bank in Düsseldorf; Pius was busy with an Su-7 (“Fitter”), a heavy fighter-bomber suitable for nuclear assignments. In photographs he is always standing alone now, a young man in a tailored suit meant to look British; his look is haughty, distant; to a junior lieutenant he is a model, to an East German officer a person commanding respect. Because the air force of the GDR is under the air defense of the Soviet Union; the former was given no “Fishbeds.” Pius as bearer of state secrets; he gave out as his view that the Caucasus resembled Grunewald less than Göring had contended—an air marshal from the old days; Gesine could now understand that this meant he too was being taught the history of the war, and must by now be up to the Battle of Stalingrad. Gesine was dispatched to the USA to study advanced tricks in the replication of borrowed money; Pius, undaunted, asked “My dears” about Marie’s latest adventures in American English. When supersonic jet fighters boomed over West Berlin to scare the population, they were piloted by people other than Pius—he was a test pilot, a valuable commodity, a protected cadre. Medical exams every month; rest cures in the sanatoriums reserved for cabinet ministers and up. And unreachable. Anita, with all her skill in traveling, spent a long time looking for him in the Soviet Union and never once saw him alive. He now could pronounce his o’s like a Muscovite. Gesine was out on her ear from her first job in Brooklyn; Pius was testing whether any modifications were needed to the Su-9 (“Fishpot”), a fighter plane with a top
speed of Mach 2, not given to the NPA. Maybe that’s why he didn’t visit his homeland. After he’d come home, rumor had it that in 1962 he’d shown up at his mother’s place one night at midnight. After President Kennedy was assassinated, Pius wrote a letter meant to console a Gesine in New York City. For form’s sake, dismissively, he mentioned to “my dears” a short marriage to a Masha (a Marie). He was alone, and always would be. Did he find himself in his work? His last job was on a Tu-28, a long-range ultrasonic fighter; he commanded a machine that was a hundred feet long, wingspan sixty-five feet. Colonel Pagenkopf. Want to bet that the Russians said the k in his name more like a g? And since he had earned the affection of the Soviets for his services improving their airborne weaponry, in December 1964 they sent a welded casket back to Gneez, Mecklenburg, instead of burying him onsite. It would have taken industrial-grade machinery to open it. Almost thirty-three years old, Pius lived to be.

  (We would like to thank Herr Professor Dr. Erichson for the technical descriptions above. He procured this information on trips over the course of more than two years, in discussions with confidants in both the US and West German air forces [among whom we are especially requested not to single out one Mr. B.], all at times when he would have no doubt preferred to relax and drink a glass of, let’s say, tea. Thank you, D. E.)

  For information about Pius’s funeral ceremonies we would like to thank our school friend Anita Gantlik. With her collection of documents, she, a Protestant, traveled to Gneez, to the Catholic service that his Socialist parents had agreed on. According to her, then, the delivery of the matter to be transformed was announced by two tolls of a bell. There was mention of our brother (formerly: our servant) Robert Pagenkopf. He was given the “viaticum” he had long done without. For them, too, there was a “This is My body, this My blood.” Pius’s mother stepped forward to take Holy Communion; the elder Pagenkopf stood stiff as a post, conscious of his guilt. Then it was said: We are beginning the Catholic rite of burial. We knew that already. First sight of the coffin in the chapel. Lots of kneeling. Joyful anticipation of Pius’s union with God. “Angels will usher him into Paradise.” Parting at the grave, with incense.