New Lives

by Ingo Schulze

  He paused and smiled at his aphorism. “You will have exclusive rights. That is all.”

  “And what does that mean?” asked Georg, who had suddenly grown quite calm and relaxed. Obviously glad that one of us had opened his mouth, Barrista turned slightly to get a better view of Georg and explained in his hyperbolic fashion how it was through us, the Altenburg Weekly, that the city and region of Altenburg would learn of the prince’s visit, it was to us that politicians would come if they wanted to know something about it, through us that people would first be informed of the events surrounding the visit—and even be provided with a quick course in proper court etiquette, although the hereditary prince placed no exaggerated value on that. Although people should at least make some effort. At that moment the waitress arrived with four globes of lettuce—iceberg lettuce, Barrista explained. These were accompanied by a plate of sliced gingered duck and two small bowls of a special Chinese sauce. The baron peeled away a leaf of the green iceberg, slathered it with brown sauce—which was, he noted, the very best quality—and, using his fingers, wrapped the leaf around two slices of duck.

  “If you knew how long I’ve waited for this! There’s nothing finer,” he said, and took a bite. “Absolutely nothing,” he whispered as he chewed. The sauce dribbled on his napkin.

  Among the loveliest surprises of his expedition was the discovery of decent meats in the East, including mutz roast—he mispronounced “mutz” with a short “u”—which was a first-rate delicacy. And who knew what all might become of it, for what was offered in gourmet temples from Monaco to Las Vegas was in large part simple peasant food ennobled by sophisticated preparation. At which he took his first sip from a new bottle of white wine—drawing it through his teeth with a hiss, pursing his lips, shifting them from side to side like a miniature elephant’s trunk—culminating, then, in a brief smacking sound. We toasted home cooking.

  I took advantage of the silence as we set our glasses down to finally ask him what his profession was. I had no idea what it was I had done. His entire body recoiled from me. He wasn’t joking when he said, “Surely you’re not asking to see my tax return?” I assured him that, for God’s sake, I wasn’t trying to get personal. “Leave God out of it!” he barked at me even more sharply.

  “Is it customary,” he said, turning to Georg, then to Jörg, and finally back again to me, “for you to ask someone his profession?”

  I could only reply with a perplexed yes.

  He had never presumed to ask such a thing except when conducting job interviews. Of course it was of interest to him—we shouldn’t take him wrong—of burning interest how someone earned his money, since a job was often the only thing that wasn’t ridiculous about a person. “Then perhaps I can parry with the same question to you later?”

  One could, “simply and cogently,” term him a business consultant, which was the simplest euphemism for what he did and did not do. And yet his “interpretation” of his profession differed somewhat from the usual definition. He made investments of his own at times, in this and that, since in his eyes it “made sense” not only to provide his clients the necessary trust in his recommendations but also to supplement their investments with his own capital—for he could never offer anything more than recommendations. To him it seemed immoral to take money from his clients independent of their success or failure—as was the preferred practice of banks or his special friends, lawyers. He did not wish to comment on his own profession, since all too often the results were those of the fox guarding the henhouse. He fell into a study for a few moments, muttered something, and then apologized for his inattention. He would gladly, he continued, subject all professionals, including physicians—them above all—to such a law of success. He could only say that one’s own interests were always the best councilor—not only for oneself, but for the community, for mankind. Of that he was profoundly convinced.

  We were now offered toothpicks from a shiny golden tray. Barrista took a good many and, leaning back, tipped his chair. As if pitching back and forth in a rocking chair, he went on. If there was one thing he did not understand about this world it was the regrettable fact that there were hardly any people of his stamp. Why did people constantly get involved with crooks? That was the question he put to the world. Several years previous he had written a little book on the subject,77 in the hope of finding adherents to his method, indeed he had secretly—and he jabbed at his teeth behind a hand held up to his mouth—dreamed of being called to a chair at a university. We needed only look at how the Nobel Prize was awarded to the wildest economic theories. Nobel Prizes for theories that when applied plunged entire nations into ruin. One of his few dreams still left unfulfilled was to become a university professor.

  “Ah,” he exclaimed, “a chair for poetry!”

  As if he hadn’t noticed our astonishment, he put the screws to us like a real professor.

  “What comes to mind at the mention of 1797?” he asked.

  “The year of the ballads,” I said.

  “Hyperion,”78 Georg said.

  “Very good,” the baron said, “but this is not a literature class.”

  “Napoleon,” Jörg shouted.

  “Napoleon is always right. But this is about England, an achievement for which the entire civilized world is indebted to the Empire. On February 24, 1797, a law was passed that allowed the Bank of England to refuse to offer coinage in exchange for paper money.”

  We stared at him.

  “And what, gentlemen, happened next?”

  “Inflation?” Jörg inquired.

  “No!” Barrista cried. “Just the opposite. Exchange rates rose. One sees what a dubious figure Napoleon is, because besides other mistakes, he believed this would mark the end of British stability. Meanwhile Napoleon, the stupid magpie, was hoarding all the precious metals he could. But by April 1797, French assignates were worth only one-half of one percent of their face value. Just imagine! Even though they were backed by all that ecclesiastic property. From which one draws what conclusion?” We were silent.

  “Where something is, nothing comes of it!” he gloated. “And where nothing is, something comes of it! If that isn’t poetry, then I don’t know what poetry is.” His final confession, that he loved dealing with money because nothing is more poetic than a hundred-dollar bill, even sounded plausible to me.

  The baron79 tipped his chair back upright at the table and shook his head.

  He had grown accustomed, he said, to being a voice crying in the wilderness, and was grateful for other gifts that fate sent his way instead of fame. “Doing good business is so easy. Today, however”—his right hand traced a semicircle, as if he were admonishing us to be silent—“today we have other things to talk about.”

  The baron called the waitress over. She had been kneeling down beside Astrid the wolf, stroking its coat, which looked almost mangy against the universal glow of honey gold light. The waitress hurried over and80 began to clear the table. Tugging his napkin from his shirt collar, the baron stood up, and cast a searching glance around the room. He was handed a basket, the contents of which were hidden under a white cloth.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I have taken the liberty of bringing along a little present for you. It took some effort”—he lifted the basket briefly, as if to imply he was speaking of its weight—“but I hope that my inquiries haven’t led me astray.” He stepped back a little—I thought I spotted something stir in the basket—and flung the cloth aside. Dust rose. And revealed dark bottles with mottled, tattered labels.

  As we could see, the baron instructed, the authentic hallmarks of age had been preserved. His gift came with one modest request—that we invite him to partake of only a half glass of each.

  Ah, Jo! His nose almost touched the label. He removed the first bottle from the basket as if it were a newborn being lifted from its bath to be dried and swaddled.

  “Let us begin with the youngest, with you, Herr Türmer—a ’61 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou.”

  I
had stood up, but he motioned for me to remain seated and pretended he could see me over the rim of his glasses. He noted that he never opened an old bottle without consternation, indeed anxiety, for what was to be revealed in a single moment was the work of decades. The baron scratched the enamel seal on the cork with his fingernails—which are far too short, I think he chews them. “Even I am helpless,” he declared, “against the actions of time and chemistry.”

  Of course every child knows that wine can turn to vinegar. But none of us comprehended the enormity of this admonition.

  We heard the baron bark a laugh. Almost soundlessly he pulled the cork from my bottle and gave it an investigative sniff. “My congratulations!” he said, pouring me some—not much, barely more than a finger. We both reached for the glass at the same time, I jerked back. The baron swirled the wine endlessly, just as Jan Steen had with his brandy, and held it up to his nose. “May it be a blessing,” he said, filling the glass for me. I felt like a charlatan as with purposeful circumspection I gave the wine in its chalice a swirl, smelled it, and then, following the baron’s example, set it to my lips. I rinsed my mouth with it properly, but swallowed as I felt the tongue and lining start to turn numb somehow. Well that’s that, I thought. The baron fixed me with his eyes, no one said a word.

  Gradually something earthy rose up within me—alien and pleasant, the herald of the remembrance of another existence.

  Am I boring you? My words awaken no memories within you. It’s six o’clock already, it’s my turn to read proofs in Leipzig. So I’ll cut this a bit short.

  What happened next was somehow depressing, although we didn’t want to admit it.

  The baron passed white bread around before picking up Jörg’s bottle and announcing, “Vintage ’53!” I wasn’t really paying close attention as the baron described this ’53 Beaujolais. When I looked up, he was red-faced, struggling with the cork. His cheeks, which had been parentheses for a smile, suddenly went limp. He could tell just from the odor of the cork. We couldn’t even persuade him to let us sip at our own risk. Barrista, his face still red, was deaf to our pleas. I was surprised how easily he lost his composure.

  Georg muttered something about how he was usually the wet blanket on such occasions, Jörg attempted a laugh. He’d never liked the year of his birth anyway, so this hadn’t come as much of a surprise. I’m afraid Jörg’s remark was closer to the truth than he admitted. But—not that I’m blaming him—it was Barrista’s fault. Perhaps Barrista felt he’d been swindled, a wine like that doesn’t come cheap.

  Georg, our ’56 baby, sipped the Barolo dedicated to him. It took a good while, and then he said, “Thanks so much. That was magnificent.”

  Then came a most extraordinarily noble chateaubriand and for dessert, chocolate pudding and Italian schnapps.81

  The baron chattered away about the hereditary prince, but he wasn’t able to hide his own disappointment. Just one dud had ruined the atmosphere.

  We left the honey gold Prince’s Suite shortly before midnight. The waitress escorted us downstairs, along with the wolf, who needed to be walked. Out on the street Jörg asked what Barrista really wanted of us. Whereas I, with a glance toward the old familiar train station, asked myself where we had been exactly. What did he suppose Barrista wanted? To find out who he was dealing with. If only everyone would make half the effort he had.

  We had gone our separate ways when it came to me where I knew the waitress from. She was the buxom blonde who had stumbled past us leaving the bar back in January.

  Your E.

  PS: Something I keep forgetting to write: Gesine’s musical presentation so impressed Robert that, although we didn’t buy Aunt Trockel’s piano from her, we did manage to jockey it into Robert’s room. Robert’s actually taking lessons. What poor Aunt Trockel was never able to accomplish, Gesine did. We’ll see what comes of it. At least he’s already learned a few notes.

  Thursday, March 8, ’90

  Dear Nicoletta,

  Ever since you left, I’ve thought only of you. I don’t have to imagine you. You’re present, and I listen to you. Only sleep interrupts our tête-à-tête. When I awoke, the separation was more than made up for by a sense of incredible joy—it was no dream, you really had visited me. Your presence had restored me to consciousness. Don’t laugh! It’s not easy to write something like that. I was happy to be with you. When I’m with you I find myself in a state of grace—I don’t know what else to call it. Nicoletta, I want to tell you everything, everything, and all at once, but I would give up all those words just to see you.

  Do you remember—you were telling me about your famous uncle,82 about the peculiar circumstances surrounding his death—how you said that when it comes to really important things we never know what we should actually think? You said it so offhandedly and went on to something else. No, we don’t, I said, still stuck on that remark, and you looked at me in surprise, and I had to control myself to keep from kissing you.

  I was in agony the whole hour I knew you were still in Altenburg. You should have waited here, in my room, even if we hadn’t said a word. That would have really helped me to “rest up.” I didn’t calm down until the moment I could assume you had left town. I hope your train was on time and you made all your connections.

  Wasn’t the proof room83 like being in school? You, the new girl, looked hesitantly around the classroom, as if not knowing where to sit. Then you decided on me, to share my desk, and stuck out your hand, as if you’d just read in a guidebook that that’s how it’s done in the East. And while the others were running around during recess, we sat there like model pupils. I watched the calligraphy of your proofreaders’ marks grow denser and denser, and my courage failed me. The goose bumps on your arm, clear up to the shoulder, the scar on your left elbow, kept distracting me. There wasn’t a single motion of your right hand that I failed to notice. You asked for a dictionary and were so intent on making corrections, it was as if you wanted to give me time to get used to your presence.

  It suddenly seems so absurd to be writing you, instead of simply taking off to see you. I can only plead my current condition as my excuse. By now I’m in hardly any pain.84

  I kiss your hands,

  Your Enrico

  Friday, March 9, ’90

  Dear Nicoletta,

  The first bus has already gone by, and the next thing I hear will be footsteps above me and the sounds of morning. My window is cracked ajar. How are you doing? I would love to talk with you. And when I think of how you won’t get this letter before a few days have passed, these lines seem to lose all meaning. I can’t wait that long!

  The headaches have become bearable. I convinced the doctor at the polyclinic to remove the neck support. Holding his hands to my temples, he watched me as intently as if he expected my head to fall off. I’m supposed to imagine I’m balancing my “skull” on my neck, then the right posture will follow all on its own. I don’t think people moved around the Spanish royal court with any more dignity than I do here within my four walls.

  I’ve ordered myself to stay away from the office. I definitely prefer the hope that greetings from you, however cursory, may be waiting for me there to the disappointment of that not being the case.

  Maybe I’m lying here in bed so that I can think of you without disruption. How many letters I’ve already written you—eyes closed, hands folded across my belly. If only we could take up our conversation again where it got broken off! I was so angry and disappointed at the day being ruined and at your having to depart early that I was no longer in any condition to even notice what a stroke of luck your visit has been or, for that matter, how lucky we both are to be alive.

  Where did you get the notion that the accident was an intentional attack? The first thing you cried out was: “That was on purpose!”

  And so immediately I imagined that I knew the two men in the classy white Lada. I do everything I can to dismiss this as a chimera, but even as a figment of the imagination I don’t like the idea.
And now, as I write this, it seems totally absurd. And yet those two figures loom up ever more clearly in my mind. It’s like in a fairy tale, when the devil demands his tribute at the very instant he’s been forgotten.85

  Dear Nicoletta, it’s evening now—and still no letter from you.86 I know, I shouldn’t have said that.

  I’ve been in a strange mood all day. I smell unusual odors, suddenly imagine myself being in another room, and need a couple of seconds to come to myself, as if I were just waking up. On days like this you only have to be inattentive, and you stumble and fall and fall. Is it only our imagination that we feel someone’s actual grasp, even though they have long since let go? Should I say that the past is grasping me or, better yet, that I’ve never been young? Do you think someone like me is capable of stealing a weapon? Forgive me my susurrations. It all sounds so preposterous. I’m merely afraid I’ll fall back into the same state I was in at the end of last year. I was ill and lay here in my room just like now. And that—and I’m not exaggerating—was the worst time of my life.

  For several weeks now I’ve been toying with a question. At first I didn’t take it seriously; it seemed too commonplace. But over time I’ve come to think it’s justified. The question is: What were the ways and means by which the West got inside my brain? And what did it do in there?87

  Of course I might also ask how God got inside my brain. It amounts to the same question, though it’s less concerned with the matter of my own particular original sin.

  Needless to say, I can’t offer any precise answer. I can only try to grope for one.