New Lives

by Ingo Schulze

  Then we stepped out onto the encircling balcony. It took me a long time to find Georg’s garden and our viewing spot there, but I immediately located the Battle of the Nations Monument on the northern horizon.

  Brown coal, the baron went on—and I knew this as well as he—had, according to his information, a water content that made it more profitable to process it as a fire retardant. And environmental agencies would close that muck spinner113 in Rositz the moment the cancer rates became public knowledge. And as for uranium—we were looking now at the pyramids to the west—that was a matter of pure speculation.

  “So what does that leave? Altenburger liqueur? Altenburger mustard and vinegar? A couple of decks of skat cards? The brewery maybe?” And suddenly, turning toward me: “I’m asking you!”

  How was I supposed to know? I replied. But he wouldn’t let go. Surely I’d given it some thought, ultimately it was all of a piece, and without money in their hands it didn’t matter what people were offered. One really ought to be able to expect a prognosis from someone who had founded a newspaper, which itself involved no inconsiderable risk.

  “The newspaper doesn’t have anything to do with any of this,” I replied. These kind of worries, I proposed, had played no role in our founding the paper. Barrista was scaring me. I thought of my grandfather’s prophecies: someday I’d find out just how hard it is to earn my daily bread.

  So tell me more, was what I really wanted to say—the same way you do when you want to hear how, as improbable as it might seem, the storyteller escapes in the end.

  “There isn’t much left, in fact,” Barrista finally said, “except for these towers, houses, churches, and museums. The theater, if you’ll beg my pardon”—he bowed—“surely can’t be something you would add to the list. Two years, maybe three, and its glory days are over.” And after pausing, he added, “Wonderful view, isn’t it?” Then he fell silent, and strolled on. We could see the Vogtland to the south and the ridgeline of the Ore Mountains, and to the east, behind Castle Hill, I thought I could make out the gentle hills of Geithain and Rochlitz.

  “But it’s all got to be kept going somehow,” I exclaimed. He turned around and, after gazing a while in astonishment at me with his deep-sea eyes, raised his right eyebrow in silent-film fashion. “Well, then tell me how…!” he cried.

  “Why me?” I burst out.

  “And why me?” he echoed with a laugh. Yes, he was making fun of me. The matter required some thought, he went on. A good general with only half as many soldiers as his foe needed to come up with something—or seek refuge in retreat. After all, I had studied in Jena and surely hadn’t forgotten what had happened there in anno Domini 1806.114 Hegel’s Weltgeist wasn’t going to come riding into town all on its own.

  I shuddered, as if someone had slipped an ice cube under my shirt collar. The baron had turned up the collar of his jacket. “If only the hereditary prince could see this,” he said. “What all wouldn’t he give for such a view.”

  The baron laughed and then began rubbing his hands like crazy. “We’ve got to find something—a vein of silver, gemstones, something’s always lying buried somewhere. We just have to find it!” He gave a raucous laugh and showed me the red palms of his hands, as if they had just released something into the air. “Shake on it,” he said, and I grasped his hand without knowing what pact I was entering into. But because his hand was warm and his gaze so momentous, I clasped his hand with my left as well—on top of which, obviously moved, he laid his other hand.

  We were greeted down below by Proharsky. Without a word he took back the keys and wooden weight, and wandered off.

  We walked across town, heading for the office. I slowly began to grasp what he had in mind, that is, the decision he had come to. Approaching by way of Nansen Strasse, with Market Square lying in its full expanse before us, he merrily prophesied that within a short time I would see how everything he touched would turn to gold. He himself had ceased to be amazed that this was so. First he needed an office, a spacious office with a telephone and all the rest. He would be grateful if I could help him find one over the next few days.

  Now I had to laugh. Was he just playing stupid, or was he really that out of touch? With everybody wringing their hands these days in search of a few dry square feet of office space, he wants to be able to pick and choose?

  He plans to announce the opening of his real-estate office in the Weekly. “During the next few weeks of renovations, contact possible only by mail.” By the time the ad appeared, he said, he’d have his business license. He asked me to suggest a name. “LeBaron,” I replied without a second thought. Not bad, he replied, and asked whether Fürst was my life partner’s last name, he had seen it listed next to mine on our door. I nodded. “Well then!” he announced, joy apparently propelling his step. That was the ticket, but even better in the plural, Fürst & Fürst, Prince & Prince, which would probably present few problems, he added, since there was surely no one else by that name in Altenburg. He would, if I had no objection, ask my partner for her consent, a deal that would provide some ready cash for Michaela—he actually called her Michaela.

  What I really wanted to do was invite him to Robert’s birthday party, if only because of the wolf, which Georg’s boys normally take for an afternoon walk. But there have been enough arguments already, because both grandmothers are arriving tomorrow, and Robert can’t be dissuaded from selling newspapers on Market Square. Michaela’s mother insisted on at least keeping Jimmy’s steering wheel. I’ll present it to her tomorrow—the urn of her deceased companion, so to speak. I’m to keep the LeBaron for now.

  You really must meet Barrista, if only to taste his wine and to behold a Hero of Contemporary Literature.

  Hugs, E.

  PS: Georg is still brooding, but breathing calmly and regularly.

  Saturday, March 24, ’90

  Dear Nicoletta,

  There are times when I interpret your silence as a test to maintain my trust in you and not to let my emotions drive me crazy. I go over and over the hours we spent together, searching for some clue as to what I might have done wrong. If only I knew that much! Is my task to discover my own failings? Or have they sent you to Hong Kong? Can Barrista really be the reason for your silence? A single word from you—and I’d have no trouble making that decision. Or is my search for reasons itself presumptuous?

  If the question weren’t so absurd, I’d ask whether you read my letters. Not one has been returned. Which gives me the courage to continue.

  The high point of my second summer in Arcadia was our annual visit to Budapest. Instead of whiling away the night on the train, we flew—the ultimate in luxury. Plus the added benefit that we traveled without Vera, who had a job at a vacation camp on the Baltic.

  Our landlady, Frau Nádori,115 whom as always we paid with bed linens,116 greeted us with an invitation to join her in the kitchen, made us coffee, and puffed away on a Duett from my mother’s pack. She inhaled deep and blew the smoke into my face. (She had been a friend of Tibor Déry’s mother and had helped Déry’s wife out during the difficult days after ’56. The name meant nothing to me at the time.)

  As always we walked up to the castle. This time, however, I was no longer a child—I had my pencil and notepad with me.117

  And then I saw it, the tower! It reigned over the street like one of those all-seeing, omnipotent constructions in a Jules Verne novel. A tower like that could strike us with some mysterious ray or send a life-saving message. But if we got too close to it, it would vanish.

  “Foreign currency hotel”—Frau Nádori’s term for this miraculous tower of golden glass—missed the mark completely. The thing we were staring at was not of this world, and yet stood on solid ground. A UFO—it had inexplicably landed in the here and now and had simultaneously become the crown, the capstone of our own world.

  I’ll never forget my mother’s smile as she entered the Hilton, or her wave to me to follow her. Unmolested by either the police or State Security officers we
made it inside—just as we were.

  You need to know that prior to that I had never seen the inside of a hotel, not even a fourth-class one. We walked across carpets still wearing our street shoes—no one cared. I heard primarily West German and English and one other language, presumably Italian. Plus there was an inexplicable light, neither bright nor dim, and a general hush, even though people spoke here more loudly than on the street. Mostly older married couples were sprawled in leather armchairs, something I had never seen before in public. Some of them had even pulled up footstools to stretch their legs out across them. No one demanded these Westerners remove their shoes. And to my even greater astonishment I saw one of the uniformed personnel heave suitcases and bags onto a gilt cart and push it toward the elevator. They were police, weren’t they? Or were they servants maybe, real live servants, who carried Westerners’ luggage for them? A portal onto the underworld could not have astonished me more than this passageway into the beyond.

  My mother, who evidently wanted to confirm the reality of the species, asked a lanky uniformed fellow, whose hair was cut far too short—were they soldiers maybe?—where one could have a cup of coffee here. He directed her with an open hand to our left, circumvented us with a few short steps, and repeated the gesture. My mother thanked him loudly, and in German. German of all languages, she had always drummed into us, should never be spoken loudly in other countries.

  I recognized the tall, uncomfortable stools from a milk bar in Dresden. I was both disappointed and relieved to see something for which I had some reference.

  My mother closed her purse and shoved it onto the counter. A pack of Duetts crackled in her right hand, the cigarette lay between the forefinger and middle finger of her left, her ring finger and pinkie pressed a brown D-mark bill against the ball of her hand.

  So as not to betray us with her box of matches, she asked the woman working the bar for a light. This time my mother had spoken too low. I had to help her, had to protect her. I went over the question in English several times before I risked asking it out loud. “Do you have matches, please?” I repeated it and blushed. I was less in doubt about the correctness of my English than whether it would be understood outside my schoolroom.

  The pack of matches not only shimmered white, it also bore a flourish of golden letters and lay on a white porcelain saucer. And then the shock: “You are welcome, sir.” The woman had called me “sir” in front of my mother. The phrase instantly suffused my flesh and blood, and I would use it later to the amazement of my English class.

  I took a match from the pack, set it ablaze, and cautiously raised it—for the first time ever—in the direction of the cigarette.

  My mother looked older. The worries of the last few years, my arrest, and finally my expatriation were deeply traced in her features. Her joy in my worldwide success could not change that either. Her only son had been taken from her. When had we last seen each other? It had taken five years for me finally to be issued a visa by the Hungarians. The whole time we had each thought one of us would be sent back at the border, just as had happened so often before at the last moment. But then, incredible as it seemed, it had happened, and mother and son could embrace. Was it not perfectly understandable that words came slowly, if it all, that we simply took silent delight in each other’s presence?

  I had no idea what my mother was thinking as we waited for our coffee and orange juice. I had always found her occasional social cigarette something of an embarrassment, because she preferred to squint and cough rather than give up her imitation of whoever it was she was imitating. But here and now it seemed right.

  I was so charmed by my new role that I despised these Westerners—children, all of them, young and old. How naive they were! What did they know of the rigors of a divided world—they could reach out and grab anything in their world, not to mention ours.

  Gazing through the windows on the other side of the counter, I could see the columns, arches, and fragmented walls of a former grandeur. And above them now rose this tower. From up here the city lay like a gift at your feet, and here I celebrated my triumph. Even Westerners fell silent when they recognized me.

  While I had been dreaming, my mother had ordered a fruit pastry. No, that was for her! The pastry was hers to enjoy, I could have it anytime. But of course to her—and I had booked her into the most expensive room—all this had to seem outrageously new and incomprehensible. She didn’t dare let all this splendor touch her too closely if she wanted to continue to set one foot in front of the other. And so I ate the pastry.

  To show just how at home I felt here, I went to the restroom and sat myself down on the shiny toilet seat—something I normally did only at home. And I have never—ah, Nicoletta, forgive me for such intimate indiscretions—never since taken such a glorious dump. In that same moment, I decided to learn Hungarian.

  I luxuriated in washing my hands with warm water and liquid soap, examined myself in the huge mirror—and liked what I saw.

  My mother was waiting for me. She took my hands in hers and smelled. “How fragrant,” she whispered. And with that we stepped out onto the street.

  At least two roles were available to me over the next few days. I vacillated between that of the banished writer and that of the precocious, observant poet. Only a couple of years lay between the two.

  The next day we made our pilgrimage to Váci utca. Whereas on previous visits I had been on the lookout for devotional trinkets like printed T-shirts, Formula One posters, or records, this time I was drawn to book displays. As if to mock me, the jackets offered the names of authors—Böll, Salinger, Camus—but all the rest was hidden behind an unpronounceable barrage of letters.

  I found myself standing before yet another bookstore, and at first didn’t even notice that I was reading and understanding. Once inside the shop I couldn’t believe what I actually saw. Even when the clerk, protected by a counter from his numerous customers, took the book down from the shelf and presented it to me, I was slow to grasp the reality. It was in German, had been printed in Frankfurt am Main, bore the logo of three stick-figure fish, and no matter how many times I read the title and the first and last name of the author, they remained the same. Impossible as it was, what I held clenched in my hands was Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams.

  The moments stretched out endlessly until I found a chance to ask the price. Slowly seeping into my mind was the certainty that I would never have to let go of this book again.

  If this particular work by Freud was what I wanted, my mother said, then she’d gladly buy it for me. More out of a sense of duty than curiosity, I had the clerk hand me one volume of Freud after the other. Although he was evidently supposed to put each book back on the shelf before he could hand over another, one quick glance over the rim of his glasses and he capitulated, stacking the collected works in front of me. It was a hopeless situation. Even if we had stayed out of the bar in the Hilton and had headed home right then, we still would not have had enough for all the volumes. Can you understand what it was like? Suddenly, as if by a miracle, here was a chance to buy something you couldn’t buy, and now there wasn’t enough money.

  I decided in fact on The Interpretation of Dreams, because it was the thickest and hardly any more expensive than the others. I watched as it was passed on to the cashier, who wrapped it; but no sooner was I out on the street than I ripped open the brick-shaped package to seize The Interpretation of Dreams as my inalienable possession.

  It didn’t matter to me where my mother went now. All I wanted to do was read.

  I began reading on a bench beside the Danube. I read and read and loved my mother for doing nothing but sunning herself and smoking. “Don’t gloat too soon,” she warned me that evening, “it’s not across the border yet.” Never, under any circumstances, was I to admit that the Freud belonged to me—that could, if worse came to worst, cost me high school, my diploma, university, my entire future existence.

  Whenever after that Frau Nádori provided me a r
oom for a week, for the first two days I would rummage through secondhand bookstores and visit the shop on Váci utca. Moderation was pure torment. Every book shortened my rations. I had to decide what I could afford to eat and in what quantity—a strange, bewildering feeling, which I mistook for hunger. By the same token, each book left behind unbought in a bookstore was agony. How could I be justified to write anything as long as I had not read all of Freud—or everything else, for that matter?

  On the flight back the sky turned red in the dusk of sunset. But it was still bright enough that I spotted our building shortly before we landed. I regarded the fact that I had been able to locate it from such a height as an honor bestowed on the place to which we were returning. And for a moment I thought: This is how God looks down on us.

  Enough for now. I have to be on my way. Once again in the hope of receiving a letter today,

  Your Enrico

  Wednesday, March 28, ’90

  Dear Jo,

  And now Böhme too! It just keeps getting more and more absurd. State Security was the de facto founder of our opposition groups.118 The local CDU candidate withdrew when it came out that all members of parliament would be subject to a check.119

  Our most recent issue sold better. There were a few responses to my election editorial.120 One letter said that the people of the GDR had shamed themselves before the whole world. It ended with the sardonic wish that we wouldn’t go bankrupt all too quickly in the capitalist marketplace we so admired. The Prophet reappeared as well. There he suddenly stood in the office, looking from one of us to the other, but without responding to our greetings. He thrust his chin out in triumph, his cotton-candy beard protruding into the room, and then ripped to shreds a sheet of paper—our subscription form, as it turned out. He tossed the confetti into the air. “That was that,” he said, and departed posthaste. The scene proved all the more grotesque, because Fred has assured us that the Prophet’s name was nowhere on our subscription list.