New Lives

by Ingo Schulze

  I found it a bit much when Georg and Jörg extended hands across the table and Georg then held out his hand to Marion and me as well. Eyes glistening, he departed. Hardly a moment later, Ilona was standing before us. Fred appeared just behind her.

  “Have a seat,” Jörg said. In those three words, in his simple “Have a seat,” were the ease and authority that proved Jörg the born boss. At last he could speak as he wanted.

  A couple of sentences later and Ilona jumped up from her chair, clapping her hands. Fred could no longer suppress his smile. They didn’t need a lot of explanations. The disaster was not a disaster. It was just that no one had dared think like this before.

  Three articles, Ilona exclaimed, holding up three fingers, three little articles was all that Georg had managed to produce over all these weeks—three! Fred growled that he knew enough businesspeople we could get advertising from if we really wanted.

  Suddenly the baron was standing at the threshold again. And what decision had been made? From his very first sentence he fixed his eyes on me, as if I and no one else were responsible for all this. He did truly hope he would be spared such childishness in the future. He was accustomed to being able to rely on his business partners. There was no point in agreeing to a plan that no one was going to follow through on. As Jörg attempted to raise an objection, Barrista didn’t even look his way. Only after I said that he need not fear any further annoyances of this sort, nor any delays, did he seem satisfied.

  That was precisely what he wished to hear. The baron promised that for his part he would not disappoint me, and from his attaché case he extracted four packages, which he now distributed, remarking that we all had children who would enjoy an early Easter bunny.137 He disregarded all our thanks and testily went on to say that he had no intention of keeping us from our work, but he didn’t want to depart our office while still in our debt. As a small demonstration of support for the paper—and in the hope of his ad being effectively placed—he wished to pay in full, in D-marks, which he hoped would be agreeable.

  No sooner had he completed this sentence than the telephone rang—which until then had remained miraculously silent. We could hear voices coming from the vestibule. In three shakes of a lamb’s tail we were all busy, and when I looked around again for the baron, he had vanished. The exact sum lay before me on the table.138

  When I got back from my rounds in the countryside that afternoon, Marion was at her typewriter. “There you are!” she cried in delight. From now on she would like to write Georg’s articles, and by doing so ease my workload.

  At which point I made the mistake of suggesting we address each other by our first names. Her face froze, her eyes bounced about in all directions. “Why not,” she finally said, extending a hand. “Marion.”

  “Enrico,” I said, and then fell silent. Thank God the telephone rang. “Our special friend,” she whispered, and held the receiver out to me.

  I had never experienced the baron so beside himself. They had canceled his room at the Wenzel, and he didn’t want to get upset again, but just wanted to inquire if I perhaps knew where he could spend the night, after that he had other quarters, just the one night. I invited him to sleep at our place.

  By the time the baron rang the bell at nine thirty every bit of eager anticipation had vanished. Robert and I had raided the grocery shortly before seven. Robert was really looking forward to the baron and his wolf and remembered to get the pickles that the baron had found so tasty the last time, plus dog bones. We made potato salad as if it were Christmas. Michaela had a performance, Hacks’s Schöne Helena, which has officially been taken out of the repertoire, but because it’s an ensemble favorite—there’s a role for every idiot—they’re still cranking it out a few last times.

  We began eating around nine, so that the deviled eggs decorated with little swirls of anchovy paste were already gone, and obvious inroads had been made on the platter of cold cuts and the potato salad—only the two little suns cut from apple slices, which Robert had arranged on saucers, were still shining, though a bit more dimly.

  If it had been up to Robert, I would have had to go on forever telling stories about Georg and “Herr von Barrista.”

  When the bouquet and, behind it, Barrista himself finally did appear—bouquet is hardly the right term for such a burst of jungle flora—all our expectations revived in one fell swoop. Our vases were all too small, the whole apartment was transformed into a dollhouse.

  The baron didn’t torture Robert on the rack for very long and handed him the new Bravo and—to Robert’s jubilation—a baseball cap, whose two intertwined letters I at first took to be two knucklebones.139

  When Robert asked about the wolf, Barrista put him to a little test of his courage by handing him the car keys. He could go ahead and free Astrid all on his own.

  “If you need money,” the baron said as soon as we were alone, “do not scruple to ask me. I can only advise you to buy in now!”

  What do you suppose he meant? Up to that point I hadn’t even admitted to myself what he now spoke of openly. Yes, I did hope to take Georg’s place at Jörg’s side as an equal partner. I asked what it would cost me. The amount, he said, was not the problem, almost any sum could be justified. I’d have to find out whether Georg was actually prepared to give up his share.140 Should Georg demand twenty thousand or more—that was twenty thousand D-marks, by the way—he suggested that I ask for time to think it over first, which tended to hold the rush of speculation in check. The Schröders, that is Jörg and Marion, didn’t have that sum in ready cash themselves. Twenty thousand D-marks, however, were mine to use at any time, and he was certain I’d be able to pay him back the entire amount by autumn, with the rate of interest equal to the rate of inflation. “Do it, and if only for your boy,” he concluded when we heard Robert at the door. Astrid trotted in.

  Barrista isn’t the sort of man you respond to with a hug. But I feel as if my wishes and longings are in better hands with him than in my own, as if he is constantly shaking me out of a kind of daze and asking: Why are you sitting at the children’s table? Come over here, join me, join the adults.

  The baron thanked Robert, addressing him, however, with the formal pronoun of one adult to another, and had nothing but effusive praise for the handsomely set table. I told him that it was quite all right to still use the informal pronoun with Robert. If that was the case, the baron said turning to him, he would be happy to do so, but then he had to insist that Robert call him Clemens and use the informal pronoun too. Turnabout was fair play. It would be on those terms or not at all.

  The next chance I got I whispered to him that neither Georg nor Jörg had said anything about money, but he responded with a smile and said under his breath that now wasn’t the time to talk about this.141 Then he dug in with the same gusto he had shown on his first visit, just nodded with his mouth full when I offered to warm up what was left of the sausages, and went on chatting about pop music with Robert. He pulled a couple of CDs from his attaché case and smiled because, unlike me, Robert knew how to hold them so that the plastic box opened easily.142

  In the baron’s presence Robert seemed incredibly grown-up. He even took to heart all the things Michaela was always preaching to him—he sat up so straight in his chair he looked almost ridiculous.

  Robert inquired about where the baron lived. “Here and there,” was the answer. Since his divorce his things were stored at his mother’s, and he lived in furnished rooms all over the republic. By “republic” he meant the Federal Republic of West Germany. His son was fourteen years old,143 and what was more, his name was Robert too. He even looked a little like our Robert. He extracted an envelope of photos from his attaché case. He was right.

  Robert’s questions became increasingly more specific—where did he spend Christmas, where did he go on vacation, what were his hobbies? And each time the baron responded with angelic patience and candor.

  He once again declared how, except for himself, he knew no one who interp
reted the job of a business consultant the way he did, that is, who invested in speculative projects by being paid his fee in shares of them—because he had no problem sharing the risk for his own decisions—provided his advice was followed. “Actually,” the baron said, without taking his eyes off Robert, “it’s a matter of trust. And since far too many people nowadays no longer even trust the word of a gentleman, I have to deprive them of a bit of their tidy profit.” He hastily chewed a pickle and then continued, “Thus far everyone who has paid me with shares has regretted doing so. They could have had it all at less cost, far less.”

  And after yet another pickle, he provided his summary: “I make money out of ideas in order to have money for my ideas.”

  What did that mean, making money out of ideas? Could the baron divulge one of those ideas to him?

  “And who can assure me,” the baron replied, “that you won’t take it and earn a pile of money and I’m left out in the cold?”

  “Because I promise I won’t,” Robert said, as if perfectly accustomed to carrying on such conversations.

  “I read each weekly issue very carefully,” Barrista began. In the latest he had found two articles that instantly gave him an idea. Could Robert guess which articles those had been—he had sold the same paper, after all. Robert looked at me, I shrugged. The baron meant the committee that was supposed to provide new street names by June. “Well? Any lights go on?”

  Robert blushed.

  “What’s the first thing a businessman does when he arrives in Altenburg?”

  “He goes to his hotel,” I said.

  “Wrong! Utterly wrong! How does he know here his hotel is?”

  “He stops and asks someone.”

  The baron covered his eyes with one hand. “And what if it’s one o’clock in the morning?” he asked. “A businessman,” Barrista cried in triumph, “drives to the nearest gas station and buys himself—a map of the town!”

  We vied with each other to inform the baron that gas stations are closed here at night. With a single gesture he brought us to silence. “I swear to you,” he said, and it sounded in fact as if he were swearing an oath, “that within a year there will be maps at gas stations here at one in the morning. Our maps of the city!”

  The baron pulled out a note card and began scribbling. “Before we award a printing contract, we need to have calculations of costs and profits in our pocket.” Robert stared at him as if hypnotized. The entire project would be financed by the ads bordering the map.

  Deducting all costs, that would leave a profit of approximately three thousand marks. We nodded approval. And that was excluding the sales revenues. And who in Altenburg wouldn’t want a map with the new street names? And why just in Altenburg? Why not Meuselwitz, Schmölln, Lucka, Gössnitz? And who said that there should be just one map for Altenburg? Those three thousand marks had suddenly become thirty thousand, sixty thousand. “Let’s say,” the baron concluded, “we’re talking about clear profit—that will amount to between forty and eighty thousand, forty to eighty thousand D-marks. Just takes a little organization. Gentlemen, money is lying in the streets of Altenburg. And this idea is my gift to you.” And with that he handed Robert pencil and note card and leaned back.

  The performance was over. We didn’t know what to do—clap, say “Thank you,” ask questions?

  But the big bang still awaited us. Caught up in the mood, I thought I had to present my own brilliant idea and proposed that the same people who approached shops and firms for ads in the map should canvass for advertising in the paper as well. Robert nodded.

  I could see a goo of potatoes and sausage in the baron’s half-open mouth.

  “What?” he asked, chewing more quickly. “You don’t have a sales force?” I shook my head.

  “No agents in the field, no canvassers, or whatever it is you call them here?”

  “No,” I protested.

  “You…” he began, hurrying now to swallow, “you sit in your editorial offices and wait for people to come to you?”

  I replied in the affirmative.

  “And Frau Schorba?”

  “She’s the exception,” I said.

  The baron burst into terrible laughter—and swallowed the wrong way.

  I can’t describe the entire evening for you. But it ended strangely. For it suddenly occurred to Barrista to say that he had been able to keep his hotel room after all. This was followed by an abrupt departure.

  We walked with him to his car, a red Saratoga. As he said good-bye he put on a cap, one identical to the one he had given Robert. As he drove off a taxi turned down our street, and Michaela climbed out of it.

  At first she was taken aback, then she went into a tirade about how it was way past Robert’s bedtime. She felt his forehead—he actually did have a slight temperature. We transplanted the jungle bouquet to our biggest stoneware pot. It’s now standing on the living-room floor and the fragrance is enough to befuddle you.

  I thought about the maps and a sales force, slept fitfully, and awoke as frazzled as if the night had cost me as much energy as the day before. But just the thought of Robert picked me up again.

  My plan was to greet Georg warmly and ask him straight out to sell me his share. I planned to offer him ten thousand D-marks for starters.

  Michaela had a headache and stayed in bed. I promised I’d be back as soon as I could.

  When I entered the office, I abandoned all hope. Georg, Jörg, and Marion were sitting cozily together drinking tea. It sounds absurd, but I had come too late. I had missed my chance by about half an hour.

  Their friendliness, or better, chumminess was a cruel blow. I was given a cup of tea and a large piece of Marion’s cake. The fact that today of all days was her birthday seemed to seal my fate.

  But then everything turned out differently.

  One of Georg’s boys suddenly let out a howl in the garden, and Georg went to see what was wrong.

  From across the table Jörg remarked that everything had been cleared up, that I didn’t have to worry about a thing. Georg wanted a nice clean break, that was all. And now it was up to me whether I wanted to take on Georg’s share and from here on out put my head on the block with him, Jörg, and share full responsibility. He didn’t want to place that burden on Marion, the paper shouldn’t be their family enterprise. I didn’t have to decide right off, but it would be a load off his mind if I could find my way to saying yes.

  I drank my tea sip by sip and waited until I thought I could reply with a firm voice.

  It’s two in the morning, and I hope I’m tired enough now to finally get some sleep.

  Your E.

  Wednesday, April 4, 1990

  Dear Nicoletta,

  I have no idea whether or not my letters ever reach you, not to mention whether you read them. But as long as none is returned or you don’t expressly ask me to spare you my story, I’d like to continue to write them.

  I didn’t hear anything from Geronimo for a long time. At the start of his junior year, he had moved to Naumberg, to a preparatory seminary there, whose three-year course was not officially recognized, so that he would de facto graduate without a diploma. Now and then he sent greetings my way in letters that he wrote to a few girls in our class.

  Astoundingly enough, at the start of my junior year I was accepted into the school choir and by November—hidden among the baritones—had already taken part in a performance of Brahms’s German Requiem. This isn’t the place to describe either our music teacher or what rehearsals with him were like, although those hours as a singer—even a very mediocre one144 are the only classes I can recall without chagrin.

  It was in the choir that I also first saw Franziska, a ninth grader, the daughter of ***,145 whom everyone knew, and not just in Dresden—a man able to do, yes, allowed to do anything he pleased. Her existence was known to everyone in the school.

  Franziska sang soprano, wore jeans and tight-fitting sweaters, and had smooth black hair. The decal on her shoulder bag was no le
ss exciting than she herself: “Make love, not war!” During rehearsal I always took a seat on the aisle so that I was as close as possible to the sopranos seated on a slant across from us. It was months before Franziska returned my greeting. When out of the clear blue sky she asked me if I didn’t want to join her class for their dance lessons—there was a surplus of girls—I saw my dreams already fulfilled. But nothing ever came of the promised dance lessons, and she turned me down all the many times I invited her somewhere. Nonetheless I lived in the certainty that I would one day win Franziska over.

  I tried my hand at writing poetry and had moderate success in contests called “Young Poets Wanted” that were part of the “Poets’ Movement of Free German Youth,” a term that strikes me much funnier now than it did at the time. We were to write “friendly” poetry—that was one of the maxims I recall being inculcated with by a friendly, indeed downright jolly, older man who had, it was said, succeeded in writing a perfect poem about a Bulgarian jackass, although I never came across it.

  I was not considered a great talent or a precocious wunderkind—terms that, if not used often, were not uncommon either—but was sufficiently stuck on myself that I was firmly convinced my day would come.

  Vera was leading a bohemian life, or so my mother and grandfather called it. She delivered noon meals for People’s Solidarity, for which she was paid two hundred marks a month, plus insurance and a meal for herself—and a person could live on that. Since Vera smoked like a chimney and was forever in need of money, she also worked as a model at the Art Academy—which soon developed into a career of sorts.

  From the late ’70s to the mid-’80s there were a good many paintings and sketches by Dresden artists that showed a woman with a broad catlike head and auburn hair, frequently nude and looking lost, but sometimes also as a carnival queen. Vera is not a beauty, but she didn’t have a GDR face. I can’t explain to you just what a GDR face is, but you recognized one at once.146 Vera soon had enough connections and money to be able to dress elegantly. Sometimes she was even taken for a visitor from the West.