by S J Naudé
The little room is chilly; Etienne pulls his arms closer into his sides. A far-off siren sounds. ‘But most of what I’ve told you, you may as well forget. What you are looking for, those heart-rending rubble films from the 1940s, you will find here.’ She taps on the screen with a blunt finger, on the category defa Fiktionfilme seit 1946. ‘That’s what you’ll get access to.’
Etienne feels drained by the long-winded explanations. Why the information about categories and collections to which he won’t be granted access? He takes a deep breath, tries a shortcut. ‘Do you by any chance have lists of lost films? Film fragments, stills? Or promotional posters? Production notes, storyboards . . . ?’
She turns her head, observes him. ‘What use would you have for those things?’
‘One never knows,’ he says smoothly. ‘Perhaps there are Trümmerfilme of which only fragments remain.’
She shakes her head slowly. Her wet lower lip moves peristaltically, like a naked slug. ‘I don’t think so.’ Her voice sharpens. ‘That history is well-documented. It would be best if you keep to the confines of your permission.’ She hesitates, the protruding eyes opening wide. ‘There are,’ she says, ‘catalogue categories apart from the ones you are seeing now, but you don’t have access to those collections.’
‘And which categories would those be?’
She shakes her head resolutely. ‘Your permission level does not permit disclosure of the categories themselves.’ She places a form in front of him. ‘If you find something that interests you . . .’ She thinks for a moment. ‘That you need, complete this form. In triplicate. We have a projection room. Frau Keller, my colleague, will review and consider your requests. You have to give us twenty-four hours’ notice. Not a minute less.’ Each request probably has to be approved elsewhere, Etienne reckons. By bureaucrats in dim cubicles, behind bunker concrete. Or in overlit offices with plastic phones and synthetic carpets.
He tries again. ‘I would also be keen to get access to films that were classified as degenerate art by the fascists. And censorship certificates from that time.’
She pouts her lower lip above the negative incline of the chin. ‘As I said, material outside your field is not accessible. This archive is for specialist research.’
She looks at him in silence, exits and closes the door. It has a layer of sponge for soundproofing, like in a cell or institute for the mentally ill. What sounds has it had to dampen? If you pressed your ear against the sponge, would it release the absorbed information?
He turns the knob. The microfilm catalogue starts moving. His face is reflected in the screen; lists of film names scroll over his forehead and cheeks.
Chapter 23
In the weeks that Etienne has been here, he has spent far less time in West Berlin than he had originally planned. He has, indeed, only been there once. He has been occupied by his life in the East: long days at the film school or archive, and long nights with Nils at parties in bombed-out buildings, where they drink beer in the cold eastern winds. After that night on Nils’s single bed they have not undressed each other again. For Etienne it was a moment of hesitation and forlornness. He has not had the urge to repeat it.
Axel will not let Etienne go, keeps whispering at him. Etienne cannot make out the messages, but it is his voice: behind the noise of trams, or in the windy wake of underground trains. The vapour of his breath hangs in the quiet streets. Etienne sees him: in profile behind windows, loitering in the city haze. He fears that winter will cause Axel’s mutterings to freeze, will bury his footsteps under snow.
It is especially in the gaps, cracks and breaches that Axel keeps appearing. One evening at dusk Etienne is on the bridge above Warschauer Strasse s-Bahn station. Rubber wheels are hissing on the tar. A red moon is rising over a river of gleaming tracks. Halfway down the stairs to the station a little light lures Etienne closer. In a bridge pillar, a shrine has been carved out: Mary with Jesus in her arms. A battery is protruding from Jesus’s back; light is shining from his heart. When a train thunders by in a shower of sparks, he sees it: Baby Jesus has Axel’s face. In the radioactive glow of the moon and the infant’s neon heart, Etienne suddenly feels ill. He drops to his knees. ‘You’re an island of fire, Axel. I’m trying to hear what you’re saying, I want to answer you.’ People are scurrying past. He wonders whether his words emerged in English, German or Afrikaans.
One evening Etienne accompanies Nils to an exhibition of the work of arts students at Humboldt University. It is in a dilapidated old brewery in Mitte that still smells of fermentation. One work immediately draws Etienne’s attention: the skeleton of a minotaur. Body of a bull, head of a human. Axel would have liked this, he thinks. He studies it close up. Has it been built up painstakingly? Or carefully carved out – rib by rib, vertebra by vertebra?
‘The skeleton of a bull, in part. With plaster of Paris components added to it.’ Etienne’s ear instantly places the accent of the voice behind him. He turns around. The man is smiling broadly in the electrical light. ‘Mthuthuzele. You can call me Mthu.’
‘Etienne.’ They shake hands. Etienne points at the minotaur vertebrae where they curve up to the human neck. ‘I can see it now, yes. The colour and texture changing subtly.’ Etienne concentrates on his self-taught British cadences, closely observing Mthu. ‘Are you the artist?’
‘No,’ Mthu laughs. ‘A friend of mine.’ He gestures vaguely at a group of students. ‘I’m also studying at Humboldt, but in a different field.’
‘A different field?’
The sharp light above them translates Mthu’s smile into a grin. It is the first time Etienne has ever met a black South African who is not a manual labourer. Here in East Berlin, pondering the skeleton of a minotaur. His cheeks are burning with shame.
‘Usually, of course, it’s the other way round,’ Mthu says. Etienne looks at him questioningly. He points at the skeleton. ‘The body of a human and the head of a bull.’ He smiles. ‘But enough of skeletons. Shall we go and grab a beer?’
Etienne hesitates, then gestures over Mthu’s shoulder to Nils, who is engaged in conversation, that he is heading out. Nils looks at Mthu, then back at Etienne.
The Kneipe that they go to is a sombre place; the only other patron is a silent old man. The fluorescent light above their table emits cold blue light. How sickly his pale skin looks in such light, Etienne thinks.
‘So, what’s your field of study?’ Etienne asks when their beers arrive.
Mthu takes a swig. ‘First tell me – what do you do?’
‘Studying anti-fascist film in Potsdam.’ His tone lies somewhere between satire and self-justification.
Mthu is silent for a while, his mouth pulled askew in the unnatural lighting. Etienne can’t gauge his expression. ‘I’m being trained in counter-insurgency and revolutionary strategy at Humboldt. With others from South Africa, Mozambique, Angola . . .’ The cool light catches the white of Mthu’s eyes. ‘You’re from South Africa too, aren’t you?’
Etienne looks away, says nothing. Pins and needles in his cheeks again.
Mthu sits forward. ‘There is work to do, you know. We organise things from here. The liberation in South Africa is coming, but we need hands. And minds. They are equipping us here, giving us money.’ Mthu is silent for a while. ‘Join us,’ he says. ‘You have connections that could be useful to us.’ He flashes a blue smile. ‘Very useful.’
Etienne feels the blood cooling in the back of his neck. What does this man know about him, about his ties? When Etienne says nothing, Mthu continues: ‘Surely you understand: here you are either in or you are out.’ Mthu calmly swigs beer. ‘This is your chance, my friend. Opt in.’
Etienne lifts his beer, takes a mouthful. It is all so sudden, so direct. His heart is beating fast. Mthu bends down, takes something from his backpack under the table. Etienne’s hand clenches around the cold bottle.
It is a cassette that Mthu produ
ces; he puts it down in front of Etienne. He doesn’t touch it. ‘What is this? What’s on it?’
Mthu laughs. ‘Don’t worry. It’s not explosive intelligence. Or plans for treason. It’s music, comrade. Music for the revolution. I think you’ll like it.’ He takes something else out, puts it down on the table: a bright red Sony Walkman.
Etienne looks down. Not at the cassette or device, but at Mthu’s long, well-shaped fingers. He lifts his hand, strokes with the tip of his finger along a bulging vein on Mthu’s forearm. Mthu pulls back swiftly, shifting his chair back. He looks down at his arm in astonishment, as if a cockroach has crawled across it. Then he looks at Etienne. The corners of his mouth turn down. He gets up, leaves money next to his beer and walks out.
Etienne looks at the banknote on the table. Depicted on it is a woman sitting behind the control panel of a nuclear station.
Whatever had possessed him?
Later that night, he and Nils are in Etienne’s room. ‘I have to tell you,’ Nils says. ‘One afternoon last week I heard something in your bedroom. When I peered in, old Drechsler was there—’ A tram rattles past in Pappelallee, crossing Stargarder Strasse. ‘There she stood, looking at the pictures on your wall—’
‘The storyboards?’
Nils nods. ‘She studied each of them, taking notes. Possibly took photos too.’
Etienne nods seriously, but he feels like laughing. Of what conceivable use could those drawings be to anyone? He looks at Nils, at his sharp nose and delicate hands, the meditative intensity of his eyes. How accessible he suddenly seems!
‘You once asked me why I’m here, Nils. Well, I’m looking for a film. Or rather for my beloved.’ The word beloved hovers strangely on his tongue. He assesses the aftertaste. All he can discern are the autumnal coal fires of Berlin, the air that mixes so acridly with memories of love. One gets used to the pungency; after a while you have to think about the air in order to taste it. Etienne continues, tells Nils more than he had intended to: how he left South Africa, his summer in London, how he met Axel. Etienne looks at the washbasin while talking. Nils is listening patiently, Etienne sees from the corner of his eye, head bowed. He talks about Berliner Chronik. About Axel’s disappearance, his encounter with Matthias, Christof and Frederick, with whom he is going to play gay industrial rock. ‘But Axel . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘I don’t even know where to start the search. How can someone just vanish like that?’
There is a long silence. ‘Perhaps,’ Nils says, rocking slightly, ‘you shouldn’t tell me so much. Remember where you are.’ It is too dark to make out Nils’s face. The next train shudders past in Pappelallee, resonating in Etienne’s jaw. He feels a cold draught against his neck muscles, which have been contracting in a painful spasm since his afternoon in the planetarium.
After Nils has gone to bed, Etienne studies the cassette that Mthu gave him. Nothing is written on the plastic case. He takes out the cassette. Written on it with felt-tipped pen, in childlike letters, is the word koos. He takes out the paper lining of the case, unfolds it. Written on this is sing jy van bomme? Are you singing of bombs? Written with the same felt-tipped pen.
He picks up the red Walkman, wondering whether the earphones might explode against his temples. He puts it on, screws his eyes shut, presses Play. His skull doesn’t shatter. It is a song in Afrikaans, but unlike anything he has heard before. Punky and dissonant, pissed off, anarchical. The lyrics are: ‘We shall sing for the sleeping ones who dream of violence and blood. We must sing for the harmless ones who make bombs boom! boom! boom!’ koos must be the name of the band, then? And ‘sing jy van bomme?’ the track’s title? He plays it again. This time it sounds like avant-garde jazz, with an industrial weft. There is nothing else on the cassette.
He takes off the earphones, listens to the silence. Where would Mthu have tracked this down? Etienne thinks of the guards on their towers in the death strip, changing shifts in the dark, the glowing ends of their cigarettes briefly engaged in a dance. He suddenly wonders whether a sliver of space might have been available to him in South Africa after all, whether his solo exile really was the only way out. Then he thinks about Mthu’s recruitment effort. How carefully he and his fellow counter-insurgency students must have targeted Etienne with this rare piece of Afrikaans punk, all the way from South Africa. He takes the cassette out of the Walkman, slips it back into the case, puts it under his bed.
Etienne’s pockets are filled with bits of paper. A note with Matthias, Christof and Frederick’s phone number, an address of their shared flat in Kreuzberg. Another with names from Irmgard’s diary. Bösel the cameraman, Stahl the sound engineer and Schwarz the lighting specialist. Irmgard’s diary provides no more than functional nuggets of information about their tasks and skills. Whether they were Jews is unclear. Did they rise into the skies as ash decades ago, either from concentration camps or in Allied firestorms? This search remains an impossible task.
Etienne can’t provide anyone with a phone number: Frau Drechsler’s grey plastic telephone, exhibited in the Berliner Zimmer, is not available for receiving calls. ‘I had to wait four years to get a phone connection,’ she says. ‘And now I don’t want to be bothered constantly by lodgers’ calls.’ She allows calls to be made at a fee, provided the duration is less than ten minutes. When Nils phones his parents in Dresden, she times his conversation with a stopwatch.
She is always at home, old Drechsler. Nobody visits and she doesn’t call anyone. On Etienne’s way in or out, he has to pass her in the gloomy Berliner Zimmer. She is guarding her phone. And the radio. And the food in the pantry. And her washing machine. Doing one’s laundry attracts a fee for each washing cycle. He and Nils consequently stuff the washing machine as full as possible. This does not escape her attention. These days she weighs the bundles, charging by the kilogram. Soon she will probably start issuing invoices for toilet visits. Even under Frau Drechsler’s roof, the values of Marx and Engels have to yield to entrepreneurial cunning.
Etienne seeks out Frau Drechsler where she is sitting in front of the black-and-white television. He greets her with a nod. She gazes at him impassively.
‘May I use the phone directory, Frau Drechsler?’
‘What for?’
‘To look up the number for Frau Finkel, the film school secretary,’ he lies. She hands him the directory, reaches for her stopwatch. He takes the directory back to his bedroom. She starts getting up from her chair, trying to formulate an objection. He closes his door. Why should he thumb through it under her supervision?
Anton Bösel. The name of the cameraman. According to Irmgard’s production journal, there are initially two cameramen. Later, when finances become tight and the atmosphere increasingly menacing, just Bösel remains. Etienne keeps scanning the directory pages. What luck – there are only seven Bösels in all of East Berlin! Three have a as one of their initials. He looks up Schwarz and Stahl. Hundreds of each. He cleanly tears out the page with the Bösels, scrunches it up and sticks it into his pocket.
Back in the Berliner Zimmer he hands over the directory. He smiles serenely, walks out the front door. He will yet come to regret provoking Frau Drechsler in this manner, of that he is sure. He heads to a Telefonzelle on Schönhauser Allee. He takes coins from his pocket, and the crumpled page. He arbitrarily selects an A Bösel. With the coins in his palm, he changes his mind. He will not overcome suspicion and resistance in a telephone conversation. He stands a far better chance by arriving on someone’s doorstep. Three addresses, three destinations.
He takes the u-Bahn. The first address is in Mitte, a block of flats near the Hackesche Höfe on the deserted western edge of East Berlin. He knocks on the door; there is no response. At the second address, in Friedrichshain, an old woman opens the door slightly. She shakes her head when he starts telling the story of the Benjamin film. There is incomprehension in her eyes. Then naked suspicion, fear. She interrupts him: ‘I don’t know anybody
who is involved in movies or tv or anything like that. I come from Dresden,’ she adds, as if that explains everything. As if evading an official interrogator. She shuts the door.
He takes the u-Bahn again, gets off at Magdalenenstrasse station. From Frankfurter Allee he turns into a side street, the crumpled phone-book page in his hand. He stops in front of a Plattenbau block. The flats look like modules stacked on top of each other by a crane. A woman answers the intercom. There is a long silence after he has rattled off the story of the film and his search for it. For a moment he thinks the intercom has been disconnected. Then she mentions the name of a hotel bar on Frankfurter Allee. ‘Meet me there.’ The little speaker crackles, cuts out.
He is sceptical, but walks back, finds the hotel. It is in a modern building, communist architecture. The bar’s interior, a faux-Bavarian space, is out of step with the exterior: fireplace, dark wood, idyllic pictures of reindeer and snow. He waits. For almost forty minutes. Just he and a bored waiter. It is stuffy in there. The winter sun is shining through the window. The air smells of old carpets and dry wood; the windows can’t open. He looks at his watch. He should have known: she just wanted to get rid of him. Just as he gets up to leave, she walks in. Middle-aged, a pale-green dress, brown hair in a bob. She looks around, sits down opposite him.
‘Can I order you something to drink?’
She doesn’t want anything. He orders a bottle of Hungarian Riesling for himself. Bugger his student budget, he thinks. He is celebrating prematurely and recklessly: perhaps today there will be a breakthrough.