by Hari Kunzru
Finlay gave him a sharp look. “My diversity surveys?” Edgar stared blandly back, so he continued. “Any fool can see that biases are built into these systems, and unfettered information-gathering is going to be abused. People of color understand that only too well. Why is it so hard for you to accept that we need protection from intrusion?”
The wagging finger made another appearance. “Typical. You’re always demanding a government agency or a corporation disclose things to you, but what are you claiming for yourself, in your little basement, the grubby hiding place of your soul?”
“The grubby—Jesus Christ.” Everyone looked surprised, and I realized I’d spoken out loud. Edgar made a sour moue and turned his attention to me.
“People could be hiding anything.”
“Oh really?”
Alistair put a hand on my arm. “Come on, now.”
Finlay shook his head. “It’s obvious you don’t see the racial dimension to this. Black people been struggling for our humanity over centuries now and one of the weapons you always use is to classify us, reduce us to statistics.”
“Humanity?”
The word seemed to spark deep in Edgar’s amygdala, lighting up some primitive anger node. I don’t believe he intended to bring his hand down on the table as hard as he did. The effect was startling, a violent eruption. He didn’t notice he’d knocked over his glass. I watched red wine spreading across the starched white tablecloth as Edgar subjected Finlay to a verbal mauling.
“Do people consider you a serious person? You have an actual academic position? Quite apart from your outrageous race-baiting, how can you honestly believe the space of evolutionary possibility is bounded by your fuzzy arts-brain notion of the ‘human’? Besides, I thought all you people were poststructuralists or postmodernists or whatever it’s called this week. You all hate the human! A face in the sand! Wash it away in the tide and hurrah, let the orgy of perversion begin! Well, here’s the damn tide! That’s what I’m saying. You ought to be pleased about it, but instead you’re just whining. I wish you’d make up your minds.”
For a moment we were all stunned. It was so vicious that we didn’t know how to react. Finlay was ashen-faced. His hands fluttered up to his tie, instinctively checking the knot. He swallowed and got up from the table. “Well, I’m sorry to break up this lovely party but I have other things to do. There is a major world city on my doorstep and I have friends who are charming and well-mannered. I’m going out dancing. With my friends.”
This ought to have been Edgar’s opportunity to apologize. He didn’t. As Finlay left, he ignored our appalled looks and settled back in his chair, dabbing his mouth with a napkin.
“The problem,” he said, in the grave but assertive tone of a pedagogue who has dealt with a churlish heckler, “is that the so-called right to privacy is antisocial. Society has a lot of interests. Preventing crime and terrorism, freedom of expression, and so on. Privacy conflicts with them all, every last one. Our patron, Herr Deuter, understood that.”
He went for his glass, presumably to raise it to “our patron, Herr Deuter,” and discovered the wine stain on the tablecloth. Annoyed, he craned his neck to see if any of the waiters were in the room.
“All smoking outside the kitchen door, I expect. Same as usual. They congregate out there. I’ve pointed it out to Frau Janowitz more than once.”
That night I could not bring myself to lie in bed, knowing that it was possible I was being watched. Only the bathroom seemed safe. I lay uncomfortably in the bath and thought about Edgar, shuffling around his bed, pale as a grub. I thought about Otto the porter and his case of guns. On the morning of their suicide, Kleist and Henriette left their inn and walked out to the lakeshore. They ordered coffee to be brought to them at a spot where there was a view from a little hill. The landlord’s wife grumbled. It was too far, and so cold. Kleist promised to pay the servants for their trouble, and asked that they also bring some rum. Testifying later to the authorities, the maid who carried the tray described them as looking very happy, chasing each other around and running down the hill to the water like children playing tag. They were happy, I thought, because they’d found an ending, a narrative shape to their lives.
I got out my phone and sent a text to Rei. Things weren’t so good with me, I wrote, but she shouldn’t worry. It was all part of the process. I liked the sound of “process,” which had a plausibly therapeutic ring, as if I were “working through” my problem, or better still, “doing the work.” I wrote and deleted several sentences which smacked of self-pity. I told her—in a businesslike tone, or so I hoped—that I wouldn’t be in touch again for a little while, but when I did, it would be with good news. As I wrote this, I understood dimly that I was flailing. I had no idea what kind of good news I could produce, what rabbit I could pull from my psychological hat. I sent it and then switched off my phone so there was no way I could receive a reply.
I woke up the next morning before dawn, to find myself lying on the bathroom floor. There was no blind or curtain on the window, and a security light outside gave the walls a faint orange glow. I’d made a sort of nest with my bedding, and as I lay there, unable to get very comfortable, I came to the conclusion that I had no real evidence that the bathroom was any more private than the bedroom. It was just an assumption, a product of cognitive bias.
Little by little, the orange light faded to a uniform pale gray. I heard the distant sound of a train and an amplified voice making an announcement at Wannsee station. The light grew brighter. A car went by on the street outside. Time passed. I may have gone back to sleep. The next thing I heard was a knock at the door to my apartment, a pause, and then the buzzing sound of the bolt withdrawing as a keycard was passed over the sensor. Something heavy hit the door frame and a female voice cautiously called out “Herr Professor?” I couldn’t muster the will to respond. After a few minutes, the shy cleaner entered the bathroom carrying an armful of fresh towels. Shocked to see me, she swore under her breath and began to back out again.
“You keep the floor spotless,” I said to her, as if that would explain why I was wedged in a corner next to the toilet. She was holding the towels defensively in front of her chest. There was something feral about her posture, a wild creature on alert, ready to flee.
“I come back later.”
“Don’t go. Please.”
Why did I choose her? To be honest, only because there was no one else. I felt no particular connection to her. Almost the opposite. There was nothing in her previous behavior to suggest that she’d be sympathetic to me. But I had to talk to someone, and I didn’t have many options. I could have said something to Finlay. He was the nearest thing to a friend I’d made at the Deuter Center, but I didn’t know if he’d care to involve himself with the messy underside of my life, and even if he listened without an ironic smile turning up the corners of his mouth, he was unlikely to understand. I did have friends, people I’d known for years, but something happens to men in middle age, to male friendships. You get focused on your work, your family, and somehow you fail to keep up. Before you know it, you haven’t heard from the people you think of as closest to you for six months, then a year; you’ve missed birthdays and new children and house moves and changes of job, and inevitably you wonder if your friend is resentful or angry at you for being so distant, and it feels artificial to phone them and invite them out for a drink and more so if your ulterior motive is to ask them for help, to ambush them by bringing up the creeping sense of dread that has hollowed out your life. When Nina was born, I’d sent round photos and made a post on a social media site, basking in hundreds of messages of congratulation. But little children are exhausting, and on the rare occasions when you’re not trying to catch up on work after they’re asleep, it somehow feels better to open a bottle of wine and sprawl on the sofa with your partner than to head out to some noisy bar to swap stories about jobs and money with someone you us
ed to do drugs with in your twenties. You tell yourself you’re getting on fine without them, these men who used to be your friends, and you are—until you need someone to talk to, someone who knows you, who knows who you used to be before you became who you are.
So I looked up at the cleaner, this slight nervous woman hovering in the bathroom doorway, wondering how to escape from me and the various possible threats I represented, and I put on what I hoped was a charming smile and, in German, asked her name. There was such a long pause that I thought she wasn’t going to answer.
“Monika,” she said, finally.
“Monika, I know it sounds stupid, but can I talk to you?”
Another drawn-out pause. “OK.”
“I think—and I know how this sounds—that I’m being watched.”
She stared at me, her mouth slightly open. I thought I saw a flash of anger in her eyes.
“This is some kind of joke?”
“No.”
“I want you to know it’s not funny.”
I was confused. I don’t know what reaction I’d expected, but she seemed, of all things, offended.
“Honestly, I just want to—to tell someone, and try to explain, to see if it’s—well, to see if…” I trailed off inarticulately.
“Who’s watching you, here in the bathroom?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think they’re watching me in the bathroom. It’s why I came in here.”
Whatever slight degree of certainty I’d possessed had already drained away, to be replaced by a sense of utter pointlessness. I felt abolished, physically wiped out. My German was falling apart, so I asked to switch to English.
“Look,” I said again. “I know how this sounds.”
She shrugged. “Why do you think it is happening?”
“It’s not easy to say. To be honest, I may be losing my mind.”
She eyed the tangle of pillows and blankets on the floor.
“You went to sleep here?”
I saw the situation through her eyes. The man in the bathroom, probably drunk or medicated, more or less admitting he was in the midst of a nervous breakdown. She put the towels down on the edge of the bath.
“Maybe you need to talk to someone.”
“This is what I’m saying.”
“I mean a doctor. A—what is the word—Psychiater.”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. Not yet. I’m not in a good way, but there’s something else, not in my mind. Something external.”
“I don’t understand. What do you want from me?”
“Let me tell you about it, and maybe you can give me some idea—I mean, you know this place. You work here.”
“As you say. I have five more bedrooms to clean before lunch, then the offices.”
“Please.”
“Why is this my problem? I don’t know what you want.”
“I just—I don’t know. You seem like you’d understand.”
“You know something about me?”
“No, nothing.”
She was on her guard again. The same tone of offense.
“You swear it?”
“Of course. I didn’t even know your name until you told me.”
“You’re not a journalist.”
“No. Why would you ask that?”
“You’re not writing some shit for an American magazine.”
“I don’t understand. About what?”
I got to my feet, staggering slightly. Instinctively she stepped back. Again, I realized the difference in our sizes.
“I don’t mean to scare you.”
“I must go.”
“Please don’t.”
My distress must have been convincing, because she stopped recoiling. Her thin lips contorted themselves into a sort of wince. “Eat something,” she advised. “Maybe this is what you need.”
“OK.”
“So I have a question.”
“OK.”
“Are you going to kill yourself? Remember, you have a wife. A little kid, right?”
“How do you know that?”
“I clean up your shit, remember. You have a picture on your desk.”
“Oh. OK.”
“So tell me.”
“No. Of course not.”
“Good. So I can go.”
She picked up the towels and her bucket of cleaning supplies and clicked the door shut behind her. I had the feeling that I’d been efficiently managed.
She was right about eating. I felt light-headed with hunger, and however real my problems, they weren’t going to be helped by an additional layer of low-blood-sugar anxiety. Clearly there was no way I could go down to breakfast, so I pulled on some clothes and walked to the café by the station. I sat at a table by the window and ate a stale pastry, washed down with two cups of coffee. I stayed for a long time, maybe two hours, pretending to read a copy of Bild that someone had left on a nearby table, ignoring the waitress’s outrage. The headlines were about the refugees, the repercussions of Chancellor Merkel’s promise that the nation would handle the influx of people fleeing the wars in Syria and Afghanistan.
Then I saw Monika, making her way down the street outside, hands jammed into the pockets of her big army coat. She came into the café and ordered something at the counter. As she waited, she turned round and saw me there.
“You again.”
I held up my hands. She took her drink and came over to my table. “You know, if being in Berlin is making you feel bad, you should go home.”
“You’re probably right.”
“This has happened to you before?”
“What?”
“Thinking people are watching you. Paranoia.”
“No.”
“You take drugs?” She mimed smoking.
“No. I mean yes, sometimes, but not really. Not for a while. You want to sit down?”
She took a seat opposite me, unbuttoned her coat, stuffed her gloves into its pockets, and unknotted a thick woolen scarf from her neck.
“Your wife is beautiful. Why don’t you talk to her about it?”
She saw my look of suspicion.
“Why not go home to her. Say you are thinking these things.”
“I’m supposed to be making myself happy. That was the arrangement. I would come here and sort myself out.”
She laughed. “You came to Wannsee in the middle of winter to be happy?”
Even I could see that was comical. “I’ve put too much pressure on her. If I don’t find a solution, I think she’ll leave me.”
“I’m sorry. But why do you think the crazy bastards at the Deuter Zentrum are watching you?”
“Well, they are, aren’t they? Everyone’s watching each other all the time. The spirit of openness. Transparency.”
“Oh, I hate all that shit.”
“Haven’t you worked there for a long time?”
“Yes, but I’m not interesting to watch. I’m just a woman who scrubs the toilet.”
She looked at the time on her phone. “I must go.”
“OK.”
“But look, if you want to talk some more, that would be OK.”
“Really?”
“Sure, why not?”
And that was how we came to be floating together in the undersea world of the Chinese restaurant the following evening, as the brightly colored fish swam in the tank by our heads and the blue light turned our food ghostly shades of purple and pink.
“Tell me one more time,” she said. “You’re not a journalist.”
“No.”
“This isn’t some shitty way to get an interview.”
“No, why? I mean, I don’t want to be rude, but you said it yourself. You’re a cleaner. Why would a journalist want to talk to you?�
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“You don’t know about being watched,” she said, as she served herself another helping of greasy duck fried rice. “Not really.”
Later, when I tried to write down her story, I couldn’t capture it exactly. I made notes, but I didn’t catch her tone of voice, the strange quality of her telling, which slipped in and out of German and English, the rhythm of hesitations as she searched for a word or checked to see if I’d understood.
“I’m telling you because I think it will help you,” she said. “No other reason.” Then she sighed and shook her head. “No. I’m telling you because it is easier to tell someone who isn’t part of it. Not German, I mean.”
I wrote it down, not because I wanted to publish it—I have stayed true to the promise I made her, at least until now—but because it seemed important. The events she described were both frightening and close at hand, though they’d taken place in a country that no longer existed, under a system that had vanished into history.
She had grown up in the East. She had been, she said, what they used to call a “Negative Decadent,” an enemy of the Workers’ and Farmers’ State. She lived with her family in Marzahn, in one of the big new housing projects. It was a shitty place, a shitty life. Not just because the people were such assholes, the boys all dumb as planks, drinking beer and living for the next BFC Dynamo game, but because it was shitty to live in a country where everything was run by old men. A whole country, reeking of piss and schnapps and cabbage soup.
ZERSETZUNG
(Undermining)
HER FAMILY WERE HAPPY ABOUT IT. It was a big deal to get one of the new places. The entire district was a building site, a showcase for the socialist future. Her father had put them on the list for a new car. She reckoned she had about five more years before she turned into one of the horrible sows who gave her the evil eye from behind their net curtains when she walked past with her friends. Five years of life. At weekends she’d take the train to Alexanderplatz and hang around with other teenagers. Sooner or later they were always chased away by the police. She hated the ride home. Sometimes, as she waited for her train, she thought about climbing down off the platform, kneeling and touching her cheek against the third rail.