The Tower

37. An evening in Eschschloraque House

Jolting and creaking, illuminated by the murky light of the upper station and a few lamps in the interior of the car, the suspension railway left the passenger bay and sank on its rail under the horseshoe steel supports into the open and down towards the valley. It was a cool evening in late autumn. Judith Schevola was shivering in her thin coat, Philipp Londoner had lent her his scarf, which she had wound round her neck like a ruff so that only the tip of her nose and her coolly observant eyes were visible; with an oversized flat cap, such as UFA film stars used to wear with knickerbockers, her head threw a bat-like shadow.

‘If the guard at the top had asked to see my identity card one more time —’

‘— you’d have exploded.’ Pulling down the scarf, Schevola gave Philipp a mocking glance. ‘Perhaps he could tell that and decided not to risk it. Who knows, perhaps that’s a reaction that’s become more frequent recently from people who’ve been to see Barsano.’

‘They dismiss these things as if they were nothing. Barsano didn’t even look at the document. As if he were getting that kind of stuff daily now. He smiled and gestured towards the buffet like a … bourgeois old fogey. And you …’ He nodded at Meno. ‘… hang back, say nothing and keep your head down when one of your superiors —’

‘You know very well you’re talking nonsense, Philipp,’ Meno broke in calmly. ‘What is there I could say about your theses and figures? I haven’t even read them.’

‘I must speak up for him. He really stood up for my book and just because Redlich supported him doesn’t make that any less courageous. You came barging in with your position paper.’

‘Came barging in my arse! I’ll tell you something. The meeting was actually arranged to discuss points that came up in the Institute’s paper. What you writers had to do with it is a mystery to me; perhaps he just invited you out of cowardice, as a let-out … After all, one or other of his reptilian secretaries will have prepared him on the subject.’

‘Philipp …’ Meno nodded a warning in the direction of the conductor sitting, motionless, at the controls at the other end of the car. Philipp was unimpressed. ‘OK, if you insist, they’re not reptiles, just toadies, jellyfish! — And that’s a standard answer anyway: I’m not familiar with this, I don’t understand it, submit it to those whose responsibility it is.’

‘Is it Barsano’s responsibility?’

‘Don’t you realize what’s at stake here, Judith?’

‘You call her Judith, aha,’ Meno broke in, surprised. ‘You’re getting loud,’ he hurried to add when he saw the two of them exchange glances.

‘Eschschloraque would have a witty response ready for that. Something like: Beethoven is still Beethoven no matter at what level the volume control is set,’ Philipp said in a fairly arrogant tone of voice. Schevola breathed on the window, wiped it, tried to see out. ‘And you think he’ll be happy to see us. Not everyone likes unannounced visitors. Especially not here in East Rome. Perhaps he’s an evening type and is working on one of his plays in which nightwatchmen are chairmen of the State Council in disguise.’

‘That I’m coming, he knows, that you’re coming, he doesn’t. Surprises stimulate him, he says. — And you haven’t answered my question, sweetheart.’

Philipp, Meno thought, had a peculiar sense of humour now and then. Judith Schevola seemed amused by the nickname and the use of the familiar ‘du’, perhaps she’d heard them more than once already. ‘We’ll continue the discussion outside, Comrade Professor, we’ll be there in a moment.’ Lifting up her face, she mimicked the hard-boiled vamp: ‘Baby.’

Philipp rang the bell when Kosmonautenweg came in sight. The car slipped into the stopping bay, shuddered as it came to a halt; the car going in the opposite direction had stopped on the other side. Meno saw two passengers sitting in it; they nodded to him: Däne, the music critic, and Joffe, the lawyer, who seemed to be having an animated conversation. Perhaps about the Semper Opera House, which was due to be reopened on 13 February, perhaps Joffe was asking Däne about a composer for an opera since he’d written a crime libretto from which Erik Orré had performed some gory street ballads the previous winter. The doors creaked open, Philipp gave Judith his hand to help her alight, one of his inconsistently bourgeois courtesies, as Marisa would have said; Meno was tempted to ask after her but decided not to. After a short wait, during which no other passengers appeared, the conductor set off again with the empty car. Gesticulating vigorously, the critic and the lawyer glided on uphill.

‘Since we’re talking about modes of address, shouldn’t we use the “du” to each other?’ Judith Schevola sat on the handrail and tried to slide down but the drizzle had made it tacky. Philipp Londoner laughed, gave Meno a friendly, condescending pat on the shoulder, ‘Want to bet he says no, Judith? With me he was as coy as a young virgin even though I’m the brother of his ex-wife. I’ll never forget what you said to me: “There’s nothing we’ve been through together that would justify such a step, we haven’t fought together yet, we don’t yet know what we should think of each other.” Meno, our little warrior. What made you say that?’

‘As long as it doesn’t give you another opportunity to mock me — experience. I don’t like being disappointed, that’s all. And I don’t like disappointing other people either.’ He turned to Judith Schevola. She was watching the other car disappear like a brightly lit bathyscaphe in the tangle of the steel supports. ‘I don’t want you to feel insulted but I think it’s better if a certain distance between author and editor is retained. What would you do if, while addressing you as “du”, I tore one of your chapters to pieces?’

‘I’d say, “You arsehole” — using the familiar “du” — and bear it with a smile.’

‘Why don’t you give it a try, Meno? Vain as she is, she certainly won’t laugh.’ That evening Philipp was clearly enjoying provoking her.

‘Vanity’s when you can say to your image in the mirror: so you had a bad night too? What about it?’ she said, turning impatiently to Meno.

‘I’d prefer to sick to the more formal “Sie”. You just wait and see, you’ll be grateful to me for it one day. Moreover I never want to see you as a moaning minnie. There’s something off-putting about wailing geniuses, they lose status, and familiarity leads to the sight of rooms with dog ends and mouldy biscuits lying all over the place. Not something for me.’

‘Well, that’s that sorted out then,’ Judith Schevola replied, somewhat put out.

‘I suspect a man’s never refused you something in such a matter-of-fact way before.’ Philipp grinned. Suddenly his expression darkened again. ‘Let’s get on. If we’re going to surprise Eschschloraque, then at least let’s do it punctually.’

Kosmonautenweg was a series of steep winding bends, ending at steps that led through romantic woodland, held back by walls, down to Pillnitzer Landstrasse. In winter the steps were slippery, anyone going up had to pull themselves up laboriously by the rail, carrying the shopping they’d had to do in the town on their back, like a mountaineer, in order to keep both hands free. In the summer there was a smell of moss, it was damp and cool as a gorge on the steps that cut through between Eschschloraque’s house and a guarded property, the entrance to which was blocked by a broad iron gate; the park had been allowed to run wild. Rumour had it that Marn, the right-hand man of the Minister of Security, would come here to recover from the stresses and strains of his responsibilities in the capital. A further set of steps linked Kosmonautenweg with the higher parts of East Rome, they were hardly wide enough for one person on foot and now, when the autumn rains had begun, full of rotting leaves on which it was easy to slip; the wooden handrail was rotten and longish sections had completely broken off.

‘How’s your nephew doing?’

‘Not particularly well, I assume. He’s got to go into the army soon. Three years.’

‘I have pleasant memories of that evening in your garden,’ Schevola said after a while. ‘I thought your nephew — he’s called Christian, isn’t he? — was, in a strange sort of way, nice.’

‘What d’you mean, in a strange sort of way? Are you going in for baby-snatching now?’ Philipp laughed but it didn’t sound genuine.

‘Very charming you revolutionaries are. But for you lot revolution’s a male thing anyway.’

‘When it comes to fighting, yes.’

‘While your wives are at home warming your slippers. By nice in a strange sort of way I mean that normally I can’t take a man I call nice seriously. Your nephew’s nice but I still take him seriously, that’s what I find strange. He seems to know a lot. Perhaps a bit too much for his age. And he’s attractive to women. Interestingly, he doesn’t seem to be aware of that.’

‘I hope you’re not going to put that idea into his head,’ Meno warned more brusquely than he intended.

‘Don’t worry,’ Judith Schevola replied, ‘I don’t believe he’s unthinking and carnal enough to climb into bed with a woman who’s twice his age and could therefore be his mother. There are men who, in a certain way, always go to bed with their mother and others who hate that. He probably belongs in the second category.’

‘Young things belong together.’

‘How tactful you are, Philipp. From mature women young men can learn what sensual fulfilment and discretion are. And they’d soon lose the desire to play war games.’

‘You have an uncomfortable way of assessing other people,’ Philipp remarked, hurt. ‘You often base it on mere outward appearances.’

‘Don’t you start getting profound with me, Comrade Professor. — Revolutionaries! You only have to scratch the surface a bit and the home sweet home appears. And a kitchen with a stove and a red-and-white-checked tablecloth with a cosy samovar making heartwarming drinks to go with the cake.’

‘You’re accusing me of that? Me? Of being a bourgeois old fogey? I think you need someone to knock some sense into you.’

‘Don’t worry, my friend, there are lots who’re trying to do that. By the way, you’re welcome to bring your little Chilean woman along. I was never particularly taken with middle-class morality.’

‘Here we are,’ Meno said.

Eschschloraque’s house was built into the slope. A dilapidated-looking bridge, with cannonballs in iron baskets and chains between them as a guard rail, led from the wrought-iron gate, a bent bee lily at the top, to the first floor of the foreign-looking building set amid gloomy firs. The street lamp on the steps down to Pillnitzer Landstrasse cast a faint light over the gable and part of the roof that, with its ornamental shingles, looked scaly, like dragon’s skin. ‘Cinnabar House,’ Judith Schevola murmured, reading the inscription written underneath a rusty culverin between half-timbered gables.

Eschschloraque flung the door open, surveyed Philipp, who still had his hand stretched out for the bell push, then Meno and Schevola. ‘We’re busy with glue,’ he said, nodding for them to come in. ‘For the more advanced part of the evening we had thought of lectures on repetitions and preservatives. Anyone who has something to contribute to that should not be shy and raise their hand; and it would make the quality of the Michurin dinner seem forgivable should anyone urgently desire to correct something even while chewing. Albin!’ he cried to the smiling young man waiting behind him in the hall who seemed to favour the same pastel-colour suits as Eschschloraque, although Albin’s was an iridescent lilac and Eschschloraque’s the silvery shade of fishes’ fins. ‘We have visitors.’

Albin was wearing a monocle and introduced himself with a bow, sketched a kiss on the hand for Judith Schevola. ‘Albin Eschschloraque, whether pleased to meet you remains to be seen. I’m — the son. My father gave me strength and height, my lack of application. My mother, I beg you, nothing at all. Welcome.’ He pointed to a row of sandals and through the barely furnished hall into the living room. It was like the spacious cell of Japanese monks that seemed to receive them with a severely elegant mien; a sparse room, not made for putting your feet up in the evening; two desktops on roughly hewn sections of tree trunk stood facing each other, some distance apart, like proud, unapproachable chieftains, a plank, sticking out into the room from a bookshelf, like a springboard, held a few little bonsai trees up to the bright white of a spotlight. On the sofa under it Vogelstrom, the painter, was sitting with a sketchbook on his knees; he’d torn out several pages and placed them down in front of him on the low wooden table with the clearly defined wavy grain. The ‘Michurin dinner’ kept its head down in a stainless-steel cart. The most striking thing in the room was an aquarium where, in pleasant, slow motion, colour-coordinated choreography, a wide variety of tropical fish alternated in the dreamy oxygen bubbles of its clarity.

‘Philipp, my friend, before you reveal to me how understanding Barsano was of your, I’m sure, polished, trenchant report, sparkling with figures, I’d like to ask you to cast your eye over my aquarium. Can you tell what heinous deed this individual’ — he pointed to Albin, who was still standing by the door, arms folded — ‘committed against my darlings, against their Mozartian weightlessness? And you, Rohde, you who are usually slitting allusions with red commas, can you see it? Ah, Fräulein Schevola, you who have Schiffner piping like a billy-goat, demonstrate your gift for observation undimmed by that fine bottle of Scheurebe, the label of which you were just examining.’

‘You have to admit,’ Albin explained, detaching himself from the door frame and approaching, theatrically limp-wristed, ‘that it can’t have been easy. The slipperiness of fish in general and of their tail-fins in particular, thin and gossamery as they are, resists the adhesive power of even the best glues. And then glue is water soluble-ollubel-wollubel, oh yes.’ He giggled extravagantly. ‘But in this country many things are possibul. Even special adhesives. A spot on every tail-fin, slight pressure in the hollow of your hand — they wriggle like butterflies — then straight back into their element. See, it sticks, they’re heading pointlessly in different directions.’

‘You’ve stuck the tails of my most valuable fish together,’ Eschschloraque retorted, taking a ham sandwich from the Michurin cart. ‘Was it an ideological test? This way or that? What were you up to?’

‘Science, Father. The gentlemen wanted a report.’

‘Science! That is a deity to whom I will gladly make a sacrifice.’ Eschschloraque picked up a net and took out the two fish that had been stuck together. ‘I’ll show you, Albin.’ He waved over his son, who adjusted his monocle suspiciously. ‘You’re going to do me ill, sir. Even Vogelstrom has noticed and is covering the caricature, which is not me, in tinder and fungus.’

‘Oh, just come here.’

With one bound Eschschloraque was with Albin, who had stepped towards him, grabbed him by the cheeks and tried to stuff the fish in his mouth. Albin didn’t spit them out but bit into them and chewed, stretching the second fish like a rubber toy animal and tearing it off. He threw it back into the aquarium, where the fish, injured and with only half a tail-fin, swam behind a stone. ‘I need something to help me digest it. Are there no bitters there?’ Albin rummaged round in the cart. ‘Typical, they always forget them.’

‘You misbegotten son of mine.’ Eschschloraque calmly lit a cigarette. ‘If you want to be a dramatist and outshine me, you’ll have to think up better things than that. Although I do admit —’

‘— that I’m making progress? Have you any idea, dearest Father, what it cost me to acquire that special glue. I had to make serious sacrifices.’ In a pretence of indignation Albin let his monocle fall out. Judith Schevola leant over to Meno — while all this was going on they’d sat down on the sofa beside Vogelstrom, without his either uttering a word of greeting or looking up from his sheets of paper — ‘Albin resembles a castrated seal, don’t you think? The apples on his tie are so … tasteful. Should I get you a bowl of peanut puffs?’ she whispered. Meno looked at her out of the corner of his eye, she seemed determined to enjoy the scene to the full. ‘How do you know what castrated seals look like?’

‘Do you mind if I smoke, Herr Eschschloraque? — I have inclinations of which you know nothing,’ she said to Meno, letting the first smoke dribble out of her nose.

‘Would it perhaps not be better if we left?’ Philipp asked; the expression on his face had become cold.

‘Why the hurry, my dear guests? Are you not enjoying yourselves?’ Eschschloraque gave a mocking smile. ‘So what did it cost you, sonny? By the way, I suggest you check your gestures in the mirror. I know that it’s a cliché that pooftas make poofish movements, but you’re doing it like the worst possible actor.’

‘I must get it from you.’ Albin slurped his coffee with relish. ‘Always Goethe, Goethe, Goethe and nothing else … And then the most you get is amusement, a bite with your false teeth. A couple of jokes snatching at the Holy Grail when in fact it was just a cake tin floating past. Raspberry sauce instead of blood … The fate of the clown.’

‘Do you know what it is that he holds against me?’ Eschschloraque flicked cigarette ash into the aquarium. ‘The fact that I’ve seen through him, right through to the aqueous humour of his expressionless eyes. He’s so desperate, deep down inside he loves me, that’s the problem, but he would rather the floor swallowed him up than descend to sentimentality …’

‘It was you who called me Albin! Albin! Only ducks or penguins are called Albin. How can one be taken seriously with a name like that!’

‘Yes, that’s it. Can you imagine that a dramatist who’s called Albin can be really good? Talented fathers almost never have talented children, they say. But does that mean that talented fathers should deny themselves the joy! of having children? That was what occurred to me at the moment when I … hmm, let’s say: set you off on your journey. I should have acted in a more responsible way.’ Eschschloraque scrutinized his son’s face, which he held in the harsh light under the bonsai shelf, to see what effect his words had, innocently opening wide his long lashes, silky like a woman’s. ‘The pleasure was at best moderate, anyway.’

‘Even wearily fired cannons can hit the mark.’ Albin was white as a sheet, though his movements were calm and measured, not even the flame of his lighter trembled as he lit himself a cigarillo.

‘That’s enough, the pair of you.’ Philipp stood up, waving his position paper. ‘We’ve more important things to talk about.’

‘If you think so,’ Eschschloraque replied.

‘Damn it all, no one’s listening to me. Here you are, indulging in your private quarrels, which, I have to say, I find in pretty bad taste, especially in front of —’

‘— your guests?’ Albin broke in, unimpressed. ‘So what? Let them learn how far admiration can go. Guests? They don’t bother me,’ he went on with a smug pout.

‘I think the way the pair of you are behaving is not only in bad taste but immature. Surely in a family it must be possible to treat each other normally, naturally —’

‘Normally! Naturally!’ Eschschloraque sounded amused. ‘Two pathologists are discussing their clientele. “He was an artist. He died a natural death,” one says. “So he killed himself?” says the other. My dear Philipp —’

‘Eddi —’

Albin burst out in a fit of squealing laughter that Eschschloraque cut off with the remark that it sounded silly rather than genuine, that people who had imaginary complaints often laughed in that way. — Complaints! Albin laughed even louder. Then he suggested they should listen to Philipp at last, for what would become of revolutions without position papers. Passing over the comment in silence, Philipp, head bowed and hands clasped behind his back, raising his fingers to emphasize his succinct exposition, started to explain the ideas his planning staff had come up with. They concerned the reform of economic policy, a topic that clearly bored Judith Schevola, for she started peeking over Vogelstrom’s shoulder. The artist was sketching Philipp’s face in various stages between indignation and fervour until Philipp concluded, ‘You’re no more interested than Barsano was’, and dropped his arms in resignation. ‘If not even you, for whom socialist ideals still mean something, will listen to me …’

‘For which of those here do socialist ideals mean something?’ Eschschloraque asked, jutting out his chin imperiously. ‘Rohde’s a mere opportunist, inscrutable and taciturn, a mole perhaps; Fräulein Schevola’s interested in anecdotes and striking episodes for her sassy novel; Vogelstrom in his doodles; and that one over there —’ he pointed at Albin sprawled out in a free corner of the sofa with a grin on his face, sucking like an addict at his cigarillo — ‘is no socialist. He’s an enemy, a counter-revolutionary, worse still, a Romantic. Perhaps he’s even a Wagnerian, that would be worst of all. He desires our collapse, Philipp, one ought to —’

‘Yes, yes, I know what “one” ought to do. “One” ought to inform on him, that’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? As was the accepted thing in the era you think of as golden. You’d have handed me over without hesitation, a father his own son. Come on now, how many did you grass on?’

‘What a way to speak, you young whippersnapper!’ Philipp broke in angrily. ‘After all he is your father.’

‘That’s all right,’ Eschschloraque said with a wave of the hand, ‘I’m not afraid to answer that. I reported — to use a term I consider more appropriate — those who were against the system —’

‘Really against or only apparently? Or did you “report” them to save your own skin? By the way’ — Albin turned to Philipp — ‘I can’t remember having suggested you call me “du”. I’m not a child, you know, and we’re not poets or underground musicians, among whom it’s customary. For my part, I prefer the distance of the formal “Sie” since it opens up unknown territory. Anyone who uses the formal mode of address sees poetry and underground music as a country of vast, uncharted landscapes rather than a provincial place where everyone knows everyone else and no one can see any farther than the walls of their own back yard. A person who uses the formal mode of address is insisting on the dignity of his own specialism because he is thus saying that it is by no means exhausted, and anyone who cannot see that is simply demonstrating that he is on a lower level, a lower level of thinking, of understanding others.’

‘Sounds familiar. Is that irony?’ Philipp asked in an ironic tone, nodding to Meno.

Eschschloraque surveyed his son with an indulgent look. ‘You know the word impertinence, you look through the lens of contempt but you do not honour the word investigation and you do not like the word improve, my son. What do you know about those times …? I didn’t need to save my skin, as you put it. I was and am a professed supporter of the order established by Stalin and I’ve never made a secret of it. — And “secret” in that expression,’ he said turning to Meno, ‘is a neuter noun, not masculine as I read recently in one of your publications. The corruption of the times is increasing, for it is the corruption of morals, and morals, like vegetables, start to go bad in little details.’

‘Details, is it? Nicely formulated. Always nothing but words, Father. What’s your opinion of the murders, to mention one of those, er, “little details”? Or do you deny them? The chistka? Did it never happen? All imperialist propaganda?’

‘No. In the big picture, the murders were necessary. Desperate times must not leave you desperate for means. The Soviet Union was surrounded on all sides, what should the Moustache do? What would you have done in his place? Waited until civil war had torn the land apart? Waited until the fascists conquered Moscow?’

‘I would have thought about whether the good things that were written on the standards were worth the evil they were starting to cost. He had the old Bolsheviks killed, his comrades from the revolution. He wasn’t concerned about the country, about the well-being of the people, all he was concerned about was power.’

‘He trampled the idea of socialism underfoot!’ Philipp exclaimed in agitation. ‘Are you out of your mind, Eddi? Am I in the company of madmen?’

‘Ah, now we’re back with the repetitions,’ Albin said. ‘You said that the last time you were here.’

‘Trampled the idea of socialism underfoot … Huh, that’s the way children talk who know nothing of the harsh hand of time, who do not know that the gap between weal and woe crushes those who hesitate indecisively.’

‘Just listen to my father! So strong the iron hand of time that right can only flourish in the land if we do wield the baneful sword of wrong, of wrack and ruin …’

‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.’

‘Should I thank the hand that strikes me?’

‘You hate the hand that feeds you.’

Albin stubbed out his cigarillo, lit a new one, at the same time offering his finely tooled leather case around but only Judith felt like trying one. ‘England hath long been mad, and scarred herself; the brother blindly shed the brother’s blood, the father rashly slaughtered his own son, the son, compelled, been butcher to the sire. — I have a letter. A charming, truly informative letter, a carbon copy of it, to be precise; I always carry it with me, although that’s not necessary, since I know it off by heart. A document. Listen.’ Albin leant back, blew out smoke and began to recite: ‘ “My son is the offspring of a musician and a writer and will therefore, as far as genetics allows us to judge, also seek to make his mark in the world of art and it was thus my duty as a caring father not only to show him my love, to assert it with words, but to prove it by (the uncomprehending majority will have little sympathy but we have drunk of dragon’s milk) — by doing something that was designed to make a life beside my shadow possible: I have disowned him, he will have acquired injuries but that has not, as far as I can tell, killed him; pain and sorrow: that is the propitious foundation for an artist; now he has something to write about, he does not need to live from hand to mouth, as would probably have been the case had I made things too easy for him. But that is the most important thing for an artist: his works. So as a good father I had to see to it that he had something to work on. He has strength and needed something he can fill with that strength; that I have given him, and to say that doesn’t look like a father’s love is a petty-bourgeois way of thinking and suggests the lack of a sense of particularities, also the lack of a sense of the laws that determine one’s fate that I, in less high-flown Romantic fashion, prefer to call the shape of one’s life. You may rest assured, my esteemed friend, that I do not willingly lay bare these confessions, but recently you adopted a posture such as certain heroes do in certain melodramas when they brandish their swords and mostly wish to find out what their names are (as if that would change anything). Selah.” ’

Eschschloraque waited, no one said anything. He calmly spread his arms. ‘So? What am I? A pipe-smoking jackal?’

‘But you smoke cigarettes. No, no. You’re right.’

‘You say I’m right?’

‘Why not? I wouldn’t like to have a son like me. I’m in favour of the death penalty, but I hate Stalinism.’

‘My God,’ Philipp murmured. ‘You’re both mad.’

‘That is the remark of someone who doesn’t know life and doesn’t know it because he doesn’t know himself and he doesn’t know himself because he has never been compelled to get to know himself.’ It wasn’t clear whom Eschschloraque was addressing, his son or Philipp. Both stared into space.

38. National Service

… but the tram set off, leaving behind it Simmchen’s clockmaker’s shop, Matthes’s stationer’s, the ticking wall clocks at Pieper’s Clocks, 8 Turmstrasse, the babble of voices in Wiener’s hairdressing salon, where Colonel Hentter fought out old battles with polystyrene heads and curlers for little boys waiting for a fifty-pfennig haircut and ladies under the hairdryers leafed through yellowing copies of Paris Match; Christian did not turn round and look back at the street, he thought, I’m coming back; Malthakus bent over his stamps, photographic series from the former German colonies on New Guinea: names such as Gazelle Peninsula and Blanche Bay, Empress Augusta River and Bismarck Archipelago, which Siegbert, looking up from his comic books of seafaring adventures, had told him was where Corto Maltese and Captain Rasputin had met Lieutenant Slütter; Christian closed his eyes so as not to see the children, satchels on their backs, trotting along to Louis Fürnberg High School, past the recycling depot, the clink of empty bottles in plywood boxes, the blue one-ton scales you weren’t to rest your hand on when the tied-up bundles of newspapers were being weighed, a wooden flap separating the customers from the blue-coated woman in charge of waste paper; in his mind’s eye Christian could see the chemist’s and Trüpel taking a record out of its sleeve and showing the silky black disc to a customer, shiny as a top hat and recommended by the Friends of Music; the train set off, on the right the Schlemm Hotel disappeared — there Ladislaus Pospischil would be serving widows sticky, richly coloured liqueurs to go with their memories of pre-war splendours, all Viennese elegance as they spooned up their cake; the bus stop kiosk was left behind with its numbers of Filmspiegel, under-the-counter copies of the magazines Für Dich and the Neue Berliner Illustrierte with a black-and-white photo of Romy Schneider, beside Deutscher Angelsport and Sputnik and FF Dabei, in which Heinz the ‘awkward customer’ told amusing stories about the Night of the Celebrities in the Aeros Circus; the Tannhäuser Cinema disappeared on the left, at that time of day there was no boy standing looking at the posters for Once upon a Time in the West and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger that Robert and Ezzo were to go and see again and again until they could join in the dialogue, until they knew what Hyperborea was where the mysterious people of the Arimaspi lived and until they gave up trying to be able to reproduce Sinbad’s fabulous throw — his dagger nailed the mosquito that had been swollen by Zenobia’s magic juice to the doorpost of the cabin — with their penknives; the sanatorium was left behind, the Soviet soldiers strolling around in bandages, hobbling along on crutches, Lenin’s silver-plated plaster head in the middle of the spa gardens, the heating plant with the conveyor belts spilling ash, the Kuckuckssteig path below Arbogast’s chemical laboratory

… but the tram was travelling, and his father had said, ‘Goodbye’, Ulrich, ‘Keep your chin up, lad’, Ina that he just shouldn’t start to cry; only Anne had said nothing and made him a mountain of sandwiches and had been all over the place for treats, and Kurt Rohde had scribbled a couple of lines on a postcard that Christian knew was in the bag round his neck, a card from the Danube delta, a melancholy hoopoe was sitting on a tree staring out over water and reeds: in the first place life is short and in the second it goes on; Meno had said, ‘Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day’ … day, day echoed in his memory like a bell tolling; Christian dug his hands in the pockets of his battledress and slipped forward to expose a greater area of his body to the underseat heating, pulled his case in out of the corridor: it had stopped raining, the window was covered in strands of watery hair, the passengers getting on and off left moisture on the grooved surface of the floor; he felt for the box of books with the tip of his toe: Reclam paperbacks, stories by Tolstoy, Gorki’s The Artamanovs, Meno’s Old German Poems, a few volumes from the Hermes-Verlag’s ‘Black Series’, he wouldn’t turn into a cabbage, he wouldn’t forget language, that was what he feared most — that they would manage to cut out part of his brain

… but the tram was travelling and he had a strange experience, he was sitting in a place where he was not yet present, he was still walking along Wolfsleite and Mondleite and was on the way to the House with a Thousand Eyes; he could still hear the Stenzel Sisters’ gramophone tunes in Caravel, watch Kitty doing her ‘Müllers’, enjoy the quietness in Wachwitz Park, where October made furious peace with the clay court outside the Roman Villa and its windows that couldn’t help the light casting itself on them so lavishly, the bushes looking like waiting cats spattered with honey and the fire of the rhododendrons already dying in the afternoon; he was still walking round the park, seeing the gardening implements, wheelbarrows, bottles of propane gas, and thinking of fleeing: to stay here, to be here, screwed up his eyes: the world in orange, opened them: reddish brown and ochre flitting through the tops of the beeches, leaves tilting like the visors of tiny sentries, speckled with rust and definite, there were still gossamer threads of spiders’ webs floating through the air and he tried to catch them with outspread fingers, as if they were tissue hanging down from the cloud-steamers and he could unravel them or fly along with them like a little boy; but he couldn’t, he was sitting here on a grey seat in one of the red-and-white-painted Czech Tatra trams — and was yet still there; it was as if he were the shadow and the other Christian the man of flesh and now congealed blood (do I have everything with me? Conscription papers, military identity card, in a moment of hysteria he pulls out the bag round his neck, Kurt’s card is already dog-eared), and he, the shadow, were attached to the other at every point of his body by thousands of untearable but enormously elastic threads that were tearing him off, molecule by molecule, and filling the shadow (like swimmers who were attached to the edge of the pool by rubber ties and tried to swim a length, did thirty or forty metres then fought to at least touch the other end with their fingertips, their arms going round like the sails of a windmill, whipping up the water into foam, then the swimmers gave up, pretended to be dead and floated back, face down — but he was torn off)

… for the tram was travelling, he looked at the Elbe opening up in a wide curve on the left, on the other bank was the Käthe-Kollwitz-Ufer, the three high-rise buildings before Brücke der Einheit, blocks made with prefabricated concrete slabs stuck into the silhouette of the Old Town, he walked round the Old Town once more, as he had done the previous day: the Academy of Art seemed to be letting its shoulders droop in the blinding white sun, cranes were revolving over the Semper Opera House, the ruins of the Frauenkirche stretched the stumps of two charred arms up to the heavens, the Catholic Church of the Royal Court of Saxony lay athwart the river like a portly duck and seemed to be baked in sleep amid the agitation of the morning traffic; the Elbe, covered in grey-brown scales, resembled a dinosaur lethargically creeping forward and at this moment the other, the more real Christian was sitting with Niklas on the chaise longue in the sparkling brightness of the music room, his parents, Lothar Däne, record shop Trüpel, Ezzo and Reglinde, Gudrun at the table with the filigree Meissen place settings, Gudrun’s father, bearded, morose and ignored in the armchair by the veranda: guests at a birthday party, musicians from the State Orchestra were standing in the hall recounting gossip, Robert was looking over Ezzo’s angling equipment in the children’s room, Christian was sitting beside Meno, who, as always, was quiet and observing the others; the tiled stove twittered softly, Niklas was fussing about with the arm of the record player, brushing the sapphire needle, checking the speed setting, he was going to play Weber’s Freischütz, with which the Semper Opera House was to reopen on 13 February, it had been the talk of the town for months.

… but the tram only stopped briefly on Rothenburger Strasse, allowing commuters heading for Sachsenplatz and Äussere Neustadt to alight, picking up schoolchildren and their teachers with their exhortations, office workers with briefcases under their arms, Christian thought of Muriel, the news that she was being sent to a reformatory had got round the neighbourhood

… and didn’t stop at Platz der Einheit, at the Transport Services’ high-rise building nor at Otto-Buchwitz-Strasse with the light-blue Central Post Office, he felt like simply getting out and walking down Strasse der Befreiung, past the memorial to the Soviet army with its heroic Red Guards and past the Schiller stele, past the four-ball clock and then going on to the Golden Rider, simply leaving his suitcase in the tram, let whoever wanted take care of it; to run away, yes; why could he not simply run away (because they’ll catch you), why did he have to be here (because you want to study medicine), but aren’t there people who managed to get to university even though they only did a year and a half (perhaps, but there’s that law saying you can only go to university after you’ve completed your military service … what if they don’t conscript you for years?); he wanted to see the Golden Rider, now, to wonder about the circular hole at a particular place on August the Strong’s horse (where was the thingy kept, was it really made of gold?); he wanted to walk over Dimitroff Brücke to the Brühlsche Terrasse and he remembered at that moment, as the doors of the 11 closed and also singing could be heard from the other carriage, making a few passengers lower their newspapers and shake their heads, the apple his mother had placed on a white porcelain plate, the last apple from a, as Anne put it, priceless gift in kind Richard had been given by a patient in thanks for good treatment: a basket with old varieties of apple, priceless because unavailable in the shops; Star Rennet, English Strawberry Apple, Red Warrior, Mohrenstettiner (Meno used a regional name, Chimney Sweep, Richard knew it from his father’s garden in Glashütte as Red Eiser), which had given Robert stomach ache because they weren’t quite ripe; Yellow Bellefleur, Pomeranian Crooked Boot, Lemon Apple; they still grew on the slopes above the Elbe, but they were guarded by their owners, kept for their own consumption; boys who tried to steal them had to watch out for fierce dogs and even Lange only rarely gave away some of his treasured fruit (Meno got some in exchange for books); fragrance, the crackle of leaves when the autumn drizzle came, shiny green, full, harlequin-striped fruits on the branches, Christian remembered the clear, almost brazen red of the apple on the plate, a shallow, slanting oval of shadow licked like a tongue across the porcelain in the angora light of a November morning, the harsh, glazed-looking red, beside the living-room door was a jug with the same red bleeding down from its rim in decorative dribbles; now he was going out of the kitchen into the hall and listening, stepped on a place in the parquet flooring that creaked because all was quiet in the house, no Stenzel Sisters’ gramophone sketched gestures made of starch and melancholy, neither lawnmower noise nor doleful poodle slurped at the windowpanes, Plisch and Plum weren’t shovelling either, no stove-stirring plumbed the silence; he thought of cutting a slice out of the apple and placing it on the toaster — or holding it in a spoon over the flame of the gas stove, as Robert sometimes did with honey substitute that he scraped out of a cardboard tub (the honey tasted of sugared wax), but he put the apple back on the plate and decided to walk round the house once more before eating the apple; he still had plenty of time

… as the tram took the Otto-Buchwitz-Strasse/Bautzner Strasse crossing and approached Neustadt Station, he was walking round Caravel thinking about the apple on the plate that was as red as a billiard ball and would be just as cool, and also too refined to tip its fragrances on demand and without exception into his greedy mouth, the flesh would crunch as he bit into it, perhaps there would be a trace of blood along the edge of the bite; the apple would taste of pride, of autumn or, to be more precise: of the frothy concord between the zenith and the calm of descent in which that raphe had pursued its course — he had found the term in the Leipzig anatomical atlas that medical students, as was recommended in a letter from the dean’s office, should purchase before their military service or their year of work experience, Richard had acquired the lavishly illustrated book with the orange binding for him from the duplicate copies of the library of an out-of-the-way academy — that raphe (Christian loved the word), the force with which, just for moments, the tidal waves of September and October collided, that point in time (but it wasn’t that, Stabenow had spoken of ellipses of time and blobs of time), this blob of time, then, would suck the essence of the autumn out of immense aromas: it was smells (for Christian autumn, October, the month of his birth, began with smells: the scent of the leather of old wallets that came from the gills of mushrooms, the smell of horses that came from wet foliage, the impotent sweetness of the fruit in the Anker jars that were heated in the preserving pans), it was haste going hither and thither, crossed by the lines of a great crested grebe in the shiny, sleepily quivering calm of the castles of Pillnitz, it was images furiously popping up and down (lemon sticks, spiders’ stars in the trees, moist wood washed up on the banks of the Elbe, decay, moss-green in forgotten sewer pipes and in the joins in the wall on the lower section of Rissleite, the coral red of the rowan berries, peacock butterflies on the greying, sun-warmed wood of a window seat, the fine-pored stillness, slightly loosened at the edges, of a watering can in the corner of a garden, little, transparent camels of warmth slipping away from the radiator fins past chairs and sofas in the direction of cracks in the doors); and yet the apple had blemishes and ‘stocking marks’, as Barbara called them, scaly notches caused, perhaps, by some parasite or abnormal growth, so he wouldn’t bite into the apple but cut it with a Japanese blade, would delight in the moisture on the cut (the steel would turn blue from the malic acid and taste pleasantly bitter), he didn’t divide the apple into four pieces, as everyone else he’d watched eating apples did, instead he cut the apple across in slices as thick as your finger (Reina said she’d never seen anyone cut an apple like that before),

Reina

tired and lame, I sought an inn, my host was wondrous kind, a golden apple was his sign … he murmured as he went up the stairs to the attic, lines from his school reader that had stuck in his mind, Uhland was the name of the poet who had refreshed his parched throat with an apple,

don’t think of

Reina

he thought, having taken up the struggle with the loft, suddenly he hated the quiet and the coppery red of the purlins, the clay pots and the Stenzel Sisters’ cork swimming belts that helped them when they went swimming — they also wore bathing caps decorated with rubber roses — in the Massenei baths, felt fury rising up inside him at the rusted, heavy radiators next to Griesel’s attic room, that they could listen to the memories of the dust here and needed nothing; he unlocked the door to the Hoffmannesque room, opened the suitcase with the film magazines, took out his penknife and stuck it right in the face of the girl on Fanø, sharply lit in momentous black-and-white on one of the programmes, saw an abandoned wasps’ nest and thought of the apple, the hungry red that seemed to suck at the other objects in the kitchen, broke off, went down into the apartment, gathered his things together, left the apple untouched

… and for a few moments couldn’t understand why Neustadt Station had come into sight, why the 11 was slowing down and stopping; even while he was some way away he could see the people waiting on Dr-Friedrich-Wolf-Platz, a motley crowd that was fed by cars driving up and suitcase-bearing young men such as he was; it blocked the entrances to the station and when he got off he could even hear the cries and raucous shouts from the tram stop, which was separated from the station by the wide square reflecting the blue of the sky.

39. Pink is the colour of your weapons

Comrade Soldier, Comrade Sailor, a new phase in your life lies ahead — active service in the National People’s Army. With your work and your study you have already helped to shape our socialist society. Now, as a soldier, you are exercising a basic constitutional right, you are fulfilling your duty to defend peace and socialism against all enemies.

What It Means to be a Soldier

Training Centre Q/Cadet School Schwanenberg,

9.11.84

Dear Parents, 1,000 days, but the first ones are over. We were driven from the station in Schwanenberg to the barracks in several batches of 30. There were only 2 lorries so we had to spend 4 hours standing by the loading ramp on a cobbled square outside the station, we sat down on our cases and bags, the corporal accompanying us forbade us to go under cover. I was one of the last batch, it was already dark and we were silent (we should never let an opportunity to be silent pass ungrasped, the corporal said with a knowing smile); I was sitting by the tailboard and could have a look around. On the horizon the reflected glow of industrial areas, blast furnace tappings licking at the sky, the land is flat, there are just a few stunted trees like frozen sentries on the edge of the open-cast mines. The lorry drove out of the town, there was less and less traffic on the road, then I saw Schwanenberg disappearing like a space station (it was us who were moving away, of course, but it felt as if the lorry were standing still and the populated areas were being pulled away from us), a few lights here and there, navigation lights for the brown-coal excavators that lumber along like prehistoric animals, grazing mastodons in the dark. There’s a metallic hum in the air, interrupted, when the excavators are moved, by the squeal of their rusty joints, you have to get used to it, it reverberates across the countryside, breaking at night on the concrete of the living quarters of the cadet school. Then smells: the soil smells of metal, the air of flints being struck against each other; there’s a large sweet factory in Schwanenberg and when they’re pouring chocolate into moulds the smell drifts into our corridors and rooms, you can even tell the different liqueurs they use to fill the chocolate sweets. Then, depending on the wind direction, cocoa dust settles on the tables, stools, beds, in such fine layers you can’t collect it.

The school is in the middle of the brown-coal district, no houses, no trees in the vicinity, bushes just along the drive. It covers an extensive area, light-grey, almost white roads made of concrete slabs that are swept by squads with brushes made of willow twigs. That scraping noise, the hum of the excavators, the croaking of the crows, on Sundays music in 4/4 time from the loudspeakers along the roads of the facility and the barked commands are our daily music. Accommodation boxes, a hectare of parade ground right by the entrance (here they call it the CEG — controlled-entry gate), a few low cubes in the background, watchtowers at the corners, barbed-wire fence, a flowerbed outside the staff officers’ building: Welcome to the Hans Beimler Training Centre Q. After we got off the lorry we had to fall in, a different corporal took us into a hall where they went through the general attendance check. After each name, the unit and the number of the building where we are quartered were bawled out; I was assigned to Block 1, an oblong with hundreds of windows in the long sides and with 100-metre-long (132 metres to be precise, they were measured generations ago) corridors floored with granite slabs spattered with black and white spots and polished till they are smooth as glass. The black and white spots are distributed more regularly than on a Great Dane and therefore don’t look very nice. We had to go by ourselves. Not a person to be seen. Fluorescent tubes, in the middle of the corridor a plain table and two stools, above them a wall newspaper on red cloth with the title ‘Subject area: Tanks/Fiedler Unit’, underneath that a large-format daily schedule, a calendar for birthdays and a slogan: ‘The stronger socialism, the more secure peace.’

Right in front of me a door flies open, a man in camouflage uniform comes out and shouts that I’m to pick up my bag and follow him. He takes me into a bare, not very big room, table in the middle, at it another man in camouflage uniform with strikingly Mongoloid features and a bespectacled man in ordinary uniform, pale, fishlike, Unpack bag, Fish orders. The Mongol grabs my bag, probably because I’m too slow, and empties it out. Underwear, a cardboard box so I can send my civvies back, my case of books. Whazzat? Fish asks. There’s books in it, I say. — Open. He even gets up off his chair and kneels down, the Mongol’s scattered the books all over the place, which doesn’t endear him to me. At Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Fish grasps his spectacles. Send back home, at once. The case is against regulations. You can’t read all those books anyway. Or d’you need them when you have a crap? Sergeant Rehnsen (that’s the Mongol), report to me when the package has gone. Name? — Christian Hoffmann. — What trade have you learnt? — None. Completed senior high. — Hm. What do your parents do? — Father doctor, mother nurse. — Hm. Hobbies? — Reading, angling, art, history. — No sport? — Chess. — Trying to be funny, eh? the Mongol rasps. — It can get tiring if you keep sticking your oar in, Rehnsen, Fish says. You’ll have your work cut out here, he says to me. Delicate blossoms need watering. Corporal Glücklich! (The man who shouted for me to get my bag comes in.) Get him kitted out. Glücklich bawls that I’m to get my stuff together: Move! Move! You’re not in the kindergarten here. Glücklich has brown skin like stretched rubber and looks like an Inca; we cadets (also known as ‘day-bags’, ‘dishcloths’, best of all, I think, is ‘furniture’: ‘You, furniture, need a good shellacking, eh?’) pretty soon agreed on the nickname. Inca pushes open a door diagonally opposite the corridor table — Your room! Bag in there! We go to another door, which he opens gently: the clothes room. He pulls down a flap, chucks me a panzer cap, a sealed package, a water bottle, underwear, two brown terry towels plus a white linen towel, army socks, an olive-green woollen pullover, gas mask, steel helmet, protective clothing and two field packs. Shirt off, green pullover on, he says to me, the furniture with two arms. Come on, come on, don’t stand around like that, you’re not here to fatten yourself up. Grab your kit and dismiss to your room. At one whistle you come out. The room (no. 227): small, bright, a big window facing the door, one table, two stools, along the left wall two steel bunk beds with blue-and-white checked sheets and one grey blanket at the foot, on the right four plain lockers, brown with age, a broom cupboard by the door. No nameplate on one of the lockers, so there are just three of us in the room. I looked out of the window; a dull evening, below the main facility road to the CEG, underneath the window a strip of grass, across the road a row of corrugated-iron sheds. To the right the road bends and goes out of sight, at the crown of the bend there’s a sentry box by an exit gate with a barrier, beside it a guard post with the sign ‘DO’ (Depot Officer/technical depot). Beyond the barbed-wire fence, the brown-coal zone. I shut the window, switched the light on. My things were still lying where I’d put them before donning the pullover. I was going to tidy them up but I didn’t know if there was any point. After a while I heard steps — the others were coming. A sharp whistle: Everybody out!

My comrades are queuing up at Corporal Glücklich’s clothes room. He throws them their things in the face, bawls, Next! C’mon, move your arse! The Mongol walks up and down the line. Now listen to me, you lot. After this each one of you will be shown his room and locker. You just place your things by the locker and come back out again immediately and line up as you are now. Right then, off you go, Corporal Glücklich. Corporal Glücklich takes a sheet of paper out of his breast pocket and bawls, First platoon, first group — Schnack, Krosius, Lahse: 225. Müller, König, Rusk. (He pauses, exchanges glances with the Mongol, Rusk? — One of them shouts, Here! — Freshly toasted, eh? Inca says. Very tasty too.) Ress: 226. Hoffmann, Irrgang, Breck: 227. First platoon, second group …

Have to stop now, I’m too tired. More soon. Best wishes, Christian.

TC Q/Schwanenberg, 11.11.84

— continuation. The masked ball, as the kitting-out ceremony is called here. Whistle: Everybody out! The Mongol has the red DS (duty sergeant) armband. Corporal Glücklich will now lead you over to the Central Regimental C/E room (C/E: Clothing/Equipment) where you will be given your remaining things. Once you are ready you come back under your own steam to the unit. Take over now, Corporal Glücklich. Off you go.

At the double — quick march!

Hundreds of cadets were waiting outside the Regimental Clothing Room, an orange corrugated-iron shed. Light in the entrance that only shone on those at the very front. At regular intervals the searchlights of the watchtowers passed over the queue that went right round the parade ground. It was quiet, most seemed occupied with their thoughts (that is, assuming they had any). Noise came from inside the shed, a knocking, clattering, rumbling, thrumming and humming, now and then a few bars of the ‘Radetzky March’, loudspeaker crackle. The hall seemed like a gigantic open maw swallowing up the queue. At a few places in the queue they were doing knee bends, at others jogging on the spot; the smokers in our platoon, which was right at the back, clicked their lighters and held the flames to each other’s hands; the army pullovers hardly kept us warm at all and it was over two hours before we got into the shed. Inside it smelt of washing powder. The noise thumped our ears, there were sounds like those of boxing gloves on sandbags, the soft trickle as they sway back. Steel shelves several metres high, little spotlights attached to them, oddly enough always in motion, as if they were flying saucers or spinning tops. The light didn’t move in time to the ‘Radetzky March’, which they were playing from a tape, sometimes it started droning and jolting, as when an ignition key’s trying to get a recalcitrant car to start, then I thought of muscles, a biceps doing unending pull-ups until all its fibres gradually snap. The steel shelves angular, their arrangement unclear, crammed full, as far as I could see, with uniforms, boots, groundsheets, belts, caps, next to a bundle of belts was a packet of lemonade powder, which I stuck in my pocket. In front of each set of shelves was a table onto which assistants, who were climbing all over the shelves, threw things down after we shouted the size of the item up to them. Kit orderlies were dashing hither and thither. Always batches of four; we were pushed to the boot shelves, there was a cardboard sign: ISSUE POINT 1. The orderly whispered (that’s what it looked like, I couldn’t hear anything because there was a ‘Radetzky March’ loudspeaker right above us), I bawled out my shoe size, sweating and bright red, he clambered up a ladder and chucked two pairs of boots straight at me. Irrgang, who has the bed next to mine, pointed up: there were bathtubs with claw feet hanging there: the chips in the white enamel were like a flurry of stars merging in the black of the bottom of the tub. I dropped one of the pairs of boots, they were tied together with string, bent down, one of those pushing from behind stumbled over me, taking others down with him, there were five or six people on top of me, I could see arms, the weight became heavier, perhaps even more were falling on top of me, then I saw Irrgang give a few a good kick in the backside, making them crawl away. The orderly shouted, Hey, you’re holding everyone up, come on, come on, get along, follow the chalk line, I pulled myself up by the shelf struts, saw the red line and staggered on. ISSUE POINT 2: groundsheet, winter uniform, coat. The orderly there waved us over to the table, slapped four groundsheets down on it, pack your stuff in that, scrutinized me, dropped two stone-grey uniforms and a heavy military coat on me, coarse cloth, felty, here there was an even stronger smell of washing powder, the things had probably been dry-cleaned. I felt revulsion, someone or other’s worn them before me, I thought, they’ve been soaked in someone else’s sweat and God knows what other exudations. Your stuff in the groundsheet, you’ve to tie it into a sack, there are buttons along the sides, and don’t form a coral reef, on you go, on you go. ISSUE POINT 3: gym shoes, dress shoes, caps, carrying frame, a few things thrown in my face. ISSUE POINT 4: sports kit, brown tracksuit, yellow gym shirt, red shorts, the colours of the Army Sports Association. ISSUE POINT 5: black overalls for working on the tank, combat uniforms. Size! — M 48. The black overalls, two lined and one unlined combat uniform flutter through the air like woodland birds. That’s the way out and get your arse in gear, cadet. A corridor, hollowed out by two floodlights, there was still the dadadum, dadadum, dadadumdumdum of the ‘Radetzky March’, this was where the smell of washing powder was most powerful, Irrgang pointed to another bathtub, only this time it was on the floor, assistants were dipping lavatory brushes in it and giving the cadets a good scrub as they hurried past, shouting ‘Earholes, earholes’ and ‘It comes out through your arsehole’, jiggling with laughter. Then off we go to join the company. All line up. Preparing kit for inspection! Inca snarls. A corporal we haven’t seen yet comes. That, we are told, is the ‘assdusarge’ (‘assistant to the duty sergeant’). The assdusarge holds up a piece of cardboard with a standard locker drawn on it, as he barks he stresses every syllable so that when he turns round I automatically look between his shoulder blades to see if there’s a key to wind him up. We fill our lockers: shirts with the edges flush, ties with the edges flush, valuables and service identity card in a lockable drawer, cutlery and brown mug into the compartment with a ventilation filter, uniform on hangers, steel helmet, tank hood, gas mask (called protective mask here), field packs (called monkeys) and protective suit (called a jumbo) on top of the locker. The Mongol walks along and inspects the lockers. Most have everything wordlessly tipped out; do it again. Your locker’s like a pigsty. Do it again. Get a move on, there is a standard time, Comrade Cadet! Whistle. Everybody out! Masked ball, Inca snarls. Clothes back out of the cupboards that we’ve just laboriously transformed into standard lockers, the Mongol grins, the assdusarge bawls down any moaning. Now in front of each cadet is the cardboard box in which our civvies, including handkerchiefs, socks and shoes, are to be sent home. Beside it is the groundsheet with our army things. The assdusarge holds up cardboard signs each showing a standard AM (army member). It must be three in the morning when we squat down. First command: Item: steel helmet. Stretch out right hand, grasp helmet! It’s not precise enough for the Mongol, Everyone up! Stand to attention! Thumbs on trouser seams! Down! Kneel down. Item: steel helmet. Stretch out right hand, grasp helmet! Second command: Present! Stand up, present the steel helmet with arm outstretched. One is starting to droop, the Mongol bawls, Did I say anything about putting it down? Inca walks along the row, very slowly, the steel helmet gets heavier and heavier. Finally: Put down! So kneel down again. And that happens with every item. Knees bends alternating with changing clothes: Standard time, comrades! There are too few epaulettes, every time we change uniform we have to unbutton the epaulettes from the one we’ve just taken off. We change clothes, transferring the epaulettes with the pink stripe. Irrgang, who’s next to me, gets tangled up because the sleeves of his overalls are sewn up, all part of the fun. The wind-up assdusarge breaks wind noisily a lot. Perhaps he’s furious since he can’t get to bed because of us. We’re like a colony of brooding albatrosses with the flutter of sleeves and trouser legs all over the place. Check. Stand to attention. One of the Group Two cadets has a beard. The Mongol, who, as we now know, wants to be an actor and doesn’t just wake us for early-morning exercises by kicking the bed but likes to brighten our start to the day with dramatic monologues, grasps the cadet by the chin and says, Itchie, kitchie, razor blade, beardies never make the grade. The cadet pulls back, doesn’t quite know what’s happening to him. Dismiss to scratch your beard, Gorse-face!

Haircut. That’s in the swimming pool, it’s empty so the hair can be swept up. A couple of surly soldiers wield the rattling electric clippers. Conk down! Keep still! Beside each stool there’s a so-called ‘standard noddle’ stuck in a flag-holder on a broom handle. The standard noddle is a grinning papier mâché private’s head with the hairline drawn by a felt tip. So I didn’t need to go to Wiener’s before I left. Breck, who also rooms with me, screams. ’s only a wart, dogface, the Comrade Barber says, taking a cotton ball soaked in antiseptic out of a tin of Carlsbad wafers and slapping it on the bleeding spot.

Next stop the photographer, right next door. We go behind a headless dummy that’s been sawn open vertically and has a dress uniform with epaulettes, shirt and tie stuck on the front. Stand inside the dummy, your neck in its neck! Photo. Proceed! At the Med Centre we get a tetanus jab in the upper arm. The medical orderlies can hardly keep up with the crush and groan that these batches of cadets that keep coming every six months ought to be gassed. Back to the company. By now it’s a quarter to six. By the time we’ve washed, put on our pyjamas and dropped into bed it’s four minutes to six. At six Inca whistles. Company Four — rise and shine! End of night-time rest! That was the first day. Today is Sunday, we have some free time.

Love, Christian.

TC Q/Schwanenberg, 12.11.84

Dear Parents, The package with my civvies ought to have arrived by now? Please check the outside wrapping paper, there’s a note hidden in the folds.

Today was our ‘beginning of Carnival’. We were woken at 5, followed by the usual 10 minutes for washing, dressing, putting things away, falling in. Marched off, destination unknown. We marched along a road at speed, suddenly the order, ‘Gas!’ was given. (Masks on, and they stayed on for 3 km.) We were loaded down from head to toe with: rifle, belt (loaded with a belt, oh yes, Pa, didn’t you tell me not to exaggerate, it was un-Dresdenish? Herr Orré also taught us that, ask Ezzo), water bottle, bayonet, combat pack, ammunition pouch. After the 3 km some simply keeled over. But that was only the start of the exercise; it was followed by 1: moving on the field of battle — we spent one and a half hours elbowing, crawling and jumping our way across muddy ploughed fields (there was drizzle all day) and were frozen through, chatterchatter. Then came 2: camouflage. That meant we had to burn a newspaper to smear ash all over our face and neck, a filthy business. And elbowing, crawling etc. etc. as well. I had intense pain in my joints from the constant contact with the ground. (It’s no longer constant, the contact with the ground, I mean.) And my face nice and black. Our clothes were as cold as the Heart of Stone and truly impregnated with dirt. But then came 3: digging out a battle station. While lying down we had to dig out a hole, 1.80 m by 60 cm and 50 cm deep in 30 minutes; and it has to have a specific shape. No picnic with the heavy baggage. Digging out a firing hollow made me think that being a gravedigger’s not an easy job.

The afternoon was entirely occupied with cleaning our rifles, drying and brushing the mud out of our things as well as the usual being hustled to and fro. Now I’m sitting writing by the light of my pocket torch (it’s night-time rest); my room-mates are doing that too. Night-time rest is the only time during the whole day when the whistle doesn’t go. Unfortunately it’s all too short: 3,000 m in full uniform is already on the horizon. At the moment I’m constantly getting a pain in my heart and dizziness. I might be imagining it though. When we’re ordered to wear our steel helmets I quickly get a headache from the hulking great thing. But then I just think it away (you don’t have to think much while marching).

13.11. Some easy diver training for us, Company 4. At the double, march! to the facility swimming pool (as they call it here); we got undressed, sat for four hours in the cold on the edge of the pool. Then we had a breathing mask and a heavy, sopping-wet uniform put on and had to walk round the pool for a quarter of an hour, completely wrapped up in that revolting stuff. It was a quarter of an hour of gasping for breath. Then into the water, that was icy cold. If you let some water get into the breathing tube (you only needed to smile), you could even die, despite the safety line, for the clothes were heavy, moreover we had lead plates on our feet so that the instructors wouldn’t have been able to pull us out that quickly (it was about 6 m deep). Well, perhaps we wouldn’t have drowned. The sight of us under water was grotesque, hopping round on the bottom of the pool like big, black embryos on long umbilical cords; I felt like a puppy that was being trained to do some trick retrieving things.

How’s Robert doing at the senior high? How did his German homework assignment go? Has Reglinde got into music school for organist/choirmaster? There’s an MTO here (Military Trading Outlet that’s open for cadets on Sundays); I saw some roofing felt there, you can tell the Tietzes. Didn’t Niklas want to seal the leak over the music room? If I’m to send some, he’ll have to send me packaging that’s big enough to take it, since there isn’t any here. By the way, I get 225 marks a month. With love from Christian.

TC Q/Schwanenberg, 15.11.84

Dear Parents, Many thanks for your parcel that arrived yesterday. It was just at the right time, we couldn’t have lunch because we were in training. The apples above all were important, we’ve already made quite an impression on them (sometimes I think of ‘Tired and lame, I sought an inn, my host was wondrous kind’, but no one here reads Uhland). We only rarely get vegetables and no fruit at all, but otherwise life here is very healthy (lots of sporting activity). So if you should be sending another parcel at some time, Ma, then if possible just apples, carrots, a bit of soap, a salt cellar. And please don’t let Barbara send me a radio (I was going to write to her but I’ve only time for one letter), radios are forbidden in our rooms. I could perhaps find another way of compensating for the lack of music — in the company copy of the regulations for internal service I have found none that forbids a cello. But it would have to shrink, the problem’s the small locker and even in the tank the cello would stick out of the hatch. However, if I could put the tank hood on Mr Violin Cell0 and teach him to salute, he could easily pass for me since I’m sure he could manage the grunting and mumbling to the tank mike.

Today we marched for 6 hours, exercise training, everything in the ‘rococo style’ (we have to stretch our legs out and lift them at least 30 cm above the ground and make very, very little loops). Right about turn, left about turn, get on with it, hey, Gunner Arsehole in the last rank, lift up your trotters. After that we were on fatigue duty, from 1 in the afternoon until 9 in the evening scrubbing, painting tanks, scraping off rust, the corporal standing behind the cadet whistling on his whistle. The area round the facility is particularly beautiful, bare as a Cossack’s head, no trees growing, cranes on the horizon, factory chimneys, shed-like structures. Here are the words of our marching song that we have to learn, because it’s our song, the ‘Song of the Tankers’: ‘Bright shines pink the Tankers’ colour, / I so proudly bear. / Pink too is a dress of yours / I love to see you wear. // From the fields pale hands are waving, / one is waved for me. / In my thoughts I fondly kiss you, / together soon we’ll be. // Oh the joy that now awaits us / at the dance tonight. / You the fairest of them all, / pink dress shining bright. // REFRAIN: Through the little village march, / the Tankers two by two. / Nevermore will I forget / the path that leads to you.’

We sing it every evening when we march to dinner, the tune doesn’t matter, everyone bawls it out however they like, the main thing is that it’s loud. The other companies sing the same song but change the colour, instead of pink (Tanks) they put green (Chemical Services), black (Engineers), red (Artillery), white (Motorized Gunners), gold (Intelligence). It doesn’t really flow but it still comes out nice and loud.

The answer to your question about the swearing-in ceremony, Ma, is unfortunately no. Our tank unit can’t invite any family members, the accommodation available in Schwanenberg couldn’t cope with the numbers, they say. You’ll just have to wait until I get leave, I’m afraid. Have you heard anything from Muriel? And is it true that Ina’s got engaged? Keep me informed. Love to all, Christian.

Hans Beimler-TC / Schwanenberg, 19.11.84

Dear Tietzes, There’s a smell of chocolate, the Schwanenberg sweet factory’s making chocolates. Our company’s cleaning the rooms and the rest of the building and above all that means sweeping up cocoa powder: the wind blows the brown dust over from kilometres away. But I’m sitting on the loo quickly writing this letter to you.

The bottled pears arrived safe and sound, many thanks for your gifts in the parcel my parents sent. The kidney warmer you knitted for me, Gudrun, will come in useful when I’m on guard duty or camping out; I just hope it doesn’t get stolen or forbidden as being against regulations.

At the moment we’re being instructed in the subtleties of communication within the military sphere, especially saluting and swearing. It’s done by a sergeant we call the ‘Mongol’.

Permission to speak, Comrade Rank, sir.

Permission to go past, Comrade Rank, sir.

Permission to dismiss, Comrade Rank, sir.

Permission to join you, Comrade Rank, sir.

My room-mate Irrgang puts up his hand. I’ve a question there, Comrade Sergeant. What if I need to go and the Comrade First Lieutenant’s sittin’ next to me on the toilet? Permission to join you, Comrade First Lieutenant?

The Mongol’s reply: Cadet Ammofeed, Cadet Irrgang, will never have a shit next to the Comrade First Lieutenant. Never ever.

Irrgang puts up his hand again. There’s another question I have. If I meet the Comrade First Lieutenant and the comrade doesn’t give me permission to speak, how can I ask for permission to go past?

The Mongol shrugs his shoulders, continues with the lesson. We practise saluting.

Irrgang raises his hand again. I’ve an important problem there. ’f I meet the Comrade First Lieutenant an’ along comes another Comrade First Lieutenant, that is two comrades at the same time, one on the left an’ one on the right, should I put both hands up to my thinkpot at the same time.

At the moment Cadet Irrgang is busy on the obstacle course.

Dear Niklas, Have you been to the Semper Opera? What does the building look like? Best wishes, Christian — who’s looking forward to receiving letters.

TC Q/Schwanenberg, 24.11.84

Dear Parents, Ina’s engaged to Herr Wernstein?? How did that come about! Thank you for all the news and the parcel. You must have put yourselves to some expense for that, I don’t know how we’re going to eat it all up in our room without getting really fat. If you want to send me some books, Ma, then please wrap them in the paper I showed you (incoming parcels have to be opened for checks).

Today was the day we were sworn in. After the official ceremony (I crossed my fingers when taking the oath) I had, on the order of the company commander, to propose a toast in the ‘House of the National People’s Army’ in the barracks (before I did, he read through it for mistakes and ideologically unsound remarks); after that I went back to our block and not into Schwanenberg with the others, so at least I had a quiet afternoon, I locked myself in the lav and wrote replies to a few letters. Anyway, I saw Schwanenberg a few days ago when I went with a corporal to buy stuff for the company staff officers in the store there. Schwanenberg’s a garrison town, mostly bare and rectangular, qualities my ‘noggin’ also possesses since the ‘Masked Ball’; but my hair’s growing again. Send my love to Aunt Iris and Uncle Hans, to Fabian as well. And to you, of course. Christian

TC Q/Schwanenberg, 25.11.84

Dear Parents, Robert thinks I’m exaggerating when I write that we only have three hours’ free time on Sundays. Our daily schedule is, with minor variations, as follows: 06.00 hours: wake, put on red/yellow tracksuit in 2 min, 06.02: go out, early-morning exercises until 06.30: return to building, wash, dress, put sports things away by 06.40: fall in, at the double to canteen, breakfast until 07.00: at the double back to the company, 07–07.30: make beds, clean room, 07.30–15.00: training, lunch jammed in somewhere (bolt it down, what else), 15.00–16.00: ‘big’ cleaning of rooms and building (each of us has his own patch that he has to keep clean), 16.00–18.00: parade practice and extra physical training (on top of the morning 3,000 m comes the obstacle course, 500 m with 22 so-called chicanes, plus weightlifting with the 50 kg weight, standard 6 times, exercises with the tank-track weight); return at the double, no time to wash, 18.05–18.20: supper, after that daily cleaning of rifles and care of personal protective equipment (protective mask and protective suit), 19.30–20.00: communal viewing of News Camera, 20.00–21.30: outdoors work (cleaning the tanks, painting fences, cutting the grass, with nail scissors if the Mongol feels like it, brushing facility paths), 21.30–22.00: cleaning rooms and building, make up sports pack, wash, check rooms, 22.00: night rest. I can only write letters during night rest or on Sundays. There’s only one time during the day when we can relax a bit: News Camera, which we watch in the club room, where we’re not allowed otherwise. At least we see something civilian once a day. Once a week we have showers, we go into the shower hall in sections, 200 men under 150 showers and we have 10 minutes to soap ourselves and wash everything off — that’s assuming the NCOs in charge of the showers don’t amuse themselves by turning off the water or only letting cold through. They’re discharge candidates and can do as they like; we’re the new boys, we’re ‘order-receivers’, that’s why they call first-year conscripts ‘earholes’. Love to all, Christian, on the way to an ARDSP (All-Round Developed Socialist Personality)

PS: Of course, I’m exaggerating, otherwise you might end up believing me.

Schwanenberg, 25.11.84

Dear Frau Doktor Knabe, Many thanks for your letter of 23 Sept., the metre-long parcel with the brochure on ‘Keeping Your Teeth Healthy’ that you and Prof. Staegemann have edited. Odile Vassas and Dr Vogel from the Museum of Hygiene have put a lot of work into it. Sensi the dwarf is easily recognizable, likewise his enemies Dirtfinger, Stinkifoot, Nosedrip, Blackear and, of course, Lazitooth. Whenever they invaded the socialist kindergarten, Sensi was there with his toothpaste machine gun and face-cloth-grenade. I think every Dresden class must have seen the cartoon with the dwarf; I remember that he checked whether his exhortations were really being followed — he watched the lazy children on his surveillance monitor, had a telephone to inform the primary school teachers and a magic telescope. If he were to focus it on our Training School, he could study our feeding habits. We go (but to go means to run, going at the double is the natural mode of progression for members of the armed forces) to the ‘Interhotel’. At long, Sprelacart-topped tables, on stools, after the polite invitation to sit down and ‘proceed with the meal’, we bend over the Komplekte, savour the finest unsugared tea with its faint hint of peppermint which, under the nicknames of ‘bromide’ or ‘Impo-tea’, is said to have a certain calming effect and which waiters with grey coats and choice manners heave onto the table in tubs; on Sundays, if you are quick (and who isn’t?) there’s hot milk and 1 piece of cake for breakfast. Ah, Komplekte … How should I describe it? O delicious mixture of atomic bread and cosmonaut’s groats and steadfastness against the aggressor! As yielding as dough, you stick, O friend from the Soviet Union, to the soldier’s teeth, making him replete and sending him to ride the porcelain bus. Let me embrace you, tastebud, you cry from a distance and, rest assured, we love you too. How fine it must be to lie there, round, sharp and contented as a peppercorn, then to gradually turn into a balloon, to sing your backfiring song as you dream, simply releasing all ballast with a sound like thunder, then bray no more. Everything is in motion, but Komplekte is so through thick and thin. Even its fragrance gilds our noses, does not splash around pointlessly in dromedary rumens, plunges through cackroaches, swirls round strips of sandpaper, twangs the balalaika carved out of knackwurst, trills its lovelorn song through the exhaust of a Trabbi — only in the end to drop nothing but flour bombs; but it dances on the congresses of Vienna steak, sweats attar of roses and swings, as it dips its Big Toe in the water of a smile, the propeller of our hunger. Complex is Komplekte, a true miracle, and no cook worth his salt will ever reveal the recipe to you …

The roofing felt will be sent off to you in your cardboard box, also included is 1 packet of roofing nails they also had in stock. My father told me about the death of Prof. Staegemann’s son; my brother Robert has Prof. Staegemann to thank that he can still play the clarinet after his skiing accident on Untere Rissleite. His shattered incisor was reconstructed using a technique from the West (a transparent liquid that hardens under a lamp; I can still remember how astonished you were). What you wrote in your letter about Muriel and her family sounds ominous. My father told me that a joint letter is to be sent to the Minister of Education. Best wishes to you, to your husband (perhaps I’ll have time for a visit to the Zwinger when I’m on leave, I haven’t been there for ages), to the Krausewitzes, Herr Dietzsch and Herr Marroquin — he came to mind during our kitting-out ceremony, they call it the Masked Ball. Christian Hoffmann.

TC Q/Schwanenberg, 28.11.84

Dear Parents, Your parcel arrived safe and sound yesterday, thanks for sparing no effort or expense. The apples have all gone already. Please don’t put anything in your parcels that has even the slightest hint of the West. The parcels have to be opened and the quartermaster-sergeant (the man who deals with clothing, equipment, mail, food requirements etc.) confiscates anything that has the slightest hint of feelers ‘the enemy’ might be putting out for innocent military cadets, even if it’s a midge from the other side. Could you perhaps get me a bottle of aftershave? But not Dur that you can get in the store here — or, rather, can’t get any more since one of the regulars told us that Dur has ‘revs’ (= high-percentage alcohol — well, he is a driving instructor). That evening Irrgang and Breck were both drunk and they’ve been put on extra guard duty as a punishment. In the chemist’s recently I saw a few bottles of Tüff aftershave, that might do.

Yesterday I was the ‘cookroach’, that is I was on kitchen fatigues. I ended up in a dark place, the so-called ‘pot-sink’, the centre of washing-up as an existent reality. It starts at 6 p.m., you’re given so-called hygienic clothing (a grey coat that has strange powder-burn holes, perhaps from an unknown species of moth? and is used as a handkerchief by the cooks now and then). You keep at it until 10 p.m. The next day it starts again at 4.30 a.m. and continues until 6 p.m. The pot-sink is a place of true feeling. Pots look like officials who’ve burnt their behinds, they have that leather-trousered look that Meno once hinted at, they have ears as well, floppy as a marzipan flag, steam comes pouring out and they flutter when you’re scrubbing them. The pot-sink knows all about the mixed-fruit vat that comes back from the ‘Interhotel’ (the canteen) empty and that we cookroaches had previously filled.

Take:

150 jars of preserved mixed fruit

a tin trough of 1 m³ capacity

the ‘crocodile’: a gigantic multifunction whisk, held by two cookroaches, with a handle on the drum to which two whisks are attached and which has to be turned by a further two cookroaches. The crocodile gives the preserved mixed fruit in the preserved-mixed-fruit trough that mushy consistency that is so sought after in mixed fruit and for which the cookroaches who lug the trough into the Interhotel are rewarded with sincere compliments, to which they generally respond with a cautious raising of the middle finger. The pot-sink knows the merits of the steam-jet hose, also known as the ‘cobra’, that yellow-and-black something that now and then feels an uncontrollable desire for freedom and, with a whistling release of steam, goes its own way. That means that we, the two pot-sink cookroaches, have to ‘become fakirs’ and ‘teach the cobra to play the flute’, that is: slip through under the wildly wriggling, boiling hot snake dance and turn down the steam valve at the entrance to the pot-sink until the manometer beside it once more indicates tamed levels. The pot-sink alone allows the observer the sight of Cacerlaca superdimensionalis, known for short as ‘Super Roach’, searching through pots and pans, tubs and vats for the remains of the Komplekte — and that without epaulettes and hygienic clothing! Anyone who sees this member of the army has to shout ‘Mooncalf’. Mooncalf is the kitchen ghoul, a regular NCO, who had long since served his 10 years but couldn’t manage outside, repented and returned to the environment he was used to. He regularly throws pieces of snot in the stew pan, is stooped and carries the hygiene knapsack, on the side of which is a lever that sprays ‘some stuff’. Normally we have to ventilate the room for an hour after that and aren’t allowed in the pot-sink. But Mooncalf only does the spraying for form’s sake, the cockroaches lie on their backs and laugh. Christian.

TC Q/Schwanenberg, 2.12.1984

Dear Meno, Today is the first Sunday in Advent and the candles will be burning at home. Thank you for your offer, but please don’t send me any books. In the little free time we get I write my letters or catch up on my sleep. I brought a box of books with me but had to send it back. It’s not advisable to be seen with a book in your hand too often. Then you’re looked on as a ‘professor’ and ‘professors think they’re superior’ and they’re fair game for special treatment. Fish (that’s what we call our platoon commander, a Comrade First Lieutenant) likes to give ‘professors’ extra individual drill on the obstacle course in the evening after News Camera. And he wears glasses himself, which puzzles me (are glasses a sign of stupidity?). There are even some among my fellow cadets who have something against books. Special treatment comes from above and from below; the latter is seen as ‘internal training’ and connived at by our superiors. Cadet Burre was the object of some ‘internal training’ only a few hours ago. He’s not in Company 4, where I am (tank commanders), but in 3, tank drivers, whose rooms are one floor lower down. My room-mate Irrgang and I heard some noise and rushed down. One of the prospective tank drivers was standing facing the assembled squad reading out a love poem Burre had written. It was kitschy and I felt like laughing along with the others. But I didn’t feel like laughing when Burre grabbed the reader by the throat. With a couple of blows the reader knocked little, fat Burre to the ground (an odd sound, quite different from in films where the sounds are added on), then Burre was grabbed by four of them and debagged while the one who’d been reading fetched a pair of work mittens and a so-called ‘bercu’ (‘bear’s cunt’, it’s what the chapka we wear in the winter’s called) and, to the jeers of those around, shouted, Bread-roll (clearly Burre’s nickname) — now we’re going to play at Sigmund Freud. Father and you are always telling me I should observe carefully, should try to describe what I see as precisely as possible. But I couldn’t see Burre’s face, just heard his breathing. Burre was thrashing about, trying to jerk his lower body up and down, but the four held him tight. The one who’d been reading grasped Burre’s penis with the work-glove, held up the piece of paper with the poem and recited, ‘O Melanie, could I but kiss you by moonlight …’, all the other cadets in the corridor were urging him on. (Toss him off! Let’s see if Bread-roll can get it up. Come on, where is it? God, Fatso, you stink like a polecat!) The reader pressed the bercu against Burre’s penis and started to ‘milk the chicken’.

I went up to the reader and said, Stop it. He stared at me as if he couldn’t understand what I was saying. Irrgang supported me, That’s what I want to tell you as well, my friend. Leave him in peace. The others just laughed, the reader as well, then he went on with his ‘milking’. He’s a great hulk, I’m more of a shrimp. Then Burre suddenly said, Ooh, I feel great, let the idiots carry on. At that they laughed even louder. — Please don’t tell my parents about this letter. We probably won’t get leave over Christmas since a ‘Guard Complex I’ week of SST (‘Social Science Training’) has been arranged. How’s the Stahls’ little boy? How are things at Dresdner Edition? Are you still working on the Schevola book? Salve, Christian.

armed forces rate/Schwanenberg, 4.12.84

dear pa, birthday greetings+++unfortunately couldn’t get present+++moving out to camp+++letter follows+++love christian

TC Q/Schwanenberg, 16.12.84

Dear Parents, Today you will have lit three candles and I’m writing you the promised letter. Many thanks for yours that was delivered to me out in the field camp. Dear Ma — I wasn’t thinking, please excuse me. I should have realized what would be going through your mind when you saw the telegram boy at the door. But I wanted to wish Pa a happy birthday and didn’t have time for a letter.

It could well be that they read our letters but I don’t care. I know it’s forbidden to write so openly about things here. If you complain and are asked where you got the information I would probably get into trouble. As if thousands didn’t go through the same thing and talk about it at home some time or other.

Field camp. It started on the 4th at 3.30 a.m. with ‘Action stations’. Whistles, shouts, people rushing all over the place. Be ready to move off within a set time, grey blanket lengthwise over the bed. Proceed to a designated assembly point, where we wait. Suddenly Fish orders, Division — about turn! We do a 180-degree turn. Fish comes and stands alongside us, points to the horizon: Just look at that sunrise — something like that’s rare. You may never see such a magnificent one again! When the duty officer appears, the company is divided up into groups. Irrgang, Breck and I are part of the ammunition group. Off we go to the technical depot, 60 tanks, approaching from Godknowswhere, are to be shelled up. Lugging cases of ammunition. When in action, one tank has a complement of 43 shells, each weighing 50 kg. 43 × 50 = 2,150 kg. There are ten of us, so 2,150 × 60 ÷ 10 = 12,900 kg of shells for each of us to lug to the tanks. The shells have to be thrown to the tanks ‘in chain’ where a driver fits them into the racks. After that exercise I caught myself doing ‘straight-ahead-staring’, what they call ‘breathing’. You stand there and breathe. Nothing else.

The tanks that are to go to the field camp with us are loaded onto wagons at the goods depot. We travel in cattle trucks, where the Mongol allows us to lie down on the chopped straw, in the direction of Cottbus, spend hours shunted into a siding, then continue on towards Frankfurt/Oder. The field camp is in the vicinity of the Polish border, the Oder isn’t far away — as we marched into the camp we could hear the ice floes drifting down the river. The camp’s in the woods, 20 railway carriages from the war years arranged in a square, behind them a stone building for the driving instructors and the officers; the wagons are for us. In them are one table, one stove (all with the stovepipe missing); we sleep on planks of wood across both ends. There are 16 of us, 4 on top, 4 below, the same at the other end, a bare 1 metre space for each one. Where I was to sleep there was a dead stag beetle (female), unfortunately I had nothing to keep it in and didn’t know what to do with it and couldn’t put it in the letter (it would get damaged when they stamp it). Irrgang said, Give it to me, at least it’s a bit of protein and who knows, we might be dining on just Komplekte here. Frozen dust everywhere, it’s hanging down from the ceiling like a forest of dirty crocheting needles. At least there’s electricity, 1 bulb casts 1 circle of light. First of all we put our kit away, then dig the company latrine. Every year’s intake has to do it again. For washing there’s an outside tap, frozen, of course, but the driving instructors have thought of that and unfreeze it with a flame-thrower. The water is pumped out of the forest floor (and is naturally not drinking water). So washing is a true pleasure: every morning we line up in gym shorts, otherwise naked apart from our boots, in a refreshingly cool winter wind, and move off at the double: march! through the powder snow to wash in the troughs, in which the water is naturally frozen, chop away the ice with the tank axe and enjoy the plunge. What is the difference between a skunk and an army cadet after a few days at the field camp? The cadet doesn’t have any eau de Cologne. Every morning we’re woken at 5, then 10 minutes for washing, 10 minutes to put the room in order, breakfast: ‘O-tins’ (O for operations). Then march off for training, it lasts from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Shooting practice with the barrel inset (it’s stuck into the tank gun so it can take smaller-calibre shells), with the tank MG. Practise with live hand grenades. We march off with the ‘lemons’, as they’re called, in the pockets on our trouser legs to a burnt-out T34 here in the forest, climb in, pull the ring on the grenade, briefly emerge from cover and throw the grenade at a class enemy made out of sawn-off pines and already in a bad way from the lemon effect. Irrgang asks, What do I do, Comrade Corp’ral, ’f the grenade drops on my paw? — ’ve y’ already pulled the ring? Corporal Glücklich asks. — Think so, Comrade Corp’ral. — So what’re y’worryin’ about. Y’won’t have to wash it again.

Tactical training: for that we go to the Tiktak range, for tactics are as refreshing as Tictacs. And everything so near, only a few kilometres through the winter woods. Crawl, pulling ourselves along by the elbows, to the horizon, aim, crawl back, running, creeping, sliding, crawling, hauling, sprawling, oh, aren’t we having fun in mock fights with a wooden gun. Driving practice with tanks. What I was really born for. I’m the son of a time-served metalworker, I’m the son of a trauma surgeon, I’m not a ‘professor’, I tell myself again and again. I’m furniture, a dishcloth, has a dishcloth ever driven a tank badly? Right then: there’s the gas, there’s the brakes, there’s the gears, to start the engine turn up the oil pump, prime with oil then press the starter button, engine up to 500 rev/min, to steer it you have the two steering levers, one on the right, one on the left, to see there’s the observation slit. We practise on an army training course, the tank bounces up and down like a rocking chair, the driving instructor, who’s up in the commander’s hatch, roars over the intercom that’s plugged into your tank hood, Listen to the engine, you dud, put your foot down, can’t you hear it’s labouring? Double-declutch. Brackish water comes in through the hatches, the MG slit is closed, on the end of the barrel the ‘elephant’s condom’, a rubber cap for protection. Russky on the right! the instructor suddenly bawls. Have I misheard? Russky? Aren’t we fighting side by side with our comrades-in-arms of the Warsaw Pact? The tank spins to the right. Rattatatat! the instructor shrieks, he’s had it! After driving there’s cleaning and oiling the tank. Each metal part is rubbed clean and, as is well known, a tank consists entirely of wood. And of course it’s the furniture that does the scrubbing while the instructors gather round a stove drinking coffee.

Guard duty. At night the winter constellations glitter, more beautiful than on Meno’s ten-minute clock. The moon looks like a 1-mark piece, you stand guard for 2 hours, the cold creeping up from your toes to your bottom, your back (I’ve got Gudrun’s belt round my kidneys, it keeps them warm), makes your muscles start quivering, there’s a razor on your nose, and the guards’ urine forms stalagmites sticking out of the snow like bizarre yellow flowers. On the third day there was an SI (‘Special Incident’): Cadet Breck was on guard and became nervous when there was a rustling in the plantation opposite the guard post. When, after he had called out several times, the rustling grew louder (enemy agent! parachutist! NATO advance guard!), Breck raised his Kalashnikov and fired half the magazine of tracer bullets into the plantation. (Normally he should have let off a warning shot into the air first, but before going out on guard duty Cadet Breck had been at the soldier’s comforter, Dur.) Now there was a dead wild boar. Our CC (company commander), Captain Fiedler, swore at this Special Incident — after all, you can’t simply gun down a wild boar in a state forest. But Fish said, Well, since the beast’s dead, we can eat it. — Fiedler: Have you done that before, Comrade First Lieutenant? — Fish: Nah, but there’s bound to be a cook among the cadets. (There wasn’t.) — Sergeant Rehnsen: We sh’d stick it on a spit. — Inca: How? I’ve had a look. Its arsehole’s closed and where’re you goin’ to find a spit? — Rehnsen: We’ll dump it in a cauldron and boil it. — An’ where’re you goin’ to find a boiler? And the pig’s still got its bristles on. Breck, you swine, you’ll scrub the swine, it that clear? And you two, Hoffmann, Irrgang, take those stupid grins off your faces and make some sensible suggestions.

So how can a wild boar be frizzled out in the woods by people who’re hungry but completely clueless? Cadets dig a pit, chop wood and stack it in the bottom of the pit. Then tanks drive up and park, one on the right, one on the left of the pit. Breck, Irrgang and I put on heavy-duty mittens and try to scrape off the bristles. It doesn’t work, they’re too stubborn. So Fish uses the flame-thrower on them. The pig now looks like a roasted doormat. A steel-wire noose with a hook is put round its neck. A steel hawser, such as every tank has, is fixed between the two ‘trestles’ that have been parked beside the pit, the hook is hung on the hawser. Then the fire is lit and the pig roasted, after half an hour the hawser’s glowing. The pig’s full of smoked parasites. Fish sticks his bayonet into the flesh and prises a few out. I don’t know who ate any of the roast pork, I’m on guard duty again, listening to the ice breaking up on the distant Oder.

No Christmas leave. We’ve been detailed to ‘Guard Complex I’, that means guard duty and Social Science Instruction (irradiation with red light) alternately, until New Year’s Eve. Here in our quarters cocoa dust is gradually accumulating on the filthy things from the field camp that are scattered around (despite the cold and the wind coming from the wrong direction we’ve got the window wide open). I’m sitting in the middle of the mess finishing this letter with love from Christian.

40. The telephone

The telephone rang and for a long time the Old Man of the Mountain said nothing; it was Londoner on the line, as Meno deduced from various signs: Altberg automatically straightened his back after he’d picked up the receiver and mumbled his name, something he didn’t do when he was speaking to Schiffner or a colleague. On the contrary, on such occasions he seemed to slump down even more, his face crumpling as if he were anticipating both a reproach, or an attack disguised as a reproach, and the annoyance that would cause him; he was, so to speak, building up a reserve of annoyance so that the actual unpleasantness that came out of the receiver would be as nothing compared with what he had anticipated. To put it in its limits: for anyone who mentally prepares himself for three hours of torture, when about to go to the dentist for example, the half an hour during which the whine of the drill often becomes intense but also often dies away, is a mere fleabite. Taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut, Meno thought, though it wasn’t a nut you wanted to be faced with too often, it was a pretty tough nut. As far as calls from Schiffner or out-of-favour colleagues were concerned, the old man would murmur his ‘Yes’ or ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘Yes, yes, of course’ or ‘Yes, yes, yes, that’s quite clear’ into the receiver like spells to ward off evil, would turn his profile to Meno, but wave him down if Meno was about to go out of the room; he even seemed to get angry at the gesture, would push down with his flat, outstretched hand like a press and shake his head vigorously, which Meno interpreted as a kind of order to remain seated, with which he complied, though reluctantly and uncertainly. The old man would not even let Meno, if he wasn’t allowed to leave the room, walk round, at least putting some distance between them and thus being able to occupy himself with the books on the shelves along the wall, rustle the pages audibly and stare at the paper intently, as if enthralled, so that he would at least not make a bad impression on the housekeeper, should she come in. Meno had once tried this manoeuvre, at which the old man had immediately put his hand over the receiver and glared at Meno suspiciously; close to the bookcases was the desk with the thick pile of the manuscript, a battery of paste pots and a bowl for snippets of paper, and the old man’s ‘That’s nothing for you, editor, sir’, had sent Meno scurrying back to his chair. When Schiffner called, Altberg would wind the telephone lead round his finger, sometimes forgetting what he was doing and pulling the plug out of the socket. If it was a fellow writer who had called, Altberg would walk up and down restlessly, ducking down a little lower at every turn, as if punches from the receiver could hit him in the solar plexus until he was creeping, as far as the telephone lead would allow, round the room as though stalking an animal. Why Meno had to remain present during these telephone calls became clear when, with a conspiratorial smile, the old man once took a large brown medicine bottle off the shelf with utensils from the chemist’s. ‘The stopper, my dear Rohde, fits to a hundredth of a millimetre, so precisely has it been ground, but you can move it — look’, and he began to twist the stopper in the neck of the bottle, which made a terrible, jarring screech, that Altberg skilfully and with a knowing grin screwed up to a shrill squeal. ‘If I should give you a sign, please begin to make the noise. Stand right next to me and start turning it to the left’; and when the call had come that Altberg wanted to be treated in this way, Meno had set up a nerve-jangling ‘shreeek, shreeek’ while the old man, with a expression of intense concentration, as if it were an actor’s swansong, had imitated the sound of a faulty sewing machine, slurping his tongue against his cheek, making soft snoring noises and hollow metallic grunts, repeatedly interrupted by a despairing, ‘Can you hear me? Hello? Are you still there?’ aimed at the ceiling, before finally, with a satisfied though exhausted look, tapping the rest.

If it was Londoner on the telephone his ‘not saying anything’ would, after a long minute, be cut off by a ‘Good’ or ‘Interesting’ or ‘Did you get that from him? From him personally? Oh, on the upstairs telephone’ that startled Meno out of his reflection — at the second or third of these calls, after he’d been able to gather observations and allowed them to precipitate into a conclusion — about how he knew that it was Jochen Londoner talking to the Old Man of the Mountain: during other calls the old man might well straighten up, hold the receiver to his ear for a long time without saying anything, during other conversations he might well nervously pass his hand over his dressing gown or, if he was wearing a jacket, pat the pockets to check the flaps, put the receiver to his left ear when he first picked it up but transfer it to his right ear one second later; perhaps this habit they shared — Londoner also changed ears after picking up the phone when he was taking an official or even just semi-official call — was just one of a number both men had when answering the telephone and that led Meno to the superstitious conclusion: if each used the telephone in the same way as the other then the one, if he showed the same characteristics, must also be talking to the other — which wasn’t logical but, to Meno’s astonishment, was true in the case of the Old Man of the Mountain. Allowed them to precipitate into a conclusion: Meno used this technical term from chemistry for himself, for he liked the parallel between observing and concluding and the arrangement of an experiment in which a substance was carefully and gradually concentrated so that it could form a compound with a second substance — with another observation — which, once a certain degree of concentration had been exceeded, would appear — be precipitated — in the solution. The Old Man of the Mountain had put a small telephone table, clearly visible, a little away from one wall of the room; at Londoner’s the telephone, that is the one the family called the ‘downstairs phone’, was similarly prominently placed in the hall. There were two sides to this prominent position and Meno wasn’t quite sure which Londoner had in mind when he decided to put the little table so well to the fore in the hall that was crammed with vast numbers of books, so that many a visitor, especially if they’d spent some time sampling Londoner’s excellent collection of sherry and port, had stumbled against the table — which did no damage to the telephone, it was a heavy official one with a protruding dial that in such cases would land on a cushion the lady of the house had had the foresight to place there. That was the custom at the Londoners’, the table was never moved out of the way.

It wasn’t out of vanity, Meno wrote, at least not that alone, since most of the guests who made the acquaintance of the telephone in that way had a similar one and shook their heads at Londoner’s strange custom, and even if I in no way underestimate my ex-father-in-law’s talent for acting — he enjoyed every kind of theatre, loved vaudeville and Shakespeare, whom, an English pipe clenched between his teeth, he would study in the original, with the tendency to systematization, to create order, and the courage to attack impregnable-seeming bastions that had won him a certain celebrity in the country and gave his often printed words, which lingered in the minds of the powerful, specific gravity; even though he liked to declaim dramatists’ iambic pentameters, with his eyes pouring out the searing flash of passion or the velvet of ingratiation, and would invite Eschschloraque, the classicist and socialist marshal of moderation, not only to one of the inevitable East Rome binges but also to private sessions to refresh the inner man with a joint play-reading — I do not rate his acting talent so highly that he could make his guest believe he felt embarrassed, even slightly ashamed, in view of the fact that he, Jochen Londoner, was privileged to have his own telephone, if he hadn’t felt the least bit embarrassed; he did feel embarrassed and that was precisely why he put the telephone in such a visible place in the hall — just as a nouveau riche shows off his money — though hardly out of embarrassment — put it in the hall as if to say, That’s the way things are, yes, I’ve got a telephone, sorry; but since you would be more likely to discover it if I’d discreetly put it in a corner — for you’d say, Aha, having a telephone is such a matter of course for him that he can afford to ignore it — I might as well stick it right under your noses; so please excuse me for having been allocated the damn thing. For his embarrassment to be feigned he plucked at his top lip too often when they had visitors and Irmtraud was busy putting coats and scarves on the coat stand; put his hand to his forehead too often — reflecting on something, remembering something? — thus leaving the telephone in the shadow of his tweed jacket that Lukas, the tailor, had measured up and made, with several others exactly the same, out of Harris tweed. Perhaps the prominent position away from the wall taken up by the downstairs telephone was meant as a kind of decoy that hungry observers, greedy for sensations, were to swallow, concluding that Londoner was consumed with vanity and simple-minded pride: So he’s finally made it to a telephone, and to put it properly on display he’s stuck it out in the hall where you trip over it. What a way to behave! — a decoy to distract attention from the much more important second telephone in his study that wasn’t on the same line as the one downstairs — otherwise if he’d wanted to make a call from upstairs he’d have had to take the cable of the downstairs one out of the connection box — but had its own line and telephone number that was known to a few alone. He was, it seemed to me, hiding his light under a bushel and he became nervous and indignant if the upstairs telephone rang while he was talking to someone; he had given us — Hanna, Philipp and me — strict instructions not to call him on private matters on the upstairs telephone. That was what the telephone in the hall was for. It belonged to Irmtraud’s territory, she was the one who answered, whose voice one heard; if it was for Jochen Londoner, he would get her to call him or, depending on his mood or the name she would tell him with her hand over the receiver, say he was out. I hesitate, having read the preceding lines again, uncertain whether I’m not overestimating Londoner, whether the psychological pirouettes that are trying to encircle him are in truth going round and round a phantom, for why can a scholar such as he, member of various academies, valued contributor to daily newspapers and widely read weekly magazines, why can he, who is familiar with the subtleties of the sonnets of the Swan of Avon, he who has, behind his warm brown eyes with the remarkably pronounced bags under them, so much Marxism and so much English style — why can he not simply be vain? Don’t go looking for fish in trees, Father used to say. For the way Londoner bundled up the newspaper when the characteristic ringing tone of the green RFT phone sounded, the way he struggled to get out of his rocking chair, in which, wrapped up in a blanket, he’d not so much read the articles as mutter his way through them, making comments and extensive digressions, reading out to the others in the room, whether they wanted him to or not, examples of journalists’ bad German for minutes on end, the way he threw down the newspaper — rocking forward in the chair, having to throw out his arms like a swimmer diving into the water — and dashed upstairs as if electrified, as if the world, even Dresden perhaps, depended on the call: all that spoke of the craving addicts have for the object of their addiction, an astounded craving, perhaps even alarmed at itself; the way the chair went on rocking backwards and forwards for a while, until it was too much for Irmtraud or Hanna: the stagey way the hand appeared out of the semi-dark of the room and halted the rocking chair, so that the silence deepened, became slightly oppressive, Irmtraud’s worried look that she tried to disguise, Philipp’s challenging clearing of the throat and gleeful ‘By the way, Meno, have you heard this one?’ joke-telling at the precise moment when the silence was deepest and, as I felt, at its most vulnerable, as if it were a white surface on which a verdict would appear — Irmtraud didn’t even dare continue reading the Party’s Study Year brochures or one of Philipp’s publications; she didn’t touch anything during the phone call, as if the sherry were a reward to which she was possibly not entitled, something of which she had been reminded by the ringing of the telephone and, set off by that, by some complicated psychological impressions that had sunk into oblivion in her day-to-day life like bad dreams that you shake off on waking, calm and happy at the prospect of the day that is beginning until you discover an object from your dream on the tallboy in the hall —; the way Jochen Londoner came back, his expression inscrutable, his look indifferent, the way he went into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water that he drank in several gulps garnished with sipping, tasting, judicious observation of the drops slowly forming on the spout of the tap, the way he came back into the living room without bothering about the silence around Irmtraud, who’d put her sherry glass down, around Hanna or Philipp, who were joining in the game — but was it a game? — which was something that always amazed me; Hanna was staring at the table, Philipp was jutting out his chin, and the jokes — splendid Jewish jokes that always, despite Irmtraud’s reproachful look in the time of silence, made me laugh, which Irmtraud probably felt as a slap in the face; but these jokes, especially the ones with rabbis, had delightful punchlines — Philipp firmly swept these jokes aside, as if annoyed at himself, when his father came back into the room; and the way Londoner came back to the table, didn’t sit down in the rocking chair again but next to his son on the couch, deliberately, letting his legs fold, his broad hands on his knees: one could definitely, I felt in cooler moments, call that vain, and all the following clearing of the throat, the play of his facial muscles, indicated that the conversation he had just had was of immense importance –

In contrast to Londoner and his wife, the Old Man of the Mountain gave his name when answering the phone. When she picked up the downstairs telephone, Irmtraud Londoner would say, ‘Speaking’, nothing more, and Meno wondered how she could know that the person at the other end of the line knew it was she who was saying, ‘Speaking’; when he answered the upstairs phone Jochen Londoner said nothing, as Meno knew from Hanna, simply picked up the receiver and remained silent. Meno had never been able to find out what the reason for this behaviour was; both Jochen and Irmtraud as well as Hanna and Philipp had avoided answering his question. No names on the phone, no slips of paper with addresses on. Certainly no slips of paper with addresses on left lying round the house. Letters are headed with the address of the Institute, the Administration, the Academy, and are written on the most widely available model of typewriter, there are as good as no handwritten notes and they are treated as a sign of great confidence, Meno thought; the sole handwritten note I received from him was when he invited me for Christmas: You’re one of the family. Hanna is in Prague, Philipp will be here and we’ve invited Altberg, who appears to be alone. He’s promised us a surprise.

‘You really want to invite me over for Christmas? I didn’t know, Herr Londoner … Oh, then I’m in your debt,’ Altberg said and Meno was irritated by the formal way Altberg had suddenly started to address Londoner until he realized he was talking to Philipp, ‘but then has your father … aha. However, please understand me … can I speak to him? Hm. I find that a little embarrassing, I have to say it comes as a surprise, of course I’m very grateful, you can … What? You’re right there again … Would you pass on a message to your parents from me?’ Then Altberg expressed — Meno hadn’t intended to observe him but he felt a strange satisfaction to see Altberg in this situation, so he remained seated — Altberg was trying to express something, was struggling to find the right word and, since it didn’t occur to him immediately, cast a number of rhetorical nets to try and fish it out: Would Philipp be so kind as to inform his parents of his, Georg Altberg’s, decision … no, ‘decision’ sounded inappropriate, too familiar, Philipp would know what he meant and should remember how condescending … At the moment he was working on a story that had a beggar in it, not anything that took place here and now, of course — where were there beggars in our country? — but there happened to be one in his story and what a nice discordant note it would strike if he were to make this beggar decide to accept the alms the other had been so kind as to offer; was his father working or had he been urgently called to the Academy? — However that might be, he wanted to inform him of his intention, ‘Hm’ — Altberg smiled, scratching his head, which he held on one side as he walked up and down — ‘hm … my intention, good God, please forget that slip of the tongue, my dear Philipp’, when you thought about it the telephone was a really strange business, you were speaking into the mouthpiece to another person who was nothing but a voice and whose physical appearance you had to imagine to go with the voice, which didn’t always work satisfactorily, naturally Philipp knew that it wasn’t his, Altberg’s, intention, that was, it was that of course, only he didn’t intend with the self-confident overtones that went with the word, ‘intend … my God, Altberg, you’re in highfalutin mode again today’, stretched out his hand and fanned the air round the receiver as if in that way he could reduce the unpleasant word, which had unfortunately been spoken and heard by the other, to fragments that would make their original shape unrecognizable; ‘that means quite simply, I want to, that is, I’d like to … Would you tell him I’m coming?’

Meno was too much taken up with his reflections to see Altberg’s look and silence, after he’d put the telephone down, as aimed at him; it was one of those searching looks behind which thoughts are going round and round seeking something, and suddenly present it as a possible answer to the unspoken question; it was the silence that knows it is the final barrier before something possibly ill-considered is said — ill-considered because spoken in too hasty confidence — the silence before the uncertainty about to what extent the other person is what he appears to be, about whether one will come to regret it bitterly if one says the word that at the moment is still well-guarded in the depths of the complicated machinery that is needed to put a stamp on it, to turn it into the currency of language and speech; one doesn’t know whether one’s initial impulse, to let the word slip out right away, is really worth following or whether the word, once and therefore irrevocably spoken, will turn into a coin that will bribe the sentry guarding the other’s silence or blood money for the unknown Judas inside oneself that for one brief, dangerous moment abandoned its excellent camouflage. In his mind’s eye Meno could see Londoner, sitting at his desk copying down extracts from something, beside him a slip of paper with names on it that he weighed against each other and against considerations you go through as you contemplate your fingernails; could see Londoner, on coming to Altberg’s name, perhaps reach out for his telephone but leave his hand hovering and then call Philipp and tell him to convey the invitation to Altberg; and after Philipp had left the room Londoner had, perhaps, sat there, legs crossed, tapping his chin with the rubber on the end of his pencil in cool calculation for a few seconds before tearing the slip of paper into little pieces on which not even the letters of the names were legible any more.

41. Leaving the country

Touching the glass. Sticking a knife into a kilo packet of sugar full to bursting. Breaking the bird’s egg they’d taken from the nest when they were children. First clear white, the yolk on glassy threads, then yellow, soft as a Dall clock, spilling over the jagged edge of the shell and into his mouth. Dreams like that.

When he couldn’t sleep at night and Anne was at work, Richard wandered round the living room. He woke up quite often now, would lie awake for a while then put on his dressing gown. When she was on night shift and he wasn’t on call, Anne took the car. If it was parked outside, he would get dressed and drive somewhere or other. He didn’t stay out for long. When he got back she didn’t question him, just asked him to be quiet and not to wake Robert. Sometimes he would wake up bathed in sweat and with cramp in his hands, stare round the room, in which a street lamp cast a pale silver veil, feeling afraid. The contours of the bedroom wardrobes, the washing basket, the candelabra with the light discs were drawn in thin lines; the wardrobes were blocks, darker than the rest of the room, at the foot of the two beds, which had been pushed together and seemed to him like a rectangular island, a raft on which he and Anne had found refuge. It didn’t move. The town, the country were asleep, sometimes the distant sound of a manoeuvre could be heard from the Russians’ firing ranges. Anne slept well, he no longer did, a consequence of the nights on duty, riddled with telephone calls, knocking at the door, the disturbance. Sometimes he would feel for Anne and she reacted, murmured in her sleep, which moved but didn’t calm him. When she wasn’t there he had the feeling figures were coming closer, that the blocks were not wardrobes but secret doors through which they came in. He opened and closed his hands, in these hours of wakefulness the right one with the healed tendons felt as if it were under a sewing machine, the needle of which was slowly, as if the current transmitter were being cautiously tested out, piercing the jagged suture.

Sometimes he took out one of Christian’s letters, which Anne kept in a file with the things that had to be immediately to hand should there be a fire (an air raid, as had happened to Emmy and Arthur; an arrest, as with Kurt and Luise). He would read one or two and then put them back. He would have liked to tear them up or given the boy to understand, in a way that didn’t hurt him or cast him down, that he shouldn’t write any more for it pained him to see the way they made Anne suffer. He had no idea whether it was all true or whether the lad was exaggerating for some particular reason — a desire to attract attention, a need for tokens of love, a certain emotional extortionism, a masochistic tendency (look how I’m suffering)? Because of his injury, Richard had not been conscripted, Ulrich and Meno had spent their time stuck in orderly rooms, Niklas had been called up to the reserves and had spent eight weeks sweeping the runways of a military airport.

He was probably being unjust to the lad.

When he heard the sound of an engine he would start and wait. The front door was locked, Griesel made sure of that, but that wouldn’t bother them, they could get through any door. They came at night, when everyone was asleep, like their fellows in their bomber jackets and sharply creased trousers everywhere on the islands of the socialist archipelago.

He’d heard no more from them since Josta had separated from him. No summons to a meeting, no confidential communication, no telephone call in which the caller did not give his name and you only heard his breathing; no one who folded a newspaper and followed him when he left the clinic, until a car drove up to the pavement and a door was opened with the engine still running. They seemed to be waiting. But for what? Were they taking it out on Christian? The post of medical orderly he’d been definitely assured by the husband of a former patient who worked in the army district command had been postponed in a rather suspicious way … Were they planning measures against him? Against Robert? Anne? Would they get their claws into Lucie? The thoughts went round and round inside his head. Sometimes, when he didn’t put the light on in the room and watched the street, he had the impression he could see the glow of a cigarette outside the house opposite … That meant that they were watching him as well, knew that he couldn’t sleep. Was afraid. And they wanted him to notice them, they were keeping the area under surveillance, making that clear to him and not even being particularly discreet about it. If they were showing themselves, they could afford to … Then he went to the hall and quietly opened the wardrobe by Robert’s door, where, without telling Anne, he’d hidden one of his doctor’s bags. He’d packed everything in it he thought was necessary and if they came, he’d be ready. Sometimes he felt he couldn’t bear it any longer and would most of all have liked to go out into the street to challenge the spy, to tell him to go to hell. But he didn’t know whether he was imagining the spy, the glow of a cigarette could be an illusion, his view was restricted by hedges and trees. And even if it wasn’t just his imagination, there might be someone having a cigarette there who wasn’t interested in him. Perhaps they’d even given up on him, in silence, without informing him … Josta had left him, that couldn’t be used as blackmail any longer. And he assumed that by now Anne knew, or at least suspected, everything: an anonymous letter, delivered when she was at home and he at the clinic, would, like damp powder, not spark off any response. But who knows — he’d better have a chat with Glodde, the cross-eyed postman.

He waited, stared at the grandfather clock with the heart-shaped tips to the hands, the bulbous glass over the face. The top hook on the pendulum door, which had to be opened to wind up the three lead weights, mustn’t be closed: there was pressure on the glass, his father had said, it could crack if the hook were closed and variations of temperature in the room changed the elasticity of the glass. Richard went over to the clock. The glass drew him to it but it would crack the moment he stretched out a finger, of that he was convinced.

Christmas came and went and the mood in the household was depressed. Anne cried because Christian wasn’t there, was stuck on a watchtower in icy wind or had to drive out to the field camp with horrible people. ‘If something should happen to the boy … He has no idea about these technical things. Those awful tanks, I can’t imagine Christian inside one and then he’s training to shoot at other people …’

After an unfortunate fall (on Sundays he wound up all the clocks in his collection, he had to use a ladder to reach the cuckoo clocks) Arthur Hoffmann was in hospital with a broken ankle. He didn’t want Richard to operate on him. ‘Your hand will tremble when it’s your father and, who knows, perhaps now that I’m defenceless you’d like to get your revenge for this or that,’ he said with morbid humour. ‘Moreover, I don’t want special treatment. I’ve never needed it. I refuse!’ Since it was way off on the outskirts of the region, the supply situation in the district hospital in Glashütte was distinctly worse than in the clinics in the regional capital. Richard talked to the chief surgeon and, by bribing the Academy pharmacist with a few Hermes books given by Meno, at least managed to arrange for a few important drugs to be passed on from the Academy stores to those of the ward where Arthur Hoffmann was.

Emmy spent the whole of Christmas Eve wallowing in gloom and neither the music of the spheres from the Holy Cross choir nor the present of a shopping trolley with a tartan cloth cover could stop her insisting that soon everything was going to blow up and that the woman next door was a witch, a jealous cow who was plotting against her and was out to kill her. ‘Yes, really. It’s as true as I’m sitting here. She’s after my living blood, she is, the storm-hag!’ Moreover her neighbour ‘kept on’ finding money, something that she, Emmy, had never managed to do. But her neighbour had her nose to the pavement all day, her ear to the wall and her fingers in other folks’ letter boxes and on other folks’ fruit, even if it didn’t hang over the fence into her garden. When Robert, at Richard’s insistent request, played a sequence of lively pieces for clarinet, she shook her head morosely, adding that the lad would never get anywhere, he was a Hoffmann and Hoffmanns always got stuck. And besides, Arthur had abandoned her.

Snow fell in large, soft flakes, hanging in the trees like semolina pudding, covering the ash-smeared streets. The Stenzel Sisters brought their steel-edged skis down from the loft; they had spring bindings and had glided over the snow in Innsbruck, in the Norway of the Telemark and Cristiania turns, on the cross-country runs of the Oberwiesenthal and Oberhof, where Kitty, with the carefreeness of a recent pensioner and the bravery of a bareback rider in the Sarrasani Circus, had secretly gone down the ski jump.

In the evening Meno would sit at his typewriter or microscope in the House with a Thousand Eyes wearing his coat and gloves with the fingertips cut off, puzzling over reports or Judith Schevola’s prose, studying zoological preparations Arbogast had lent him. Something seemed to be happening in the country, the rigidity, the inertia were now only a thin layer beneath which something was moving, an embryo with as yet unclear outlines developing in the womb made of habit, resignation, perplexity, sometimes the people seemed to sense the movements of the foetus, the pregnancy of the streets, of the smoke-clouded days. Spurred on by Ulrich, Meno had started to read books about economics, a subject that had never particularly interested him and whose number-juggling precision, mathematical modelling and apparently irrefutable self-assurance repelled him just as much as the matter-of-fact way human traits, that is fallibility, favouritism and illogicality, were pinned to the ice-cold drawing board of the laws of nature. But he began to suspect something … People’s fear that this crystal-clear science, its axioms that society in his country had been resisting for years, might be right … The per-head coal allocation had been reduced. As a bachelor who only had books to bribe people with (the car spares had to be kept for darker times) he had no pull with Hauschild. And you couldn’t go and buy the extra hundredweight you needed from another coal merchant — the coal merchants worked according to the district system and had lists of the registered inhabitants. Meno burnt wood that he and Stahl, the engineer, had cut down illegally in the forest; they were committing a punishable offence, but Stahl said he didn’t care — if the state couldn’t manage to supply its children with sufficient fuel then he, Gerhart Stahl, had to help himself. The Kaminski twins noticed these woodland excursions, waited, hands in their trouser pockets, in the hall and asked if they could be of any help. Stahl was still suspicious of them, but they could certainly use two pairs of extra hands and ears. Busse, the forester, and his dog were faced with a difficult task, for of course the large sleigh covered with a tarpaulin on which the men from the House with a Thousand Eyes transported their spoils was observed by thoughtful eyes, even in the dark.

On New Year’s Eve 1984 an inspection team from the Communal Housing Department arrived. They established that Meno Rohde and the Langes had too many square metres of apartment and that the Langes’ use of Meno’s bedroom for their son Martin was unauthorized. A new apartment, with the right to use the Langes’ and Rohde’s bathroom, was set up, consisting of the bedroom, the cabin and Alois Lange’s study on the corridor side, that is of rooms in different parts of the house. In the basement, beside the laundry room, was the former scullery (where Libussa preserved her fruit); that too was allocated to the new apartment. The Stahls, Langes and Meno protested, but it was futile, the Housing Department was not open to reason and insisted on its right to allocate living space. At the beginning of January a middle-aged married couple moved in and caused even greater disruption to the lives of the other tenants than the Kaminski twins had done with their uninvited appearance in the conservatory.

In the middle of January, Regine received a letter from Coal Island. In plain terms she was informed that her application to leave the country had been refused.

‘What are you going to do?’ Anne asked. They had gathered at Niklas’s to discuss the situation.

‘I’ve renewed my application every two weeks and I intend to continue doing so.’

‘Then you’ll be committing an offence,’ Richard said. ‘I talked with Sperber, the lawyer, who strongly advises you not to make any more requests. Your request has been refused and they can arrest you, if you start again.’

‘The bastards,’ said Ulrich.

‘But what happens next?’ Regine covered her face with her hands. She was emaciated and had dark shadows round her eyes. Gudrun went out to make her a cup of tea; it wasn’t warm in the living room, she was wearing knitted cardigans over several pullovers or waistcoats she had made herself out of scraps of fur from Harmony Salon; Ezzo was practising in the next room. Reglinde, in gloves, woollen scarf and bobble hat, was ill in bed, in her little, icy-cold room beside the Tietzes’ second toilet, which froze over in winter.

‘If they send you to prison, they’ll take the children away, perhaps even beforehand,’ Anne said. She was pale, her nose sharp; Christian had been writing fewer letters.

‘It was good that Jürgen simply stayed over there. I know someone in the orchestra whose brother took their social security card with him; it meant his wife couldn’t prove she’d known nothing beforehand; she was accused of complicity and her son ended up in a children’s home.’

‘Shh!’ came from several sides. Index fingers pointed at the walls.

‘Oh, don’t exaggerate.’ Niklas waved away their warnings.

‘I have to sell the car. The pittance I can earn as an untrained secretary … Over the last year I’ve sold a few pieces of furniture, we managed, more or less. Hans is getting on for sixteen and grows out of everything so quickly and Philipp needs new things all the time … Pätzold will give me twenty thousand for the car.’

‘For a Wartburg with less than a hundred thousand on the clock? And it’s in good condition, Jürgen looked after it really well. Don’t you want to put an ad in the paper and wait for a better offer. I’ve been to Pätzold too … the crook!’ Niklas exclaimed indignantly.

‘The Valuation Section sent me to him. And I have to give the state half the money. Anyway … Pätzold gave me an advance on the car, in January, I needed the money. Five thousand marks.’

‘Why didn’t you ask us?’

‘Money and friendship don’t go together,’ Gudrun reminded Anne, putting a cup of tea down in front of Regine. ‘You may sneer at me, but it’s true all the same.’

Richard pointed to the Sächsisches Tageblatt that was lying open on the table at a picture of a confidently smiling Barsano beside the General Secretary of the Central Committee. ‘Have you read the stuff they’ve been spewing out again. I heard Chernenko’s supposed to be in a pretty bad way … Why’s Barsano in Moscow, I ask myself. By the way, it’s true that his daughter has an application to leave the country being considered. The way she ranted and raved! I can still see it as if it were yesterday. Did you notice anything?’

‘No,’ Regine said, ‘she was quiet in the room. Perhaps it was a put-up show?’

‘I can’t see that.’ Niklas said. ‘Why should the daughter of the First Secretary dress up as a punk just to intimidate all you in the queue? There are easier ways of doing that. No, the bigwigs’ own children are running away from them. They don’t believe in it themselves any more.’

‘I know someone who knows her,’ Meno said. ‘A colleague is a close friend of her boyfriend — her boyfriend, by the way, is the same one who got Pätzold’s daughter pregnant, you were talking about that at the party in the Felsenburg … Now he’s living with Alexandra Barsano. She was also friendly with Muriel, did you know that?’

The abbot’s clock struck clear as a little bell.

‘How are Hans and Iris?’ Gudrun asked Richard.

‘Can’t say, we hardly see them. If we do happen to meet, it’s just, Hi, Hans — Hi, Richard. They don’t open when we knock either. And if we call them they’re rather brusque, won’t talk.’

‘We still haven’t had an answer to our letter.’

‘We won’t get one, brother-in-law. — Have you got a cold? You sound blocked up.’

‘But you did pinch plenty of wood, you rogues.’ Niklas gave an approving laugh. ‘But just you make sure they don’t catch you. Do you think no one notices? Kühnast asked me about it recently, while we were queuing for sparking plugs at Priebsch’s.’

‘We must think about how we can help Regine,’ Anne said, changing the subject to help her brother.

‘For me there’s not much to think about. I’ll keep turning up there … I’ve applied for family reunification, Jürgen and I have been separated for four and a half years …’

‘And the children? Remember Sperber’s warning,’ Gudrun said.

‘I know how to proceed.’

‘How?’ The question came from several mouths simultaneously.

‘Don’t get me wrong. But it could be that … I mean, Niklas, can you be sure? And Richard, you have at least admitted that they …’

‘You think I’d tell on you?’

‘Sorry, that wasn’t how I meant it. My nerves are all to pot.’

Pedro Honich was a man for whom order was all-important. The day after he moved into the House with a Thousand Eyes he asked who it was who kept the house register: Lange, who had neglected to keep it for ages.

‘But that can’t go on, Herr Doktor Lange. Rules are rules,’ Honich, who was the commander of a paramilitary Combat Group of the Working Class, told the ship’s doctor, and offered to keep the register himself in future. ‘There are no entries for Herr Rohde and yet he often has visitors.’

‘Yes, you know Herr, er, Honich —’

‘Comrade Honich. I am a member of the Socialist Unity Party.’

‘I’m not. We’re not spies and whether Herr Rohde has a visitor or not, and who it is and how long they stay, is his business alone, that’s my opinion.’

‘That’s your opinion, is it?’ Herr Honich went on about bourgeois arrogance and loopholes that had to be closed. A few days later he called a meeting of the house community.

‘Do we have to go along with this?’ Stahl asked. ‘What does the fellow actually want? Does he take us for members of his combat group?’

‘Let’s listen to what he has to say,’ Lange said.

Because of the lack of a room big enough, the meeting took place in the upstairs corridor. Frau Honich had put out some liver sausage sandwiches, beer and mineral water that only the Kaminski twins touched.

Herr Honich, in his combat group uniform, stood up and declared the meeting open with an attendance check. Sylvia Stahl was excused, she had an evening in the Schlemm Hotel with the work team sponsoring her class. Then he introduced his wife and himself. His wife was called Babett, came from Karl-Marx-Stadt and was the new head of the Pioneers at the Louis Fürnberg High School. Herr Honich, as he emphasized, came from a working-class family in the Micken district of Dresden. His wife’s hobbies were the garden and the Timur group providing assistance for old and handicapped people; he himself was passionately fond of motorbikes, was a great fan of Dynamo Dresden and liked playing football himself. He intended to form a street club and hoped many, especially young people, would join; if others followed his example they could have street championships that the women could support by organizing solidarity tombolas, handicraft activities for the little ones and a field kitchen for the players. It was his ambition to win the ‘Golden House Number’ for the House with a Thousand Eyes in socialist competition.

‘For God’s sake,’ Stahl whispered to Meno, ‘what have they lumbered us with here?’

‘That’s all very well,’ Sabine Stahl broke in, ‘but, as you know, we all go out to work and in general have little time for that kind of thing. I’m more interested in practical matters, for example how we are going to organize use of the bathroom. With just Herr Rohde it was manageable, but now there are nine of us who want to use the bathroom morning and evening and our boy is still completely unpredictable. How are we going to sort that out?’

‘I suggest we work out a plan of who should use the bathroom when, Citizen Stahl. As a mother you will of course have priority.’

‘Plan, plan! Do you think we can go to the bog according to plan? As you will have perhaps noticed, the toilet’s in the bathroom as well, so what about that?’

‘We have noticed that, Comrade Stahl.’

Stahl, infuriated, pulled up the lapel of his jacket and waved it to and fro. ‘Can you see a badge there? No? I’m not a comrade.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

Frau Honich gently patted her husband’s hand. ‘We noticed that too,’ she said calmly. ‘Perhaps we can share your toilet?’ she said, turning to the Kaminskis, who raised their hands in horrified protest.

‘We have an application for a new bathroom that has been under consideration since 1975 without any progress at all having been made. Instead the Housing Department have added you to the inhabitants of the house. Scandalous! Also, since as a comrade you are in favour of speaking openly, I find it just as scandalous that you, hardly have you moved in, have been given your own telephone line while Herr Rohde and I have been waiting for years for one.’

‘But that is not our fault, Citizen Stahl. I have to be available twenty-four hours a day. I can well see that there’s a problem. Perhaps I can do something for you,’ Herr Honich said in conciliatory tones.

‘You have connections?’ Libussa croaked. She had a thick scarf round her neck and was sipping at a glass of warm milk with honey.

‘Well … You know we were directed to a bathhouse in Querleite, it’s supposed to be in one of the villas that used to belong to the sanatorium.’

‘That’s right, it’s the house called Veronica. Yes, go there. But be careful not to step on the grids without flip-flops — athlete’s foot!’ Stahl cried irascibly.

‘Oh, come now, Gerhart, that’s no permanent solution,’ Meno said, trying to calm things down a little. ‘We all have to make the best of it we can. We’ll find some solution. We could take it in turns to use the bathhouse, then the bathroom would be available for two groups each day. As for the toilet, we still have the earth closet in the garden.’

‘You’re welcome to get that working again,’ Sabine Stahl said angrily. ‘I wish you joy of it, especially now in winter.’

‘I could see to that,’ Herr Honich said.

Stahl threw up his arms in fury. ‘Say what you like, you’re not getting me on that … cavity! And how do you think that business with the bathhouse in the morning’s going to work? Are Sabine and I to trot over there with the children and let them catch their death of cold in this freezing weather?’

‘I’ll speak to the Housing Department, Citizen Stahl, and see what I can do.’

‘And stop all this “Citizen Stahl” nonsense. I’ll send in a formal complaint. Conditions here are beyond belief.’

‘Strange things are going on in Moscow, strange things,’ the newspaper vendor whispered to Meno one morning when, from the window of her kiosk, she handed him the copy of Izvestia she’d just been reading, while he was waiting, his nose red and bunged up with cold, at the 11 tram stop.

At 8 p.m. on 12 February — Richard and Anne were visiting Regine — a messenger rang the bell and delivered notification that Regine was to report to Coal Island, second floor, F wing, the next morning. ‘Call us straight away and tell us what they want,’ Anne said. ‘I’m free tomorrow and if you need the car I can drive you.’

‘I’m obliged to leave the territory of the GDR by midnight,’ Regine murmured on the telephone the next day. Richard had just come out of the operating theatre.

‘Is it bad news, Herr Hoffmann?’ one of the nurses asked, concern in her voice. ‘You’ve gone quite pale.’

Richard waved her away. ‘I can probably finish at the normal time today, Regine. Give Anne a call, she’s got the car. I’m on duty at the theatre this evening.’

‘Oh, lucky you,’ the nurse exclaimed. ‘My husband would have paid you five hundred marks if he could have had that shift.’

Regine hung up. For a few seconds Richard sat there without moving.

After he’d finished at the clinic he took a taxi to Lene-Glatzer-Strasse. Meno and Hansi were packing suitcases in the Hoffmanns’ Lada. The door to Regine’s apartment was open, there was a light on in the hall. Someone had emptied out their ash pan in Philipp’s pram. On the Neuberts’ letter box was a strip of adhesive plaster with ‘Traitor’ written on it in felt tip. Richard tore it off.

Regine and Anne were sitting in the living room, crying. Meno had obtained some capacious, solidly made Vietnamese tea chests for Regine that Hermes used to send large quantities of books. After Richard, Hansi came in, sixteen by now and almost as tall as Richard. ‘We have to get a move on, Mum, the train leaves at ten p.m. and they warned there might be black ice,’ he said.

‘Have you got the snow chains?’ Richard asked Anne, who shrugged her shoulders. Richard rushed outside. The snow chains were still up in Caravel, in the cellar. ‘Are you going with them? Great. You’ll make sure Anne drives carefully, won’t you?’ he asked Meno. Hansi came with some luggage, they’d packed thirteen suitcases for the journey, some had to be strapped to the roof. The day had been spent going through the list of things to be done: the State Bank, certificate to say Regine had no debts, Housing Department, Education Authority, expatriation with certificate of identity.

‘Well, Hansi, your violin isn’t a cultural object of state importance,’ said Richard attempting a joke. It fell flat, the boy was looking nervously at his watch. ‘We still have to go and say goodbye to Grandad —’

‘I’ll say goodbye now then, Hansi; I have to go soon.’

‘You’re going to the Semper Opera House today?’ The boy looked at him with a mixture of melancholy and incomprehension.

‘Couldn’t swap the shift.’

‘So goodbye … May I call you “Richard”? “Uncle” just sounds stupid and isn’t right anyway.’

Richard went up to the boy and embraced him awkwardly. ‘Farewell, Hans. And all the best over there.’

Regine came with two suitcases. ‘Quick and painless …’

‘Yes, quick and painless, that’s always the best.’

‘Thank you for everything, Richard. And if things go on as they are, you’ll be following us …’

‘And today it’s all over,’ Richard said.

‘I just hope nothing else goes wrong. Have you got everything, Hansi?’

‘You’ll be seeing Jürgen again today —’

‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,’ Regine said. ‘The way things are! I was furious and then I couldn’t help crying … Tell me about the opera, how it was, what they played, what people said … The Pegasus medallions above Wallenstein and Iphigenie there are by Jürgen.’

‘Call us,’ Richard said.

‘I’ll write,’ Regine said.

Hans tapped his watch with his fingernail.

42. Iron Curtain

Richard raised his arms. The bodyguard frisked him. ‘I must ask you to get undressed, Herr Doktor.’

‘Are you going to go through this with everyone in the audience?’ Richard asked, astonished more than annoyed as he was examined in a room beside the cloakroom, first by a member of East German then of West German security. They even shone a torch in his mouth, looked through his hair and, despite his protests, inspected his intimate areas.

‘Do you think I’ve hidden a poison capsule up my backside. It’s monstrous the way I’m being treated here.’

The bodyguards were unimpressed. ‘Weren’t you briefed?’

‘Not about your methods.’

‘We have our orders. As a doctor you could come into contact with people under our protection. Be prepared for an inspection after this. Together with you, the two personal doctors will check out the sickbay, medicines and doctor’s bag. — That’s all right, you can get dressed now.’

For the premiere Richard had had to be at the Semper Opera two hours before the performance began. Furious at the undignified examination procedure, he tossed his coat onto the cloakroom counter. Like a criminal, he thought. And then they’re surprised when people run away … He thought of Regine and Anne, who must be on their way by now. If the road conditions were reasonable, they could be in Leipzig in an hour and a half.

‘If you want, you can look round the house for a while, Herr Doktor. You’ll get a walkie-talkie and we’ll call you when the advance convoy arrives.’ The bodyguard’s radio telephone rang. ‘Aha. Good. — That was it. You are asked to confirm by telephone that the appropriate hospital wards in the city are prepared. You’re asked to call back.’

‘By the General Secretary?’

The bodyguard scrutinized Richard’s expression. ‘By his personal physician, of course. Tell me when you’re ready and I’ll make the connection.’

‘Where can I phone from?’

‘Over there.’ The bodyguard pointed to the room next to the examination room. ‘Direct lines have been set up.’

‘Müller here.’

‘Hoffmann.’

‘Yes, I’m ready. How many more times am I going to be phoned this evening, dammit all,’ Richard’s boss growled.

‘Sorry but I’ve been instructed to check the connections.’

‘Hmm. OK then, they seem to be working. — And?’

Richard didn’t reply. He didn’t know what Müller was asking.

‘What does it look like, the Opera?’

‘Haven’t got round to looking at it yet.’

‘Hm. I expect a report from you tomorrow, Herr Hoffmann, if I have to provide background cover for my senior physician. Have you enough batteries for pacemakers with you?’

‘Haven’t got round to checking that yet.’ Richard had to laugh.

‘I’m just eating a piece of cherry cake, your wife’s recipe,’ Müller growled. ‘It’s very good, but I’d rather be at the opera. Well, enjoy yourself.’ He hung up.

Richard called the Internal Medicine Clinic, Reucker gave him a few tips as to what to do if there were strokes, or heart or asthma attacks. ‘But you’ll have been briefed, I assume, Herr Hoffmann? I mean if Traumatology’s taking over theatre duty …’

‘There are a few in-service training courses for first aid I’ve —’

‘— screwed on? Like your Christmas tree last year? Well, let’s just hope nothing happens.’

My God, Richard thought, are they crabby! Were they jealous of him because he was on duty at the gala performance? Great! He thumped the table, making the telephones jump up and down. He’d have liked to see the look on Reucker’s or Müller’s face if they’d had a torch shone up their backside!

Urology. Professor Leuser’s easy-going drawl boomed out of the receiver. ‘If they’ve got a kidney stone get ’em to jump off a chair; phimosis ain’t an emergency, and if their joystick’s itchy either it ain’t been washed or there’ll be some wild life crawling round on it. Not an emergency either, Herr Hoffmann. An’ if the piss comes out in sev’ral jets, I recommend op’nin’ their barn door. There’ll be a catheter there, I s’pose, my Gawd, what a palaver.’

Even the Gynaecological Clinic had been put on alert; they’d been told a woman in the retinue of the ex-Federal Chancellor was pregnant. Richard informed the bodyguard that the lines were operational and all the doctors on stand-by. He called the advance convoy in which were the East and West German personal physicians. The area round the cloakroom was now full of people gesticulating, telephoning, trying to look important. Richard went to the foyer. When he saw the red-carpeted stairs up to the dress circle he felt like dashing up two or three steps at a time, tugging for pure joy at the red cord they’d put on either side as a handrail, bursting out into a cry of jubilation, so overcome was he by the magnificence of the building that for a few precious minutes, perhaps only seconds (he could hear steps and the murmur of voices), was his own to enjoy. What he was familiar with was the ruined opera house that, with collapsed gable, burnt-out auditorium, walled-up doors and overgrown with trees, had for decades dominated the view of Theaterplatz. He stood on the stairs, open-mouthed, and looked round. Then he ran back down the stairs again to take in once more the splendid perspective of the staircase, ran up, stroked the marble pillars and with greedy looks devoured pictures, ornamentation that in the light of hundreds of lamps, effervescent as champagne, opened their eyes freshly washed and reborn. Here was this picture, this blue, there a scene with Knights of the Holy Grail, winged Madonnas and swans; bucolic landscapes in the lunettes; names of operas glittered in gold leaf, competing for his attention with busts of composers, dark and light rippled marble (much of it imitation, as Richard knew from the newspapers) gave him the feeling that he was at the centre of a dazzling, high-quality, at the same time dangerous force, of a fire, tamed by strong willpower, that was sending out tongues here and there, fanning the flames of the chandeliers, mirrors and polished ledges, shattering into a thousand beautiful shards on the windowpanes of the gallery. He had the feeling he was being borne up, charged to his very fingertips by this great, sun-like force; he rocked on his toes, laughed, turned this way and that like a spinning top, drinking in everything with his eyes, couldn’t feel his shoes any more. He felt like dancing — how he would have loved to execute a waltz with Anne there! He put the walkie-talkie in his pocket, looked round.

Arbogast was standing beyond the curve of the gallery; Richard sashayed along towards him. The Baron smiled, ‘It makes you young again, Herr Hoffmann, doesn’t it, when you see all this? Is it the first time you’ve been in here?’

Richard nodded, still a little breathless and abashed. Arbogast mentioned the letter he’d written to Heinsloe, the senior manager at the hospital, that Richard had put on one side then forgotten. Arbogast talked about oxygen and the healing of wounds. ‘Breathe, Herr Hoffmann! Anyone who wants to live must breathe!’ he declared, clearly in jovial mood, giving Richard a cautious and comradely pat on the back. ‘Perhaps we can tackle cancerous tumours with oxygen. People at my Institute are working on the problem …’ He went to the window, waving Richard over. A large crowd had gathered in the square. A platform had been set up, the police had drawn a cordon round it. Barsano was speaking but no one seemed to be listening to him, the eyes of all those gathered there were fixed on the Opera, admiring the richly decorated, flame-catching building.

‘Oh yes, our dear Dresdeners,’ Arbogast mused, ‘they only want to go back. Neo-Gothic, Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Monarchies. Their greatness is when they can have something “back”, can rebuild it … Their style is a purloined mishmash, eclectic, not primary … and yet overall it does have something of its own and it’s charming too. Perhaps that’s the way art will go in the future: doing something again, though paying tribute to time, thus making what has been into something secretly new, its depths perhaps now revealed, something, therefore, that can be truly appreciated. An art of translation, so to speak … You understand? Translators are the most precise readers, or so your brother-in-law has told me. Who’s interested in reality when we can wish … This whole opera house here’s a dream: something that has no purpose, no necessity, given shape in bricks and mortar. And, as ever, not cheap at that. Hundreds of millions for — bubbles …’

‘But very beautiful bubbles,’ Richard ventured to object.

‘Yes, very, very beautiful’ — Arbogast cleared his throat — ‘bubbles.’ Then, with a nod of the head, he left Richard on his own.

What a strange guy! He watched Arbogast go. The Baron’s walking stick rat-tat-tatted on the floor, as if he were checking the soundness of what was underneath.

Anne was tired, Meno poured her a third cup of coffee from the vacuum flask; she gulped it down, impatiently flashing her headlights when cars coming in the opposite direction left it too long dipping theirs. The regular ‘ba-bum’ every time the Lada went over an asphalt join between the concrete slabs had sent Philipp to sleep, he had his head in Regine’s lap and didn’t even wake up when they jolted over one of the many potholes, each time making Anne quietly swear.

Meno felt restless too. He felt oppressed by the dark countryside all round, the occasional lights in the villages seemed like periscopes from undersea zones staring out over a leaden, misty ocean; but they were abandoned, or so it seemed to Meno, they were part of a fleet drifting in the darkness of the polar sea, the crews, stuck like Cartesian divers to breathing tubes, benumbed with sleep. What had happened to this country, what illness had infected it …? The hands on the clocks trundled the hours along, time seemed to flow like cold treacle. Philipp Londoner was worried, there were vague and contradictory rumours coming from Moscow, the Kremlin seemed to be in turmoil, the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party was said to be in his death throes in the government hospital … Meno came to with a start when Anne hooted the horn: they were driving behind a convoy of timber lorries, the overtaking lane was blocked by a motorbike escort. After a few minutes they were waved past imperiously. A motorbike escort for timber lorries? Meno had a closer look as they drove past: cylindrical shapes, tapering at the front, could be made out under the tarpaulins; at the wheel of the articulated lorries were soldiers of the Soviet army.

‘Rocket transport,’ Hans said, breaking the silence, ‘those are SS-20 rockets, camouflaged as loads of uncut timber.’ He knew that from a friend at school, he said.

‘Davai, davai,’ one of the motorcyclists shouted.

They overtook and lapsed into silence again. Meno was thinking of the Honichs, who had brought strife and something like nudist-beach easy-going ways into the House with a Thousand Eyes … Things were certainly pretty noisy. Herr Honich did early-morning exercises with the window open to booming folk music (‘I love to go a-wandering …’), knocked at Meno’s door to invite him to join in the keep-fit session (as soon as he switched the radio on that was the end of Meno’s ability to concentrate), he needed it, he said, spending all the day in a sitting position; morning exercises strengthened one’s concentration and woke one up … Herr Honich seemed unconcerned at Meno’s rejection that grew more pointed with every day. But the woman got on Meno’s nerves even more. She claimed to be entitled to use the balcony, rang at the most inconvenient times and protests could not stop her flinging the balcony door open, thus allowing the warmth in his living room to pour out. Meno had rearranged the furniture and bookshelves to compensate for the reduction in space in his apartment but the little nooks and crannies that created aroused Frau Honich’s curiosity, no muttered curse could keep her away; she knocked on the bookcase, squeezed through, asked if she might come over when she was already standing by his desk, smiled at Meno, who, with a pained look, quickly hid his manuscripts. What was he doing, she wanted to know. Working. But what on? On poetry perhaps? Oh yes, on poems, of course; but he didn’t need to hide them from her, she thought poems were suuuper (she drew out the ‘u’ like a rubber band; at this adolescent expression Meno had to bend down to keep his fury under control), perhaps he could … Oh yes! she exclaimed, he was an expert, he knew all about that, she was sure he could teach her how to write poems! It was something she’d been longing to do for ages and now she’d met someone and someone who lived right next door into the bargain, if that didn’t mean something, she said teasingly, shaking her finger roguishly at him. She wanted to learn how to do it.

The next day Meno rang Coal Island and complained. However: according to such and such a regulation, they explained, Citizen Honich had the right to use the balcony in his apartment and he could not lock her out of his apartment if she wished to make use of that right. Why were the tenants of 2 Mondleite always making difficulties? They had no time for that kind of thing.

Stahl thought they should fight back and regularly took out the Honichs’ fuses. Then they sat in the dark and the pop music (Oberhofer Bauernmarkt, Regina Thoss, Dorit Gàbler) died away. Herr Honich countered this by threatening to report Stahl because he listened to West German radio and had repeatedly responded to repeated requests that he participate in socialist competition with comparisons from the animal kingdom; his wife Babett was a witness.

‘Penny for them, Mo.’

‘Oh, this and that.’

‘Problems?’

‘Not particularly. How about you?’

‘They’ve lengthened our shifts. One doctor and one nurse have left the country. There are intrigues going on in Richard’s section. One of the doctors, the Party Secretary, seems to be spying on him. He has to train him. They don’t like it when knowledge is beyond their control and in hand surgery they’d have problems finding someone to replace Richard, at least in Dresden. Robert has a girlfriend. He’s a bit young, I think. But he does know all about the birds and the bees. Barbara has her head full of wedding preparations. Ina already has something on the way, it seems. Look, over there.’ She pointed to a line of windmills, turning in the empty countryside in front of a blue-green strip of bright sky, as if in slow motion, with flocks of crows silently drifting up and down round them. Regine said nothing. Meno looked out of the window.

‘May I?’ Sperber, the lawyer, pointed to the empty chair beside Richard that was usually reserved for the theatre doctor’s partner. ‘Your wife’s not coming, of course.’

‘How do you know?’

‘One knows one’s cases, one knows one’s colleagues cases,’ Sperber said with a smirk. ‘And one’s friends’ problems. You discussed Frau Neubert’s case with me … Oh, that’s not a breach of client confidentiality. A certain exchange of information is necessary, we have to work together if we want to have material we can use against the prosecuting counsels — what do you think of it?’ Sperber’s gesture took in the whole auditorium, which was gradually filling up; people were standing at the balustrades, craning their necks in the stalls, expectant faces filled with pride; many had handkerchiefs in their hand. ‘Is that not something special our little country’s managed to achieve?’ Sperber asked without waiting for an answer. The standard expression was ‘our state’ or ‘our socialist GDR’ (an odd adjective, Richard thought, as if there were another one); at ‘our little country’ Richard pricked up his ears.

‘If you like, you can come and visit us sometime. The invitation includes your wife too, of course,’ the lawyer hastened to add. ‘We would be delighted to have the opportunity to get to know you better. One moment.’ He fished a visiting card out of his little leather handbag and pressed it into the right hand Richard, nonplussed, held open. ‘The Freischütz isn’t really my thing, all that Romanticism and merrymaking at the shooting competition on the village green. A beautiful dream for which we’re gathered here and every one of us will understand in their own way. But the music’s admirable and for our lord and master’ — Sperber nodded cautiously in the direction of the official box — ‘it’s probably just the right thing. Only last Saturday he shot a twelve-pointer. Will you excuse me for a few minutes.’

Sperber went off, appearing up in the VIP box a few moments later, where a prolonged session of handshaking began.

The train was late; now, after all the rush, they were standing on the platform, waiting. This would have been the time to say farewell but the station announcement had talked of an hour’s delay. The light in the Mitropa café was pale, slimy; cockroaches scuttled across the tables as if caught in the act. On the menu was soup as green as weathered copper, mixed-vegetable stew, schnapps and beer. Hans felt nauseated, wanted to go out again. Meno bought a packet of Marie biscuits. ‘Do you like reading?’ he asked Hans outside.

‘It all depends. Most of all Karl May.’

‘Here, take this. You might get bored on the journey.’ He handed him a volume of Poe’s stories, illustrated by Vogelstrom.

‘I’m sure I won’t, but thanks.’ Hans took the book and stuck it in the inside pocket of his coat.

‘Isn’t it cold?’ Regine moaned when they came back. ‘I hope nothing goes wrong now.’

‘Do you know why there’s a delay?’ Meno asked. Regine, in tears again, turned away.

‘Frozen points. The train’s coming from Rostock,’ Anne replied. They’d made a kind of bed on the suitcases for Philipp, covering him with various articles of clothing, but he wasn’t asleep, he was staring up at the arched ceiling with little spikes of crusty ash hanging down, intestinal hairs of a Gulliver in the land of Lilliput; hundreds of pigeons were roosting on the crossbeams, heads under their wings, packed close to each other so that none could be a danger to the others during the night, Meno thought, they probably kept each other warm as well. The loudspeakers over the platform crackled, a woman’s voice in broad Saxon extended the delay into an indefinite period. Regine put her hand over her mouth and leant forward, it looked as if she were covering a yawn, but she was screaming into her hand. Hans took Regine to one side, they walked up and down. There was no one apart from them waiting on the platform. Railway police were checking a few drunks on platforms some way away.

‘Scream, if you want,’ Anne said, ‘it won’t bother me, let people hear it.’

‘So that they can arrest us after all?’

‘Hans,’ Regine begged him softly.

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ There was steam coming out of Anne’s mouth, Meno looked at his sister closely. She’d pulled her orange scarf right up to her eyes, perhaps out of embarrassment; she was wearing a chapka Barbara had made and buttoned down the earflaps. Meno filled his pipe. Now Anne took Regine’s arm, they were walking round and round, discussing how to deal with her effects. The Vietnamese tea chests could be sent to Jürgen’s address in Munich; Anne was to take the money for it from the sale of the furniture Regine had had to leave behind.

‘What did you have in mind?’

Regine turned to face Meno, who was sniffing the strong vanilla smell of his tobacco. A suspicious expression appeared on Hans’s face, though Meno had only asked out of curiosity and to pass the time. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Richard thinks that as soon as you’re over there you should bring an action against the state for confiscating your paintings, even though there’s no chance of success, of course.’

‘The paintings have gone, Anne, and Jürgen’s sculptures too. That’s the price we had to pay.’

‘Ebony.’ Sperber examined the grandfather clock beside the lacquered door and the two delicate chairs where Arbogast and Joffe were sitting chatting. ‘What do you, as an expert, say?’ he asked, turning to Richard, who was standing beside him, glancing uneasily now and then at the door with the shining ‘Box’ over it. ‘I often went to see your father in Glashütte. He has an excellent collection and was so kind as to advise me on the purchase of various pieces. You admired some of them the last time you came to see me.’

The door was opened, the General Secretary let Barsano and the ex-Federal Chancellor go in first. Richard looked at the buffet, there were servants in ceremonial livery, frozen in bows. On the tables with damask cloths were butter knives with rounded blades. Looking at the butter knives, then the Comrade Chairman’s brightly shining face and his neck, stiffened by a snow-white, starched collar, Richard started in horror as it occurred to him how well suited to being cut through or hanged such necks seemed, even those of the ex-Chancellor and Barsano; yet they consisted of the same substance — vulnerable human flesh — as the necks of so-called ordinary people and Richard automatically started looking for a mark that branded them. Perfidious, forbidden thoughts!

‘I’m familiar with that look you have on your face at the moment, half pleasure, half horror,’ Sperber whispered. ‘It’s the expression associated with crime.’

‘Is that intended as a joke, Herr Sperber?’

‘I like to think I have some knowledge of human nature’ — the lawyer gave a brief smile — ‘and you get a thrill out of taking risks. There’s some attraction in having a conversation like this here. And I have to say such thoughts are not unknown to me. It’s the fear of the crime they might commit that drives young people into my profession. I’m interested in the depths people can sink to. I have quite a collection.’

‘How do you collect them?’

‘Not in the form of deep-sea charts or sections of the seabed, as you might assume. — Don’t shake his hand, if you’re introduced to him. He doesn’t particularly like that, and he’s the one who determines the degree of familiarity.’

‘You feel sorry for them.’ Anne nodded in the direction of soldiers standing guard by a tank transport train.

‘What are you going to do?’ Regine asked as Anne looked in her purse.

‘Take them something to eat.’

‘But they’re Russians.’

‘They get cold too. Come with me, Mo, I can’t carry it all myself.’

They went to the Mitropa café, bought tea, potato soup with sausage and rolls; Meno and a grumbling waiter with cigarette burns in his snow-white jacket carried the teapot. The soldiers were standing by an outside track on the other side of the station. Suspicious, almost fearful, they felt for their Kalashnikovs when Anne showed them the bowls they’d brought. Meno said in Russian that they’d brought them something to eat, tea to warm them up. The soldiers, children’s faces with shaven heads and caps pushed back, looked longingly at the tea, but were hesitant about coming closer; one ran to the front of the train where an officer had jumped down from a carriage and was knocking the dust off his flat-peaked cap. They conferred. A second officer appeared, clearly of a higher rank than the first, for he reported to him. The second officer took his cap off, scratched his head, turned his hat in his hand for a while, went back, knocked on the carriage. After a while a third officer appeared, to whom the second reported this time.

‘Well, I’ll get back to my place of work,’ the waiter said. ‘I simply can’t believe it. And anyway, I’ve just got over a cold. No offence meant.’

He stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled off. The three Soviet officers exchanged glances. The soldier facing Meno and Anne stood, motionless, with neutral, apprehensive expressions, now and then giving the bowls, Anne’s coat, Meno’s shoes a quick glance. The waiter returned, walking between two tracks. ‘What’s going on here, citizens?’

Silent and unannounced, a train arrived at Regine’s platform. Anne put the bowls down on the ground and was about to run over.

‘Stop!’ one of the policemen shouted, fiddling with his revolver belt. ‘Where are you going, citizen?’

‘Our friends are over there … the train —’

‘That’s the through train to Munich,’ the other policeman said. ‘What business is it of yours?’

‘We were accompanying our friends —’

‘And were going to try to emigrate illegally, I presume.’

‘What?!’ Meno exclaimed, completely baffled. The superior Soviet officer went over to the policemen and pointed at the bowls, the pot of soup, the tea.

‘What a load of nonsense!’ The waiter threw up his hands in despair.

‘We must ask you to follow us.’ The first policeman went in front of Meno and Anne, the second grasped the arm of the waiter, who was laughing. Across the station Regine and Hans were shouting and waving. When a whistle sounded they set off running, stumbling and encumbered with their thirteen pieces of luggage, Hans stopped once to put Philipp, on his shoulders, who, as far as Meno could tell, was merrily directing them with his little arms.

‘We will investigate what your true intentions in the vicinity of the Soviet armed forces were. Move!’ the first policeman ordered.

43. A wedding

The Hoffmanns’ barometer indicated ‘changeable’. The first three days of May were cold. There was hail and snow, then the sun appeared, pale and still half asleep; suddenly, as if it had come to an abrupt decision, it climbed out of bed, full of energy. On the fourth the bees started to swarm. Waves of dandelions broke over the gardens on the slope above the Elbe. Bird cherry and sweet cherry blossomed. On the thirteenth Meno entered plum and pear in Libussa’s spring calendar, two days later the Cellini apples. When Meno looked out towards Pillnitz from the Langes’ conservatory, the white blossom covering the still winter-dark trees was like down from thousands of torn pillows.

One Sunday in the middle of May a wedding party was standing outside Pastor Magenstock’s church waiting for the bride and groom to appear. After a glance at her watch, one at Pastor Magenstock’s calming gesture, one at the sky, Barbara wailed that there was a jinx on the wedding: where were the two of them? And now the first drops were starting to fall, thick and soft as slugs, on Ulmenleite.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Niklas said, opening the Tietzes’ family umbrella with demonstrative casualness over Gudrun and Reglinde; his own aristocratic pepper-and-salt thatch, still giving off the scent of Wiener’s birch hair lotion (it made Meno think of a Russian track across the fields with exultant larks and the obligatory horse-drawn cart), he sheltered under the porch, from which a blob occasionally spattered down. Pastor Magenstock was proud of the birds’ nests and all the spiders’ webs. They were all God’s creatures, he’d insisted to Barbara, to which Barbara had retorted that the Lord would do better to think of the dressmakers and their wearisome wedding preparations and did it not bother him that the stuff stuck to the soles of your shoes and was thus trodden in all over the church? His Reverence had made a slight bow. Pastor Magenstock, as Meno was aware, had his own ideas about caring for his flock and what it meant to be a shepherd in difficult times. The ship of Christianity was heading for dangerous depths and sometimes when, in the dark of the night, Pastor Magenstock turned to the picture of Brother Luther — his countenance afire, the hammer of the fenceposts, lion of the Scriptures and flail of disputes — seeking a draught from the spirit of his strength, all he could hear was the familiar clatter of the loose shutters and the breathing of his seven loved ones.

Ulrich shook back the sleeve over his wristwatch, spread his arms wide, startling Josta and her husband (a fellow student of Wernstein’s, Richard had learnt, who was staring at a saint looking up in improbably mild ecstasy in the aisle of the church), rubbed his chin that, like all the male chins in the wedding party (even Robert’s and Ezzo’s, Ulrich had insisted because of the photos), had been shaved by Lajos Wiener himself with a heavy, blue-ground Solingen blade, stropped on Russia leather. All Ulrich said was ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake’ (he wasn’t wearing his Party badge, Meno had established) spat out through clenched teeth, at which Barbara’s teacher Noack, the white-haired furrier from the Brühl, exchanged looks of concern with Barbara’s brother, Helmut Hoppe, a pastry cook at Elbflorenz, and pointed to the sky as a first rumble of thunder was heard.

‘But it’s true’ — Ulrich looked up at the sky with a shrug of the shoulders — ‘can’t stand criticism, eh?’

‘But surely Herr Kannegiesser will make it?’ Anne’s question sank into the unfathomable discretion of Pastor Magenstock’s face. Who knew whether the organist/choirmaster’s F9 could still manage the climb from the Mordgrund, past the Soviet army hospital and up to Turmstrasse?

‘I’m going to get in the car and go to meet them.’ Ulrich, furious, jutted out his chin and squeezed his key ring in his fist. ‘They must be somewhere. But I don’t suppose it would occur to your daughter and our son-in-law to find a telephone kiosk and call us?’

‘You never give us a call when you’re late. — Perhaps they’ve secretly run off.’ She’d seen a thing or two herself, Barbara said in horrified tones, in her life in and around Dresden.

‘Of course.’ Helmut Hoppe took out a hip flask. ‘Just you have a sip of egg liqueur, sister. Made it ourselves, it tastes better than the stuff from the other side. The eggs come straight from the farmer to our Rationalization Department and if it’s a long day, and it’s always a long day in the Rationalization Department, they rationalize this tasty little sauce.’

‘Here they are,’ Christian said. The fact that he was there was due to a promise he’d been able to give, after correspondence with Meno, to the sergeant in his new unit who dealt with requests for leave. ‘Private Hoffmann,’ Staff Sergeant Emmerich, known as Nip, said, ‘you’re an earhole in the second six months of your term and earholes don’t actually go on leave, but if you happen to have a Polski Fiat exhaust manifold …’ Meno had provided one.

Ina got out of the car, laughing. Wernstein and Dreyssiger, his best man, looked like dyers; both were stripped to their vests and shivering, despite the heat; their arms were smeared black up to the elbows. Ina was carrying their white shirts and tails.

‘For Heaven’s sake, child, what’s happened?’

‘Engine fault, mother-in-law.’

‘How stupid can you be! You should have left the car and taken a taxi.’

‘We tried, there were none available. And hitching a lift didn’t work either, there weren’t any cars to hitch.’

‘And what do you look like?! Can the pair of them get washed here, Herr Magenstock?’

‘We’ve only got cold water in the church. We’ll slip over to my house.’

Christian watched Ina as the three of them, followed by Magenstock, came back out of the parsonage; she still hadn’t calmed down and had to hold on to the fence to give her exhausted body a few moments to gather strength such as happens in ripples between contractions or after the relief of vomiting in cases of gastroenteritis. Then she lifted her head and looked Barbara in the face: in moments of great agitation it resembled a horrified jackdaw. Limp and groaning, she raised her right hand and put it to her forehead, then she was once more shaken by convulsive laughter. Wernstein and Dreyssiger each hooked an arm under hers, Pastor Magenstock tried to hold an umbrella over the bride. The organist’s wife had rung up while they were in the parsonage to say her husband was ill, Dr Fernau, who was still with her, had said he must stay in bed, but she’d spoken with Herr Trüpel, who was already on his way to the church with a selection of records.

‘And there he is now, our sunshine man.’ Ulrich grinned.

‘A good thing we’ve got these excellent umbrellas. Do we feel smug! Magnificent.’ Helmut Hoppe licked a drop of egg liqueur off the rim of his hip flask and observed with interest Rudolf Trüpel as he fluttered along towards them in the now pouring rain like a water rail, bent under the weight of his case of records.

Many times before when Kannegiesser was ill, the owner of the Philharmonia record shop had helped to provide a solemn setting for weddings, baptisms and funerals. Meno remembered Christmas services with toccatas and fugues struck up by a player who sought release in music and showed no consideration for a parish choir on a Silbermann or Arp Schnitger organ in a hurricane of thunderous sound that aroused sinners’ consciences the moment Rudolf Trüpel, with quiet satisfaction and educational aggression, let them resound from the Japanese hi-fi equipment donated by members of a twinned parish in Hamburg with a concern for quality. Meno recalled his father telling him when he was a child about the Abode of Rest, as if Rest were a woman with a tenancy agreement and a list of the house rules, and when he remembered the domes of St Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square, he thought that was where she lived and not in the Arbat district and not in the office of the director of the Lubyanka where a telephone screamed even when silent. The onion dome of St John’s in Schandau had had the same effect on him; now, however, in Ulmenleite the chain of associations broke off. The wedding party outside the church was getting restless (Barbara with discontentedly furrowed brow), for one of Bach’s funeral chorales after another was ringing out with the force of an alpenhorn blown next to the ear of a sleeping infant.

‘Great choir,’ Niklas said, ‘could be the Thomaskirche. It’s the Gewandhaus orchestra, the violins speak Saxon, but not that of Dresden.’

A further attempt brought melancholy, obstinacy and God with open arms.

‘Some marriages are like that,’ Helmut Hoppe said. ‘Anyone it makes think of egg liqueur is a rogue.’

‘You and your suggestive remarks,’ Helmut Hoppe’s wife Traudel sighed. ‘Can’t you keep them to yourself, at least at your niece’s wedding.’

‘Nah. It’d be nice if the wedding could get going. Oh look over there now. There’s a man shrugging his shoulders and spreading his arms. I know that from work. It means we’ll just have to improvise.’

The congregation was waiting inside the church while Herr Trüpel conferred with Pastor Magenstock. As far as Meno understood, Trüpel’s son must have swapped the contents of the record cases (baptism, wedding, funeral) round. Magenstock nodded, thought, adjusted his spectacles. Reglinde shook her head categorically. She had graduated from the school of church music but not taken up a post as organist/choirmaster. At the moment she was working in the zoo as an assistant keeper. Robert had an idea and as the wedding party entered the church, after the bride and groom and Pastor Magenstock, a choir, singing in canon, improvised Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March’ from the gallery: Trüpel conducted, Niklas’s bass imitated the organ, Gudrun the high voices, Ezzo and Christian hummed delicate arabesques while two of Ina’s fellow students and Robert intoned the melody. Pastor Magenstock welcomed the bridal couple, family and friends. ‘We now begin this service in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.’

‘Amen.’

‘Let us pray with the words of psalm thirty-six: Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds …’

‘So there’s nothing doing under water, you can lie as much as you like down there,’ Helmut Hoppe whispered to Barbara, who was sitting in front of Meno.

‘I don’t believe in it myself, but enoeff. Blaspheming in church brings bad luck.’

‘… in thy light shall we see light. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.’

‘Amen.’

Pastor Magenstock gave the choir a sign. A safe stronghold our God is still, a trusty shield and weapon — Trüpel conducted with feeling and zest. The voices of Noack, the furrier, and the Stenzel Sisters rose up, thin and quavering. Richard kept his eyes on the ground. Meno knew that he only went to church services as a favour to Anne and, that day, his niece. Kurt Rohde would come later and wait outside for Malivor Marroquin, who was to take the wedding photos. The hymn began to die away in embarrassed tatters; Trüpel brought the choir in again to bolster up the tailing off in the pews below and bring it to a conclusive end. Pastor Magenstock went up into the pulpit and began his sermon on the text chosen for the wedding ceremony. ‘But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.’

Richard observed Lucie. She had scattered flowers with other children. Now she was sitting between Josta and the husband he didn’t know, surreptitiously dangling her legs. Daniel was lounging next to Josta, blowing bubbles with his chewing gum, and kept turning his head round.

‘What a badly behaved boy,’ Anne whispered. ‘Why does he keep grinning at you? Do you know him?’

‘No. Perhaps a patient’s son.’

Richard listened to the sermon for a while, then let it go in one ear and out the other when Magenstock brought in his third parable: the kingdom of heaven was like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind; the good were gathered into vessels, the bad were cast away. That made Richard think. Wasn’t there a hymn that said: Whatever thou may be, come to Him and He will welcome thee? So the kingdom of heaven had to fish out its own inhabitants … Did that mean the little fish felt no desire to swim into heaven and had to be dragged up out of their stupidity and into paradise? But if it was so splendid up there why did the fish not go of their own accord? All that seemed familiar to him. He watched Magenstock, who was in the pulpit, preaching with joyful fervour. It also brought back the scene in the forest when Wernstein, Dreyssiger and he had tried to steal a Christmas tree. A hymn started, he didn’t join in; too proud to pretend. He didn’t know any of these hymns and Ina, he thought irritably, hadn’t thought of making copies of the words for those who didn’t know them. And, of course, there weren’t even enough hymn books. Ulrich seemed to be able to keep up pretty well … Interesting. The Stenzel Sisters didn’t need a hymn book. They stood up straight in their row giving those beside them, doctors from the Academy, their noses plodding along the lines of a shared hymn book, looks of restrained puzzlement. As Ina Wernstein was putting the ring on her husband’s finger (with a grin, as Richard could tell from his view diagonally behind her: Wernstein’s fingernails were still dirty from the engine oil), Barbara shouted for help, scrabbling around wildly in her cleavage; a scorpion had fallen on her, she said, running out of the church, Ulrich behind her. ‘An earwig,’ he whispered when they came back.

‘Our father, who art in heaven.’

Richard resolved to ask about Wernstein’s family; the wedding party seemed to consist of just the Rohde wing and a few of Wernstein’s colleagues from the Academy and his student days.

‘Plizz lukk at liddel gold-finsh, plizz sink she fly naow, you smile.’ Outside the church door, in the damp light of a returning sun, Malivor Marroquin was adjusting their positions for the photo. Kurt Rohde kissed Ina on both cheeks, looked Wernstein up and down, turning his face either way as he did so, gave him a brief but hearty pat on the shoulder; Meno thought: he likes him, all the rest is embarrassment. Typical Tower-dweller. They do have the big emotions but they play them down, they prefer to make them look ridiculous rather than admit to them; to show them all too openly would seem like an affront to them, indiscreet, an infringement of the inviolable inner sphere. To speak the secrets out loud is to lose them, anyone who is lavish with the big emotions doesn’t respect them; they avoid kitsch and prefer to tone down the grand gesture; they are afraid of the things that are important to them being sold off cheaply. Marroquin held up his light meter, adjusted the three thumbscrews on the wooden tripod legs that looked like propellers which were about to join forces to lift the scratched, bulky camera case with its brass-bound lens and black cloth up into the air, leaving the baffled photographer standing there with the torn-off cable release in his hand. Marroquin had closed off the street with two warning triangles (‘Photography in progress’). He wasn’t put off when cars started to hoot, waggled a warning index finger at them as he threw his red flag of a scarf in a challenging gesture over his coat, the pockets of which, added by Lukas, the tailor, according to Marroquin’s instructions, were crammed with pieces of photographic equipment and accessories that might turn out useful in the usual kind of session (‘What do you think, how is it to be? — No idea, you’re the expert’): false noses, paper chrysanthemums, for children a Makarov cap-pistol. Marroquin wore a beret with a badge pinned to it over his long white hair that was engaged in philosophical discussion with the bewitching May breezes; on the badge were the words ‘No pasarán’ between exclamation marks, one inverted, one normal, that looked to Meno like two quarrelling fists and had a strangely ironic effect (why two exclamation marks, wasn’t one enough?); at least he couldn’t repress a smile when he imagined Party slogans between the belligerent punctuation marks.

‘Do you want peepul to see liddel gold-finsh or not?’ Marroquin came out from under the black pharaoh’s cloak and pointed to Ina’s belly. ‘Then plizz lukk at home of stirrup of imperialism.’

Magenstock’s response was a bored raising of the eyebrows.

‘Hold breath. Ready … Two liddel brrats have stuck tongues out — once more? But that will cost extra.’ Wernstein and Ina declined with a wave of the hand, despite Barbara’s objections and the fact that Traudel Hoppe hadn’t been able to repress a sneeze. The bride’s posy was caught by Kitty Stenzel.

The party was to be held in the House with a Thousand Eyes. Two days before the wedding, demijohns with kvass that Ulrich had started had burst in the house; he had been impatient, had placed heaters beside them, the pressure of fermentation had sent circular discs of glass, that looked as if they’d been cut with a glazier’s diamond pencil, shooting out of the bottles. The Afghan rugs, the Tibetan runners and the big Persian carpet from Vietnam, Barbara’s walking tour of distant lands and daily vacuumed pride, were soaked through and sticky; Meno and Ulrich took them out into the garden and dipped them in tin bathtubs filled with hot water. The kvass had seeped through into the apartment below — they had to get a device to draw the dampness out of the walls (Herr Kothe, who was sitting on his balcony dunking a biscuit in a glass of tea as the carpets splashed about in the garden like colourful seals, knew someone who knew someone); a team of painters had to be arranged and courage screwed up for a contrite ring on the bell of a firmly closed door: would the Scholzes be prepared to accept an invitation to the wedding as interim compensation? Now Herr Scholze was standing on the washing area in front of the balustrade with the eagle exchanging tips about the preparation of sucking pig with Pedro Honich. He favoured le porcelet farci but Honich could not find a butcher who could supply the ingredients for stuffing the piglet (‘Boiled ham? A hundred and fifty grams? No chance!’), a shop that had fifty chestnuts in stock in May, nor a dairy that sold Parmesan or mature Comté cheese, and you couldn’t get saffron, not even in Delikat shops. Pedro Honich stuck by Serbian (he said ‘Yugoslavian’) sucking pig. Helmut Hoppe and Noack joined them, made wise comments and bore the responsibility as Honich prepared sausage meat, sliced peppers, rubbed salt on the inside of the piglet, warmed up Puszta sauce and beer. Meno kept apart. The Kaminski twins were away and had locked their apartment, otherwise all the doors in the house were open. In the shed Meno and Stahl had set up one table with bread and one with a cold buffet from the Felsenburg; Adeling, the waiter, and Reglinde’s friend who now had a job in the Felsenburg were serving dumplings in Danish sauce.

A smell came from Arbogast’s chemical laboratory, at first of peaches, then of slurry. Christian looked for Fabian and Muriel but couldn’t see them, their parents weren’t there either, but had sent a camera (K16 model, Christian knew it from his period of work experience with Pentacon) that was on a table with the other wedding presents in the summerhouse; Alois and Libussa had put them there in case it rained. Records, books (historical pigskin-bound medical tomes from Ulrich’s collection, a complete Treatment of Fractures by Lorenz Böhler, all the surgeons present envied Wernstein for it); then a dkk refrigerator with a two-star freezer compartment from Anne, Richard and Meno; from the Hoppes a perambulator and baby clothes (‘A Baby-Chic nappy makes any mother happy’); Barbara had made both a winter and a summer suit for her son-in-law; Kurt and Ulrich had given a voyage (on MS Arkona to Cuba, Ina had been beside herself with joy); Christian saw a washing machine, vouchers for furniture (the Tietzes; Niklas had added one of his St Petersburg stethoscopes); from Noack, the furrier, a marten fur muff ‘for Madame’ (a suggestion of a kiss on the hand), a lambskin coat collar ‘for Sir’ (sketching a bow); a canoe from Wernstein’s colleagues.

Compared with all these useful things, his present … Christian, not knowing quite how to put it, recalled the hours looking at the saturniid moths in Caravel with Meno: an awkward, somewhat clumsy but touching child in the company of grown-ups — that’s what the green jug he’d bought, without a long search, in a potter’s studio in Neustadt seemed to be; he’d only had two hours between arriving at the station and the start of the marriage ceremony in the registry office and he’d wasted a good hour, desperate and undecided, in a second-hand shop, nudged by greedy elbows, jostling his way from an unusable tailor’s iron to a television set in need of repair (and still priced with three zeros after the 2). The jug had been surrounded by rolls of wallpaper and buckets of emulsion paint, brushes were being kept soft in it. — ‘No, that jug, if it’s for sale,’ he’d said to the potter, who was wiping her hands on her apron in astonishment and was offering to show him what she had on display. The jug wasn’t one of hers but she wasn’t insulted, even though Christian had expressed a desire to buy it without hesitation; perhaps she was impressed by his insistence, his spontaneous decision, perhaps by his explanation that he was going to his cousin’s wedding (he was wearing walking-out dress); she took the brushes out of the jug, washed it and wrapped it up in a smudged copy of Union; Christian had paid the price she asked without hesitation. Most of all he would have liked to keep the jug for himself. The green was the green of holly leaves, the rich, dark tone immediately appealed to him, also the simple, ancient jug shape with subtle asymmetry; there was something about it that had said, I’m for you, I’m a part of you in another world. Christian was struggling with himself; when the houses on Lindwurmring were already in sight he recalled that Meno had once said to him that presents you give should be precisely those you can least bear to be parted from. He had handed the jug to Ina exactly as it was, still wrapped in the smudged newspaper.

‘The disadvantage would be that we’d have to accept any dump we’re offered. A fellow student knows someone in the accommodation directorate and says teachers are supposed to get preferential treatment. We’ll see. At least it’s in Berlin and you suggested Thomas’s prospects might be better there than here.’

‘Yes, that’s something I wanted to discuss with the pair of you. I can say “du” to you now, can’t I?’ Richard gave a playful tug on the sleeve of Wernstein’s tailcoat, which Barbara had altered; you could tell from the cut that it must have been handed down and all the oil of lavender from Barbara’s secret stock couldn’t overpower the smell of mothballs coming from the swallow tails and shiny lapels enclosing a pink bow tie with black dots on a white frilled shirt. ‘As long as Müller’s head of surgery I can’t imagine you’re going to get anywhere. Grefe’s the assistant in South One and that’s where the real careers have started ever since I’ve been with Müller. I can offer to put in a word for you with Orthopaedics or in Friedrichstadt; Pahl’s a man you can get on with, one of us.’

‘I’d still only be an assistant there, I wouldn’t be any farther on,’ Wernstein said after a few moments’ thought.

‘If they separate trauma from general surgery, as Pahl tells me they’ve been working towards for some time, he’ll become head and you could apply for a post as senior physician. Of course, there’s always the possibility they’ve already earmarked the post for an internal candidate. And you said you don’t want to move into orthopaedics.’

‘You could take the job in Buch?’

‘I’d be stuck there, my dear spouse. I wouldn’t be able to develop. Their main focus of research is in different areas and I want to do my post-doc qualification in traumatology. We’ve already talked about that and we don’t need to go through it all again. Especially not today.’

‘You’d be earning considerably more than at the Charité Hospital in Berlin.’

‘Maybe. But I’d be at the Charité … Sauerbruch, Brugsch, Felix, Frey, Nissen … I could continue my research there. Here Müller won’t let me get on.’

‘You’ll soon be a father, let me remind you. Even if your wife isn’t that important to you, you ought to be able to give your son something. — Yesyes, we’re coming,’ Ina shouted to some of the guests in the lower part of the garden.

‘When is it due? Do you already know —’

‘It will be a boy,’ Ina said emphatically.

‘No, it’ll be a girl.’ Wernstein laughed. ‘By the way, we’re with Weniger. — What d’you think of him, Herr … er … Richard?’

‘One of the best gynaecologists I know. One of the old school.’

‘The fifth of July,’ Ina said. ‘It will be a boy. You may have your clinical wisdom, but I’m the mother, I know it’s going to be a boy. Uncle Richard, would you write a reference for Thomas?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Richard said, nonplussed by Ina’s direct approach.

‘May I ask you something? What do think of him as a surgeon?’

Richard gave her a searching look. Wernstein had flushed bright red and tried to wave away her question; she shook her head. ‘I know it’s tactless of me but I’d really like to know. I want you to give me an honest answer and if you think it’s not for his ears, we’ll send him away. — And, by the way, Christian doesn’t look too good. Perhaps he’s exaggerating? He’s always tended to overdramatize a bit.’

‘I don’t think he’s exaggerating. He’s in the army, in Grün, it’s just a little place.’

‘He gave me a jug. It’s really nice of him.’

Richard clasped his hands behind his back. He could sense that both Ina and Wernstein were curious, which he found embarrassing, he felt it was a little improper; he was also disturbed by the eagerness, the hint of calculation, in Ina’s question, as if she suspected that under these circumstances — alone with the newlyweds — it would be impossible for him to avoid answering. ‘I wouldn’t answer your question if I had to lie because it’s your wedding day. I’d have managed to wriggle out of it, believe me. But since it won’t spoil your day, as I hope, I can give a straight, honest answer to a straight, honest question. I think your husband’s a born surgeon and expect great things of him. I’d be proud and happy if my boys had his abilities. I can also say that I regard him as a kind of son. What I was actually hoping, Thomas, was that you’d succeed me but, as I can see, you have other plans. If you want my opinion: in your place I’d do exactly what you intend to do. Unfortunately Müller’s allocated Kohler to me as assistant, not you.’

‘Him!’

‘Not a bad surgeon, but not a patch on you. I’ll have to see what I can do for you. I know a few people at the Charité. Though, of course, you could always wait and see, Müller’s retiring next year — though that doesn’t mean things will be any easier. — Perhaps we should discuss this later, or another time, your friends are getting impatient already. What did you think of the sermon?’

‘You shouldn’t be intransigent, Uncle Richard. Pops was also against a church wedding, but I wanted it. For a man who has to preach the word of God in the middle of atheism, I think he does it very well.’

‘Certainly, certainly,’ Richard said in placatory tones. He watched the pair of them go as they headed for the summerhouse. They exchanged a few words with Josta and her husband; Josta was holding Lucie’s hand, not letting go, and Richard turned round and quickly left before his daughter could look at him. She’ll be starting school this year, he thought.

Meno puzzled over the custom of sawing a tree trunk at a wedding. Two people joined together in marriage and affirmed this union by, of all things, putting a frame saw to a trunk the diameter of a telegraph pole and starting, as Ina and Wernstein were now doing to the encouragement and raillery of those around, to heave it back and forth. Ina soon wearied and, with a laugh, begged for someone to replace her. Helmut Hoppe shouted that that was the beginning of infidelity and she couldn’t have a replacement for the birth, ‘So keep sawing, child’, otherwise what they’d just heard was the bride herself calling for her rival.

‘You’ve got things completely wrong again, Meno. To get through a trial together, that’s what it means. You always insist on spending so long thinking things over until they get distorted and a cat suddenly becomes a dog. Which is more or less the case with your Chakababa or whatever he’s called, the name’s completely unpronounceable. I’m sure even Arbogast’s monsters are afraid of him. And isn’t it outrageous to stink the street out with toxic gases. Yes, toxic gases, I know exactly what I’m saying. A very shady character, that Baron, they say that with the Russians … I can believe anything of him. Toxic gases. It stinks — and that when we’re celebrating a wedding. After all, we did put up notices spelling it out clearly. It’s criminal, the stench the people in that dubious Institute of his make. Enoeff.’ Barbara waved away any possible objections Meno might have with a vigorous gesture. He was standing beside Gudrun, trying to keep both bride and groom in sight while Barbara took out a clothes’ brush and wiped the dandruff off his jacket. ‘What d’you think of him? Isn’t he a fantastic man? So attractive! And he’s got a head on his shoulders, too, a doctor, a surgeon, he’ll never starve and Ina won’t want for anything.’

‘As long as he’s faithful.’ Gudrun insisted on putting a damper on things. ‘In Ina’s place I’d have made him have his palm read. A colleague of mine does it, doesn’t cost a lot.’

‘Do you really believe in that?’ Barbara’s bracelets tinkled as she let go of Meno and ran her fingers through her hair, one of Lajos Wiener’s experimental creations of impressive stability (Western all-weather hairspray, one of Ulrich’s barter enterprises he’d been pursuing surreptitiously and pretty successfully recently); her look swung from one of Gudrun’s eyes to the other, but Gudrun took her time selecting a sausage kebab from her plate before answering, ‘You can believe in it — or in something else, it all comes down to the same thing. At least it was a point that could have been taken into account so that you wouldn’t need to reproach yourself for having neglected it later on. And so far my colleague has always been right.’

‘Really? Well I never! And does she read palms in general or just for weddings? Could I, for example, ask her how long I’m going to live?’

‘I imagine you could, though I think she has specialized in fidelity.’

‘Aha … And you say it doesn’t cost a lot, Gudrun? People say that dark-haired men with blue eyes are unfaithful. Robert, for example. Don’t you think it’s terrible how quickly young people develop these days? On the other hand there is a definite positive side to it. I always thought Ina would bring home one of those long-haired types, but no, she’s my clever daughter, she’s inherited my instinct. One day she turned up at the door and said, “Mum, this is Thomas, we’ve made up our mind.” And I hadn’t noticed a thing, not a thing! I must have been ill, that’s the only explanation.’

‘Black-haired men with blue eyes are unfaithful? In an article on Alain Delon in Paris Match I read at Wiener’s it said he was very faithful. He and Romy Schneider —’

‘That’s just newspaper nonsense, Gudrun! They just want to keep his female fans happy. Faithful? With his looks? I ask you. Anne says Robert has a girlfriend already — but I can’t see her, he hasn’t brought her. He must have a new one already. And how faithful is Richard … True, he has blond hair, but his eyes are pretty blue. I mean, what does he see in Anne, she’s let herself go a bit recently, she should look after herself more. Richard’s still in his prime, has a good job, has an air about him, the children are gradually moving away, that’s when you become open to certain offers …’ Barbara made an apologetic gesture to stop Meno from walking away. ‘I know she’s your sister and what I’ve just said might sound insulting, but that’s not how it was meant. I think it’s worse when no one says anything and then one day you’re picking up the pieces — and everyone else is nodding, they’d all known about it, had seen it coming ages ago. People are saying all sorts of things about Richard; I had a long conversation with Thomas …’

‘Saying what kind of thing?’ Meno asked.

‘You see, now you’re curious, you’ve lost that disapproving look. They say this and that. So what, Dresden’s a small town. And you know yourself what he admitted to us.’

‘I think exposing those who peddle such rumours is the best way of putting a stop to them. I have to stand up for Richard.’

‘That’s not quite the way you were talking back then, Gudrun. You said State Security only approached a certain type of person … and that one shouldn’t do anything to attract them. I remember it very well. Look, there comes the wedding cake. Isn’t it a beauty? The idea of the amputated hand was Ina’s, she thought it was somehow — surgical. They used red jelly for the blood. Or was it ketchup? Well, you’ll soon find out.’

‘And the ruler stands for education? Is it made from frosting? I have to say I don’t think it’s very nice the way you confront me with the things I’ve said — or am supposed to have said. There’s something insidious about it, as if you were secretly noting down everything we say just so that, years later, you can accuse us of contradicting ourselves, make any development or change of opinion seem stupid. How would you react if, years later, I imitated your shriek in the church at every opportunity?’

‘I’m sure you’d do it very well. It’s your speciality.’

‘Enoeff, Barbara, enoeff.’ Gudrun got the tone exactly right and for a while Barbara didn’t know what to make of it. Then, closing her eyes, she flapped her hand.

‘They’re a lovely couple, don’t you think? He doesn’t idolize her, that’d be quite wrong, he’d be disappointed and take refuge in booze, work or affairs. It’s not that particularly pretty women, and that’s what Ina is, have no faults. She is a bit of a spoilt princess, perhaps we weren’t strict enough with her and once the child’s arrived and he’s spending the whole day at work, perhaps even working on his post-doctoral dissertation in the evenings as well, she’ll look round and realize what a family means. They’re planning to go to Berlin. She’ll be the one who’ll have to deal with the move as well.’

‘I think the best thing is to book a few appointments with a good beautician right away. Giving birth and everything that follows, a little mucky pup getting on your nerves all hours of the day, isn’t exactly good for your complexion. Ina’s pretty, I give you that, but I think she’s one of those who fade early … There’s something dry about her skin. And she has a tendency to cellulite, as far as I can see, which indicates weak connective tissue that won’t have regained its elasticity after birth. Not exactly what men want. For women with weak connective tissue in particular the first child can often be a disaster, they get fat like Russian women, and Ulrich was born in Moscow, as you know.’

‘Look, the bridegroom’s going to say something,’ Meno said, in an attempt to change the subject.

Wernstein made a short speech, thanked the guests for coming, took Ina’s hand and kissed it. Adeling brought in trays with Crimean champagne, Ulrich wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and tapped his glass with a spoon.

‘A pleasant lad, doesn’t think he’s superior.’ Barbara didn’t give Gudrun, who was craning her neck, the chance to hear any of Ulrich’s speech. ‘And such a tragedy! Has no relatives at all left. His whole family were from the uranium mines. Thank God I didn’t need to ask him whether … enoeff. Snorkel and I had set an afternoon for it, it should have been his business, really, between two men, but he couldn’t bring himself to, couldn’t sleep the whole night for thinking about how he should go about it … God, the ways of putting it. The next day Ina came with the positive test from the gynaecologist.’

‘Tell me, Barbara, there was something I was going to ask — why kvass of all things? Or was that what Ulrich wanted? Does he sometimes dream in Russian? Or do you, Meno?’

‘Meno won’t know that. There’s no one beside him in bed to tell him the next morning. Pity, really. Why don’t you get married again? Hanna just wasn’t the right woman for you, I could have told you that from the very beginning. She didn’t even know how to prepare a boiling fowl. If you ask me’ — Meno didn’t ask but still listened with amusement to Barbara — ‘you need a woman who’ll tell you what’s what. A woman who knows something about practical matters. I mean, you don’t even have a car. Can you even drive? But where on earth are you going to find one with the pittance you bring home. Snorkel said they could take you on in the firm right away, they’re looking for — what did he say? — a coordinator for the combine. You’d get at least twice as much. — The kvass was my idea, Gudrun. I like a tot of it myself from time to time and it would have been something different for a wedding. We just started it too late, Snorkel said the heaters would make up for that … and I did insulate the demijohns with coconut fibre. — Enoeff, now it’s the toasts: to the bride and groom.’

Christian was standing at the window of the summerhouse listening to the sounds coming from below and out of the house, a drizzle of voices, bursts of laughter, music from the gardens on the other side of the park. The rain had freshened the colours and restless waves of the still-new green of the beeches and maples mingled with the blossom of almond trees and rhododendrons at the upper edge of the steep park. Soft, loud; wedges of melancholy in between. He wanted to be alone. If he closed his eyes he could see images of the barracks in Grün, hear the tread of boots in the endless corridors, listen to the slow, mournful dance of the polisher’s barbels that, at the turn just before they hit the walls, made a characteristic noise: the bearings at the end of the rods clicked against the cross-guides of the polishing brushes, pulling them back; again and again he was astonished at this crudely controlled elegance, similarly at the regularity with which the arched ceiling of the corridors reappeared in the evening, in the light of unshaded bulbs, strip by strip in the wooden floor, after all the boots that had trampled on it during the day. Down below someone must have told a joke, he heard Adeling’s bleating laugh, Alois Lange said in a clear voice, the Danish sauce was very good. Noack’s white hair was sucked into a cloud of plum blossom as he bent over the buffet to insert his fork into the glittering knitwork of all the other forks, the faces over them had hungry expressions, the eyes commanding the hands to perform swift, begrudging thrusts. Suddenly all these things had nothing to do with him; the house, the people: everything seemed alien to him. The civilian clothes he was wearing seemed something forbidden, something he wasn’t entitled to — it would never have occurred to him to judge others according to whether they were worthy to wear civilian clothes; yet earlier on, when he had been standing next to Herr Honich, watching the guests toasting the bride and groom, he’d caught himself automatically assessing each one according to whether he or she was worthy of being there, of laughing, eating, enjoying themselves with the others and wearing clothes the choice of which was entirely dependent on them (and on what the stores had in stock), they didn’t have to account for them to anyone. If his mother approached, he slipped away. Ezzo and Robert, Niklas and Ulrich, were talking about football, Wembley, the final at the Wankdorf Stadium; Ulrich explained a Fritz Walter goal, the famous Leipzig shot, the overhead backheel; it seemed trivial to Christian, he couldn’t understand why Ulrich tried to copy it and shot the previous year’s Golden Delicious past Herr Adeling into the shed (Ulrich supported himself on his hands and slipped down, face first, into a bed of rhubarb); Christian walked away sadly. Children were playing by the tin bath, supervised by Babett Honich; the Stahls were sitting at the iron table and waved him over, but he shook his head. Now he was here, in the conservatory, touching the plants as if they might disappear, looking for Chakamankabudibaba in his hiding place in the sago palm, bending down, placing his hand on the chessboard floor, which was cool. Motes of dust in the light, the shadows of leaves like grey fish swimming through it, the slow movement of currents, that calmed, pleased him. Before anyone could come, he went into the park.

One of those Ulrich things, Meno thought as his brother wiped his face with a handkerchief dipped in eau de Cologne and spread his arms wide, beaming with delight: shot on target, he would later say, holding Malivor Marroquin’s photo; the Chilean had been standing around patiently with his finger on the shutter release of a Praktika and had caught both the flying Golden Delicious and Ulrich’s landing; his plate camera was keeping an eye on Meno’s balcony. Another thing was that Ulrich was thinking about sending his dentist a card on New Year’s Eve. ‘No one wishes their dentist a Happy New Year. But then no one knows how much he suffers. I always say, give a flower seller flowers and a dentist a smile for New Year. Why not? Even if it’s one of his own. And even if he’s called Frau Doktor Knabe.’ When, as now, he had sat down at the head of a table laden with good food where there was a big enough audience, he liked to impart, in tones of utter conviction, knowledge that was at best patchy and would not have withstood serious examination; but although doubt would appear on some of the faces, Ulrich’s self-assured body language, his expression of certainty that suggested that there was more to what he was saying, was convincing enough to keep any scepticism unexpressed. People withdrew into themselves, were no longer quite sure, were afraid of making fools of themselves — how could one dare to cast doubt on an authority such as the eldest of the Rohdes, the Technical Director of one of the most important firms in Dresden (making typewriters, low-power engines and springs, the latter everything from mattress springs to coach springs for railway carriages), a ‘Hero of Work’ (Ulrich had spent part of the 10,000 marks that went with it on their trip to Cuba) with intimate knowledge of the ups and downs (and, above all, the to-ings and fro-ings) of the planned economy; they didn’t dare and held their tongues, but checked up when they got home, smirked or slapped their thigh, annoyed with themselves and determined to expose Ulrich the next time. Gudrun, however, did not remain silent. ‘That’s interesting, Uli. You sound very convincing, you could easily take the part of a director in a play about, let’s say, a socialist high-speed bricklayer. It’s almost a pity that your rock-solid certainties are mistaken. For example, the Garrison Church in Dresden is called just that, the Garrison Church and not the Garrison’s Church, even though to be correct it ought to be called that. Otherwise it would be a church in the form of a garrison, wouldn’t it? But good for you, Uli, you’ve got a natural gift for it, we have to grant you that, and you’ll go far, perhaps even as far as a high-speed bricklayer.’

At that Ulrich would pause for thought, check the effect her intervention had had on his audience, make some remark about the notorious unworldliness of workers in the cultural sphere, then just carry on. As well as that there was Uncle Shura. Neither Anne nor Meno had ever seen him, Kurt would just shrug his shoulders when asked about this dubious uncle; Ulrich insisted he had known him since childhood and even now (he was a very influential man in Moscow, he said, but one who worked behind the scenes) ‘did business with him’. It was from this Uncle Shura that Ulrich claimed to have all sorts of recipes that he described as ‘truly authentic’ and as coming to us ‘from the depths of the Russian people’, for example instructions on how to make pickled cucumbers that Uncle Shura had from his babushka, who had been given them by the witch Baba Yaga herself. His babushka had given Uncle Shura the recipe on her deathbed, as she breathed her last, her voice scarcely audible, after she’d kissed the icon and crossed herself; and Uncle Shura had then passed it on to him, his friend from his earliest years, under the seal of strictest secrecy and to promote friendship among the nations (if not on his deathbed). Similarly a recipe for kvass and the ‘ultimate method’ of repairing bicycle tyres. The vodka too, under the influence of which Helmut Hoppe was gradually becoming merry, had its source in the unfathomable depths of Russia, with which Uncle Shura was in mysterious intuitive contact.

‘Come on, Uli boy, tell us.’

‘It would be a sin, if I were to reveal it to you. It comes from Grandmother’s deathbed, that’s an obligation you accept, you don’t give it away.’

‘I can unnerstand that. But we’re your relatives, yer own flesh an’ blood! You refuse to share it with us, you wanna keep it all for yersel’, shame on you, my friend, shame on you. I’d never have thought it of you, no I wouldn’t.’

‘All right, then, since it’s you. I don’t want people saying I was stingy at my daughter’s wedding.’

‘Nah, you’ve never been a penny-pincher, have to give you that,’ Helmut Hoppe said, his Saxon accent becoming thicker and thicker. ‘How long did it take to put all this stuff together, eh? An’ what did y’use t’ grease their palms, the bastards? I s’pose a few mattress springs must’ve changed hands. But you’re tryin’ to wriggle out of it, Uli boy, you’re changin’ the subject again. I don’t think the old geezer would’ve liked that, him bein’ a friend of all the nations, like. Now out with it, the recipe f’ this voddy. By the way, chief’ — Helmut Hoppe turned to Herr Honich — ‘your suckin’ pig’s great, I c’d gorge myself on it, I really could.’

‘Right then. You take spirit, ninety-six proof, to which you add distilled water to the desired amount. Add one sugar cube and three drops of pure glycerine. Seal the bottle.’

‘Thass all?’

‘Then some blackberry leaves picked in the spring.’

‘Why picked in the spring?’

‘That’s when they’re full of juice, I assume. You put them in a little bottle with pure alcohol. Close the bottle and leave it in the warm sun on the windowsill for ten days.’

‘An’ what if it rains for ten days? Y’ll be left wi’ no’hing but vinegar.’

‘You put three drops of that extract in the big bottle.’

‘Jus’ three drops? Sounds a bit acupuncturic, ’f y’ask me. An’ then?’

‘The vodka’s ready.’

‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’

‘Don’ b’leeve it.’

‘It’s true.’

‘Reelly ready?’

‘Really.’

Helmut Hoppe regarded his glass. ‘Well yeh, now y’say so, the taste of a few blackcurrants does come through. Did y’hear Weizsäcker’s speech?’

‘No.’

‘I did.’

‘And?’

‘Hm. More’n three drops o’ blackcurrant in there. Great guy, a real Fed’ral Preziden’ he is. Looks impressive, no’ like the bigwigs here. I wonder what’s goin’ t’ happen in the Soviet Union now. They’ll have t’ keep off the blackcurrants now, so t’ speak. Y’r uncle Shoe-ra ’ll be drinkin’ water ’stead o’ vodker. Hey, look, the dancin’s startin’.’

Richard, sitting beside Niklas at a table at the far end, only heard snatches of what people at the top were saying. He observed Josta, who, to his relief, was sitting a long way away from Anne, with Wernstein’s friends at a table under the blossoming pear trees. Lucie didn’t look round at him. The man cut up her food for her, wiped her mouth, raised his forefinger two or three times, at which she nodded and lowered her head. Richard would have most liked to get up and knock the guy flat, it took a great deal of self-control to appear uninvolved, to sip his wine and feign interest in what Niklas had to say about the re-election of Ronald Reagan, Michel Platini’s goals at the European Championships, the sudden disappearance of touch-up spray for cars from the stores (there’d been a film called Beat Street, following which trains had been sprayed with graffiti). Anne threw him a glance now and then, which made him even more annoyed, and when Herr Scholze and Alois Lange appeared, telling jokes, he excused himself and got up. As Richard was heading for the iron table, someone pulled him into the bushes. It was Daniel.

‘Awkward situation, isn’t it?’ The boy grinned. He’d shot up, at fourteen he was almost as tall as Christian. ‘How about a little deal?’

‘What kind of deal?’

‘Well, I won’t go up, tap my glass with a spoon and tell things about you and my mother — and you shell out a hundred marks for that.’

Richard said nothing.

‘I’m serious,’ the boy said with a smile. ‘I really feel like going up to your wife and whispering things to her.’

‘You do, do you?’ Richard looked round.

‘Don’t worry, there’s no one here. Apart from a damn tomcat perhaps. Your wife would be delighted.’

‘She already suspects something,’ Richard replied, weary and horrified.

‘But you’re not sure. Are you willing to take the chance? It’d be great to drop a bomb like that in the middle of a wedding.’

‘So Lucie’s got a louse of a brother.’

‘Hey, don’t you dare touch me! Come on, let’s get this over with before someone comes. I get a hundred marks or —’

Richard looked in his wallet. ‘I’ve only got a fifty with me.’

Daniel looked surprised, seemed to become uneasy, then he noticed Richard’s wristwatch. ‘Then give me that.’

‘No.’

‘Hand it over.’

‘No. It’s a family heirloom, my oldest son’s going to get it.’

‘Lange and Sons,’ Daniel read, tilting his head to the side. ‘Now I’m going to have it, otherwise in two minutes you’re a dead man, I promise.’

Richard stared at Daniel. ‘Can’t we discuss this?’

‘Not interested.’

‘We could meet some time.’

‘Give me the watch.’

‘OK, my friend. But what do I tell my wife when she asks me where it is? She saw me putting it on.’

‘I don’t care. Think something up. Tell her it was stolen.’

‘Which would be more or less the case.’

‘In the Sachsenbad, for example. When you went swimming one Thursday.’

‘And I put it on today, before her very eyes? Come on.’

‘Then it was stolen here. Perhaps by the bridegroom before he sailed off to Cuba.’

‘Then I’d go straight over to her and we’d turn everything upside down. She’d probably also suspect you’ve got it. She was watching you before, in the church. And do you really think I wouldn’t notice if someone stole the watch off my wrist?’

‘Then you can bring it to the Sachsenbad for me next Thursday, then you could say it was stolen there.’

‘In that case that’s the end of your blackmail here. And if your attempted blackmail comes up, I might have to get divorced — but you’ll end up in the juvenile court.’

Daniel hesitated, broke off a twig, twisted it into little pieces. Richard’s anger had gone, now he felt sorry for the lad. ‘Why do you need the money?’

‘I did something stupid,’ Daniel said after a while.

‘Does Josta know about it?’

‘No. Nor her new guy either.’

Richard observed the boy. There was something funny about a blackmail attempt from someone whose voice was breaking. Suddenly Daniel took a step towards him and threw his arms round him.

‘There I am, walkin’ in Saxon Swizz’land, and su’nly I’m under this huge rock, a real whopper. An’ I says to myself, if that comes down you won’t be able to catch it all at once. Have a drink, Meno, then we’ll go an’ dance.’ Helmut Hoppe swayed slightly when he stood up. He went to fetch a bottle, checked the glasses on the table, as if he were trying to work out the course of an obstacle race, looked at the label, then the metal spout in the neck of the bottle, pulled it to one side, like a flag being kept away from enemy hands, and sent clear, curving jets of schnapps spouting over glasses, trousers and shoulders.

‘I’ve been reading your books,’ Meno said to Ulrich, who raised an ironic, wait-and-see eyebrow as he licked a few splashes he’d wiped off his suit, ‘and, as I see it, in the final analysis everything’s a question of energy. Brown coal’s our primary source of energy. But you have to be able to get at it. If I’ve understood the tables in the paper correctly, it costs more to clear away a unit of overburden than the same unit of brown coal brings in?’

‘Economics —’ Ulrich started to reply, but Honich broke in. ‘Where’d you read that?’

‘In a memorandum from the Economic Secretariat of the Central Committee.’

‘An internal document,’ Ulrich said. ‘It mustn’t go any farther.’

‘But they’ll have reserves of which we here know nothing.’ Honich nodded earnestly. ‘Some things are difficult to understand, but the comrades on the Central Committee are no fools and so far we’ve overcome all difficulties. The unity of economic and social policy —’

‘— costs more than we can afford,’ Ulrich said.

‘Surely you don’t mean that seriously?’

‘I do, and it’s no secret, ask in your organization. Ask the men with whom you do your exercises. Only recently I was at a meeting of the Planning Commission and people were speaking just as openly.’

‘Aha, private tuition again, is it?’ Gerhart Stahl asked, seeing their looks of dismay, also fear, as he walked past. ‘Just be careful what you say, the sky isn’t blue, even if that’s the way you see it, but red, and Moscow’s a long way away.’

‘Please refrain from these constant hostile remarks, Herr Stahl. I warn you, there’ll come a time when you suffer the consequences.’ Pedro Honich turned back to Ulrich Rohde and Helmut Hoppe. ‘You’re right, there are shortcomings. I’m not blind, even if Herr Stahl thinks I am. But just think what we’re aiming for, what our country has achieved so far, what ruins had to be cleared away, and what it could achieve if our people … These childhood diseases could be eradicated, we could work together on building a future where truly socialist life could blossom —’

‘D’you know what an economy is?’ Helmut Hoppe downed a schnapps. ‘I need a dustpan — an’ I can choose one from half a dozen, even if it looks like my wife. And d’you know what a planned economy is? When there’s not even any dust.’

‘Excuse me, but it’s always the same old story. Are things really that bad for you? If I look at the spread set out here, the presents for the couple, and compare it with what we used to have — What are you complaining about?’

‘OK then, y’re right there. That’s true. When I was young I sometimes didn’t have a car; an’ my Traudel an’ me couldn’t go sailin’ off to Cuba either, all we knew about Cuba was the Cuba crisis.’

‘I’m pinning my hopes on Gorbachev,’ Pedro Honich said. ‘I think he’s a good man.’

‘Openness, glasnost. If he’s for openness, great, but what’s being opennessed? That brown coal makes a mucky mess? You know that anyway, you don’t need to read about it in the paper as well. And perestroika an’ perfume both begin with a P, as my Traudel says.’

‘If all members of the working class were to talk like you …’

‘Oh, knock it off. I come from a firm that’s an existent reality. And the way things go there’s as follows: people go to work and after work there’s nothin’ left in the shops. So they do their shoppin’ during work hours. And I’m the foreman, am I to forbid them from doing that? ’s what I do masel’. We make things that aren’t there, an’ if there is something there, we make a queue. An’ even the Comrade Chairman of the State Council said there’s a lot more c’d be got out of our enterprises.’

‘That’s why we have the problems we have,’ Pedro Honich replied. Malivor Marroquin slipped past, taking photos. Hoppe put his schnapps glass calmly down on the table. ‘I’ve been awarded the “Activist of Socialist Work” medal several times,’ he said, slowly and emphatically, his strong dialect disappearing, ‘and as for Uli, he’s even got the “Hero of Work”. Are you trying to tell me what things are like in my firm?’

‘Over here,’ Kurt Rohde shouted from the balcony. ‘The king of the dance floor gets a kiss from the bride, the queen one from the bridegroom.’

Josta and her husband left, Richard went into the summerhouse. In one corner Robert was kissing one of Ina’s fellow students. Richard was taken aback for a moment, then said, ‘Don’t mind me, I’ll be gone in a minute.’ He checked the foot pump for the air beds. When he looked up he saw that the girl’s blouse was undone. ‘Is this something serious between you? I mean, I’m going to have to change the nameplate on our apartment door anyway. — Are you on the pill?’

‘Are you always that direct?’ The girl, flabbergasted, was smoothing her hair. Robert put his hand in his pocket and held up a packet of Mondo condoms.’

‘Hm, I didn’t want a practical demonstration,’ Richard muttered. ‘Just be careful, sometimes the things burst.’

A yellow leather glove atop a fencepost, beside it a note wrapped in cling-film: ‘I lost the other one here. Reward for the finder: this left glove’, a pair of scissors on a garage window ledge, the rusty nautilus at Philalethes’ View. Christian looked up at the sky, which was turning a darker blue from the south. A few boys were preparing to play football and were arguing about names: ‘I’m Pelé.’ — ‘Rubbish, you’re Zoff and you’re in goal.’ — ‘But I’m Beckenbauer.’ — ‘OK, then I’m Rummenigge.’ Some men had lugged buckets of water out to wash their cars and were discussing the look of the sky, arms akimbo. Others were standing in their slippers by the street letter boxes nodding, waving away remarks, tapping the newspaper they’d brought with the back of their hand. The elms along Mondleite drew in their green, then released it, like old ladies letting out their breath after the tensest moments of a tragic opera; the wind died down, freshened again, sending blossom and winter ash swirling up in fine sashes — undecided, like a child playing with sand and getting bored. The first raindrops spattered the brightness of the street with blots of slate-grey. Christian went back to the House with a Thousand Eyes, while the sky looked like a swimming pool of ink edged with flailing treetops; in the gardens tables were hurriedly cleared away or covered with plastic sheets, portable radios and children brought under cover. A little dog came running down a garden path yapping angrily, whirling round at the gate on its tiny paws. How mysterious it all was.

The dance; without interrupting a single number, the band from the Roeckler School of Dancing retired, instrument by instrument, to the shelter of the tarpaulin under the canopy of oak leaves: first the cello, then the violin; last of all the grand piano, together with the pianist on his chair, was rolled under the trees. Then the rain fell so heavily that the paper streamers over the sweet briars tore and there was a moment of uncertainty. But Herr Adeling stayed standing in the doorway, ramrod straight in his tails and white shirt, which was gradually becoming transparent, in his left hand a tray with champagne glasses, over his right a napkin hanging down like a dead stoat. Gudrun held Niklas tighter; Herr Honich, the best dancer, stuck it out with Traudel Hoppe; Barbara and Ulrich threw off their shoes, for puddles were already forming. ‘Kalimba de luna’, ‘Über sieben Brücken musst du geh’n’, ‘Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday’. Meno watched the rain gradually taking over from the champagne in the glasses until the contents were like clear water. To whoops and cheers Gudrun Tietze and Pedro Honich were crowned the best dancers. But they went unkissed: Ina and Thomas Wernstein had gone.

44. Be like the sundial

From now on proving yourself as a socialist in the National People’s Army, always thinking and acting in the spirit of the working class, means subordinating yourself to the rules of military life.

What It Means to be a Soldier

‘Yes?’ came the surly grunt from the tank commanders’ room when Christian knocked.

‘Permission to come in, Comrade Sergeant.’

‘Oh, look, our earhole’s come back from leave.’ Sergeant Johannes Ruden, senior soldier in the barrack room, was a 24-year-old man with grey hair. ‘Before he has to, even. He gets leave, the lucky bastard, and then he’s stupid and doesn’t stay out until the very last minute. Get this into your thick head: a dogface don’t give the army nothin’. Don’t just stand there like an idiot, put the wood in the hole. What d’you think, Rogi?’ Corporal Steffen Rogalla, like Ruden in the sixth half-year of service and therefore a discharge candidate, put his thumbs under the braces he was wearing over a civilian T-shirt and thought while Christian put his bag on his bed and went to his locker to change his walking-out uniform for fatigues.

‘First of all hand over that bag.’ Rogalla let his braces snap back. ‘Let’s see what the earhole’s brought from home.’

‘Permission to speak, Comrade Sergeant.’ Christian, who had learnt to get changed in no time at all at the cadet training school, stood to attention before Ruden, who, with a wave of the hand, graciously granted permission. ‘My leave was sanctioned by Comrade Staff Sergeant Emmerich.’

‘In exchange for a Polski Fiat exhaust manifold, yes, we know. And here it is.’ Rogalla held it up then continued to rummage round in the bag he’d put on the table. ‘An earhole doesn’t get leave for that. You could’ve written a letter and had the thing sent. Instead you get leave and go home to Mum while your elders and betters have to sweat away for you.’

‘Took over your section, junior,’ squawked Thilo Ebert, a lance corporal in his third half-year, playing with the locknut on his key ring. It was Ruden who allocated nicknames to crew members in their first two half-years. Since he wanted to study classical languages, they were Greek and Latin; Thilo he’d dubbed Musca, the fly, since only someone with the brain of a fly would think of swigging anti-freeze. ‘That is, arsehole, if you’re going off on leave you don’t do it secretly, on the quiet, like you did, only after we’ve given you permission to dismiss.’

‘Oh, boy,’ Rogalla whispered, delighted, ‘was that Musca wafflin’ on about junior? Hey! Apples! And cake!’

‘You’ve only been here for fourteen days, earhole, and for twelve of those you’ve had to manage without us, which I’m sure you thought was a great shame.’ When he laughed Ruden exposed a broken front tooth. ‘Because we were off on those shitty manoeuvres. We were workin’ our arses off while you were stuffin’ yourself. You were sharp enough to slip away, of course. You knew well enough we wouldn’t have let you go.’

‘God, I can’t stand smart-arses,’ said Corporal Jens Karge, known as Wanda, fourth half-year of service. ‘You can take those fatigues off again, Lehmann.’

‘Hoffmann,’ Christian ventured to correct him.

‘Lehmann, I said. Black overalls on. You’re to go with this ignoramus — what’s this useless sod called?’

‘Irrgang,’ Rogalla, who had tipped the whole contents of Christian’s bag out on the table, told him. ‘But this Burre’s even worse. He really has a screw loose.’ He took a piece of paper out of his trouser pocket. ‘Just listen.’ He struck a pose and began to declaim in orotund tones. ‘ “WERE IT NOT —” ’

‘Eh? Werrit?’ Ebert put his hand to his ear.

‘ “Were — it — not.” And all in capital letters. It’s poetry, you philistine. “WERE IT NOT FOR LOVE, THERE WOULD NOT BE / ANY VENEREAL DISEASES / WERE IT NOT FOR LOVE WE WOULD HAVE / HARDLY ANYTHING TO SAY / WERE IT NOT FOR LOVE / I WOULD NOT BE / AND THAT WOULD BE / A FUCKING NUISANCE.” ’

Ruden went to the door. ‘Popov!’

‘Wassit?’ came a weary voice from the driving instructors’ room.

‘Burre’s been at the grass again. Special treatment.’

‘Again?’ shouted Corporal Helge Poppenhaus, fifth half-year and therefore number two.

‘Now to you.’ Ruden took a drink from the brandy bottle they called a ‘tube’, which was on Rogalla’s place at the table. ‘We have to check whether you’re smuggling booze.’ He took a knife and began to cut up the apples. ‘There are the most incredible hiding places. I knew a guy who’d discovered that exactly sixteen tubes would fit in a tank barrel. And in such a way that they didn’t get broken when it was driven. He was a clever lad and that set him up for the rest of his term.’

‘I knew a guy, was called Johannes Ruden, and he let helium balloons with returnable bottles hanging from them float up to the ceiling,’ said Rogalla. Ruden tapped Christian on the forehead. ‘You say you want to study medicine. The titless nurses at the med centre are drunk all the time. They smuggle in booze in those horse syringes before they ram them in our arses with anti-tetanus.’ He handed round the apples, which were eaten with relish.

‘Well he didn’t inoculate mine,’ Lance Corporal Ebert moaned. ‘Dry as my granny’s tit. A real dimwit he is.’ He dropped the core, giving Christian a disappointed look. ‘We’re your comrades, we share everything. You could’ve thought of us. In your place I’d ’ve baked a cake that was at least fifty per cent.’

‘Guys like you’ll drink tank juice anyway.’ The next moment Ruden hit out, Christian slumped down, couldn’t breathe for a moment, then there was excruciating pain in his liver, the room started to turn golden. A kick from a boot brought him back to consciousness. ‘Pick up the cores!’ Ruden pulled Christian up and hit him on the ear with the flat of his fist. It was like an explosion, an eruption of red. ‘What’s that you said? I can’t understand a word.’

‘Yes … Comrade Sergeant.’

‘I can’t hear anything.’ Again Ruden’s fist hit his ear. Christian, staggering, tried to resist but Ruden was an ox of a man, the muscles stood out like cords on his forearm.

‘Yes …’ Christian threw up his arms to ward off the blow. Rogalla and Karge put on whiny voices, ‘Please don’t hit me, Daddy.’

‘We can’t hear anything! Bucket practice!’ Ebert bawled. Rogalla and Karge grabbed Christian and dragged him into the toilets. A few soldiers, who were smoking by the company ashtray, watched. The duty NCO was writing, the duty NCO’s assistant was demonstrating polishing the corridor floor to a group of rookies who were doing their basic training there. Ruden lifted a lavatory lid and pushed Christian’s head down.

‘Yes, Comrade Sergeant!’ Christian shouted as loud as he could. Karge and Ebert were leaning against the wall laughing. Rogalla pulled the chain.

45. The paper republic

‘We’ll get round to you, Fräulein Schevola, never fear. As you are trying to interrupt me again, I would like to point out that general courtesy, not only among colleagues, demands that we listen to each other and allow everyone to finish. I will continue with my report. — I call it The Screw. Now, many of our colleagues did not grow up with a pencil in their hand, even less a silver spoon in their mouth, but holding a mains tester, a mason’s trowel, a wrench. Now I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say that to be “in work” doesn’t just mean you are in a works but also that you are working on something. The writers of our country are in work; they are laying foundations, raising structures with the mind and only some of them, who do not know — or have forgotten — what axle-grease smells like, who do not know what the honest handshake of the team leader or the heat from the run-off of a blast furnace feels like, some colleagues, that is — and there are only very few of them — seem to be no longer aware what this our country is, what it stands for and who the people are who are building it up. We writers are respected in this our country. We are not at the mercy of the lying capitalist press that poured out its venom over my last novel, The Silent Front — claiming I was a dubious character who took liberties with the reality of our times and merely spread propaganda, who put clichés in the mouths of allegedly cardboard comrades, if not one of the tribe of the bores, as Herr Wiktor Hart put it … Our reviewers are not paid puppets of Springer and Co., our reviewers are members of the working class, for whom we write, to whom we owe the privilege of following the trials and tribulations of our times in our writing … The screw, then, that inconspicuous but interesting component of construction without which we would not be able to meet in this fine setting, without which this lectern, with the manuscript of my talk in the middle, would not be a lectern but just a pile of planks; the screw that holds together the chairs on which a few of our colleagues are tilting back precariously, it is the screw, small but beautiful, that I want to look at more closely … it is also there in the postbox, where letters are posted, love letters, dead letters, letters of condolence, letters to the editors of the Western press that concern us, but did not come to us beforehand. Letters from four colleagues whose literary achievements, though varying, have always been recognized by us, who could have no complaints as far as the publication of their books is concerned, for which ways of producing second editions were always found, so that the idea of censorship, that keeps popping up in letters from colleagues, became an all-too-frequently touted commonplace that even the expressive pen of our esteemed colleague David Groth could not render less ill-fitting … He hides behind generalized accusations, distorts what I say — your turn will come, Herr Groth — and with the publication of his letter places himself outside the laws of our state. He infringes the statutes of the Association to which he belongs and omits to mention the advantages he enjoys from it in his letter that was printed by the vociferously anti-socialist Springer Press … Not a word about the journeys for which he was granted permission, but loud protests at the cancellation of a journey by a colleague that would have resulted in a reading in the Bavarian parliament, where the worst attacks against us come from … You are trying to give me a lesson in morality, Herr Groth, while you publish your novel Trotsky, the literary quality of which can at best be described as dubious, in which you twist facts from the history of our Soviet friends in the worst possible way and which authors of undoubted literary quality such as my friend Eschschloraque and our colleague Altberg have described in letters to me as muckraking trash, in the West, circumventing the laws of the land! Yes, circumventing the laws of the land — you know the address of our copyright office as well as we, the members of the Association committee and all our other colleagues here present do. And it is not at all scandalous — you should choose your words more carefully — if I object to your insinuation that our colleagues Rieber and Blavatny have only been “dragged” here to face this “tribunal”, as you choose to call our annual general meeting, because they are communists who have not abandoned rational thought … In a letter to me — to return to the postbox — Blavatny called a lady colleague a “blood-and-soil bardess” because grass and soil appear in one of her poems. Is it your opinion that I may not describe that as the shameful nonsense, as the slanderous calumny it is? Where are these standards, Herr Groth, that you demand of us? Censorship? Oh dear. Anyone who calls the state planning and direction of publishing censorship should not let the words “cultural policy”, which he is supposedly so concerned about, pass his lips. The truth is that he rejects the very idea. Critical voices among our writers are being silenced? I look round and see so many familiar faces, not one of which does not belong to a critical voice. But there are critical voices that want to work effectively in our country and for our society, and do not feel, at every trifle, that they have to pass on a “subversive piece” — or whatever it’s called — to some has-been Western correspondent, because otherwise they wouldn’t be noticed … Herr Blavatny, who came to us from Nuremberg, got nowhere at home, then nowhere here, because you don’t get anywhere in a publishing house with your Party membership card but with a manuscript that is worth something. Rejected by the experienced editors of Hermes-Verlag, he immediately thought up some story of repression and state despotism, used it to dress up his feeble product and offered it for sale on the other side, where they of course also recognized its inferior quality but were, as ever, interested in news from the supposed darkness over here. A screw can be large or small and, as I remember from my apprenticeship, the very small ones are called grubs. We on the committee are not the kind of people to hurl abuse. We do not shy away from debate or openness. Our Soviet comrades show us the way and, although we do not have to follow them in everything, for now and then conditions are different, now and then a Moscow nut doesn’t fit one of our screws, we are united in matters of principle. Hölderlin says, “To be gentle at the right time, that is good, to be gentle at the wrong time, that is ugly, for it is cowardly.’ And in a further letter, in which he thanked me for bringing to his attention, in a review in Neues Deutschland, the dangers threatening his undoubted talent, Herr Rieber wrote that he felt strengthened by my honest remarks for, as a solitary desk worker, who did not always sense the homely presence of the Association, one was all too often desperately groping in the dark … And you, my esteemed colleague, write in another place that without the West writers here would find no response? There I must charge you with untruth. In this our country sensibly expressed questions receive sensibly expressed answers, that is in the nature of our society. It is also in the nature of our society to handle screws properly, for it is the society of the working class that is familiar with tools and the means of production. Here, in contrast to other social systems, they are turned to fasten things together, but not warped or stripped. We are building according to our plans.’

‘We thank you for your firm, clear exposition, Comrade Mellis. I would also like once more to extend a particularly warm welcome to our guests: our Minister for Books, Comrade Samtleben, and Comrade Winter from the Cultural Section of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party. But before I invite Comrade Schade to speak in his function as First Secretary of the Regional Association, perhaps I may be permitted a few words. The class war is intensifying. There are voices making themselves heard in Federal Germany saying: the class war is a thing of the past and we belong in a museum. In a museum, comrades! And colleagues. But it is precisely these pernicious tirades that prove that it is not at all wrong to talk of class warfare. The achievements of our Republic are under attack, the very existence of our Republic called into question. But what do these attacks on us mean? I did an apprenticeship with a forester and one thing I learnt was that when a tree is dying, it puts all its remaining strength into producing its fruit, its seed. And what we have here is a social system that is going to seed, and the things that are thrown at us are the blossoming fears of the last stage of imperialism, the fruits of anger at being part of a social system in terminal decline, the seeds of death. They dig and dig and are not satisfied until they have found some defect. And this poison keeps seeping through the gaps of our tolerance, our friendliness! Certain people and forces give the impression that their so-called concern for the development of our Republic is in truth nothing other than the untiring and, as such, actually pathological search for defects and things that call that development into question. You don’t need to shake your head, Herr Eschschloraque, and you, Fräulein Schevola, should stay in the hall so that when it’s your turn you will not twist our words. Our policies as a whole, and thus our cultural policy as well, have stood the test of time. The cultural policy in this country is not subject to fluctuations, to temporary changes; we are not riders of the boom-or-bust wave who spread their lies according to the law of the capitalist jungle. There are certain people who are always talking about truth. Pointing accusing fingers at us. But what is the truth we are talking about? About the large number of copies of the books of our colleague, Herr Groth, that are published thanks to our tireless commitment — commitment not only to his well-being but to the well-being of all members of our Association? And that both here and on the other side? Is he not allowed out of the country? Last year you, Herr Rieber, applied for six journeys to non-socialist countries — were any of them turned down? I am saying that because there were certainly serious misgivings about allowing you to travel. Your appearances over there were dominated by clichés and feelings of resentment; you kept repeating the old story of the repression of art and artists over here. And you were so repressed as to be able to do that with our hard currency, armed with a visa that is popularly known among writers as a “flying suitcase” … Is that not hypocrisy? But to put it in a nutshell: all our decisions, all assessments of political events should be based on one fundamental question: who against whom? Bertolt Brecht, “The Song of the Class Enemy”, the last verse, yes, let us stand, comrades, improvisations are not on the agenda but they refresh us; I’m sure most of us can join in Brecht’s words: “However much your painter paints / The gap will open anew / One must yield while one remains / And it’s either me or you / Whatever else I may learn / This simple lesson will be / Never will I share anything / With the cause of the class enemy / The word has not been found / That can ever unite us two: / The rain falls down on the ground / And my class enemy is you.” Now Paul Schade has the floor.’

‘That was clear, Comrade Bojahr! You almost took the wind out of my sails a little. But only a little. Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues. I spent this morning drying out the manuscript of my latest long poem, “Buchenwald”, sheet by sheet with the hairdryer. The heavy showers yesterday meant I had a rude awakening. The rain had come in through the window with the floral pattern in my study, made its way tortuously but unerringly to my poems and dripped on them. As I set about clearing things up I was immediately struck by the uncanny symbolic meaning of the event: on the one hand there was my window with the flowers — my political illusions that could not withstand the storms of socialism as an existent reality; on the other my poems — my own past and that of many comrades. I had written them in Barock iron-gall ink, for I didn’t want scholars two hundred years hence to be irritated at my faded manuscripts and was, as I read the soaked lines, more deeply moved than usual. How could the mishap have occurred? I established that the rain, instead of coming as usual from the west had, exceptionally, assailed my poet’s cell directly from the east. What a mess! What did the rain think it was doing to my manuscript? Did Moscow have a hand in it? West German television, that I am parodying so perfectly here, would certainly have asked how the poet, Paul Schade, could show such a lack of character and still not curse the rain. I say: in the interest of the flowers in the garden. In the interest of the rhubarb and cabbage beds. Of my wife’s beds with pansies. In the interest of my outdoor cucumbers and tomatoes. Joking aside, colleagues, I didn’t choose this introduction to my topic by chance for, truly, I feel more like crying than laughing. As if we hadn’t experienced that several times already. As if the methods of our internal and external enemies were new. As if we didn’t know how we have to counter these methods. You know me, I was never in favour of a few half-hearted words of encouragement for dangerous animals. “Buchenwald” is the name of my poem. We who were there know what fascism means and we know that it is the siren tones of monopoly capitalism that keep making the eternal snake of Nazism raise its venomous head. We who survived fascism and the concentration camps swore an unbreakable oath with the comrades of the Red Army of liberation never again to allow such a crime. But the womb out of which it crept is still fertile. That is my clear standpoint, the standpoint of a communist who has dedicated his whole life to the fight against revanchism, revisionism and the manifold endeavours of the aggressor to destroy us — armed with a weapon that spits out cartridge shells and with a weapon that planes out pencil shavings. Oh, I understand very well what the aim is of some of those present even if they have attentive and apparently friendly expressions. They want us to take a decision that fits in with the cliché people have of us; to do something today that we are forced to do but that for certain people in the Western media will only confirm the things they impute to us anyway. Should we really make it so easy for these individuals? On the other hand, should we make it easy for ourselves by leaving things as they are? Sometimes we must have the courage to do what is expected of us. Sometimes we must have the strength to be predictable. For that reason I propose that, after our discussion, our meeting agree to the following resolution —’

‘How is it that the resolution comes before the discussion, Herr Schade?’

‘That is only a draft resolution, Herr Blavatny. The resolution is: “The annual general meeting of the Writers’ Association discussed the behaviour of a number of members who have contravened their duty as members of the Association and impaired the reputation of the Association. In so doing the meeting accepts the proposal of the Central Committee of the Writers’ Association to have, on the basis of the constitution of the Association, a fundamental discussion about their positions with those members mentioned by Günter Mellis in his report. The facts presented by Comrade Mellis in his report prove that these members have acted contrary to their duty, anchored in the constitution, to work positively to further our Developed Socialist Society, have found it right and proper to attack, in a foreign country, our socialist state, the cultural policy of the Party and the government, and our socialist system of justice. By so doing they have served the anti-communist campaign against the GDR and socialism. By so doing they have clearly contravened the Association constitution, in particular articles I.1, II, III.2 and IV.2, and shown themselves unworthy of membership of the Writers’ Association of the GDR. The meeting therefore sees itself compelled to draw the necessary consequences from this behaviour. It passes the resolution to exclude Judith Schevola, David Groth, Karlheinz Blavatny and Jochen Rieber from membership of the Writers’ Association of the German Democratic Republic.” ’

‘Colleagues, we have heard the resolution, that is, the report, the draft resolution the committee has put before the general assembly. Now we come to the discussion. A number of members have indicated their wish to speak, so I would ask you to keep your contributions brief. We are happy to allow others who wish to do so to speak. First I call upon David Groth.’

‘Herr Mellis’s report with its attacks on my colleagues and me was in Neues Deutschland, our national newspaper, below a letter our esteemed colleague Lührer addressed to the Comrade Chairman of the State Council in which he chose to call his colleagues Schevola, Blavatny, Rieber and Groth harmful pests and damaged individuals. I hereby demand that the Association committee see to it that my voice and the voices of our colleagues who have been attacked with me are also printed in Neues Deutschland and that we can defend ourselves just as publicly as we have been attacked.

‘In this country we, the critical voices, are subjects on sufferance. Critical means that we dare to contradict the one and only true Party in places where it, in our opinion, does not tally with reality. You, my dear colleague, say that it is entirely possible to speak one’s own opinion in our country. Yes, that is what it says in article 27 of the Constitution, which grants all citizens, and therefore authors, the right to express their opinions freely. But what I am asking is whether this corresponds to reality. Unless one is completely corrupt or blind, the answer to that can only be no. It is unfortunately the case that certain problems we have are not discussed in the media here, that certain books are not published. Do you dispute that? Do not make yourself a laughing stock. Not one single time have I been able to read in one of our newspapers a response to the kind of abuse Herr Lührer deems necessary, not one single time have I seen on TV News a report on actual conditions in our factories, on environmental problems, the increasingly brutal nature of our society. Or is it your opinion that all that does not exist? Then you’re looking with your blind spot and all I can do is congratulate you on that skill, it is unheard of in the history of science. You, my dear Herr Mellis, object to my seeing a connection between censorship and criminal law. Now it is true that any author who would like to publish a book that has not been authorized in our country must automatically run up against the currency laws. Fräulein Schevola and I have committed an offence by seeking a publishing house in the West for our books that were not allowed to appear here. I think it is criminal that our actions are criminal offences. The purpose of such an interlinking of censorship and criminal law can only be to muzzle authors who will not acquiesce in lies and will call them lies. Or will they at last allow authors in the GDR to write about subjects that have always been — or are now once more — considered taboo? Will they, instead of hauling critical authors in front of a tribunal and heaping insults on them, deal with the conditions that have been criticized? — And may I conclude with a personal comment. It is not my business nor is it in my character to try to teach you a lesson in morality. You suggest it is immoral to want to publish in the West. All I have to say about that is that there is no other way left to authors who are to be silenced here. Our tormented colleagues in the Soviet Union or Romania do not have that way. It is not being published over there that is immoral, it is being censored here. Furthermore, anyone who ended up in the wrong uniform, under the wrong flag, in the wrong camp would do well not to go on a crusade against people who, in those days, fought in the right uniform, on the right side, for the right cause. I do not need to be ashamed of my past, it was not because of my “Jewish” nose alone that I was persecuted. No, the truth is that this is not about currency fraud or the like. It is about preventing writers from producing a certain kind of literature, namely one that will have nothing to do with rose-tinted spectacles. Today the annual general meeting has to vote on the expulsion of some colleagues from the Association. You are all aware that before this meeting many of you were brought together and it was made very clear what depended on the way you voted: trips to the West and bursaries, publications and performances, film versions and prizes. I will not hold it against anyone if, in consideration of such advantages, they vote in favour of the expulsion of our other colleagues and myself from the Association.’

‘That’s beyond belief! What do you think you’re saying? Stop!’

‘I will do you and myself that favour in a few moments. May your sense of shame and guilty conscience when you get back home not make you feel too depressed. Just remember, when you cast your vote, that there is such a thing as time and that what appears to be fixed and unchangeable can change, sometimes more quickly that you would think possible. It could be that one day you will have to account for your actions to your children; or to people in whose name some of our colleagues here claim to be speaking. It could be that you will be asked, “What did you do, master of the word, when the time came to stand up and be counted?” ’

‘I call on Karlfriede Sinner-Priest to speak.’

‘Thank you, colleague. David Groth: I remember a man who came through the gates of Buchenwald, in American uniform, and who looked into the faces of two colleagues here, Paul Schade’s and mine, into my ugly face, I had no hair and hardly any teeth from scurvy and the beatings. He looked into the faces of the prisoners, sat down and took off his helmet. David Groth: I remember an author who wrote moving books, full of life, about the difficult beginning of the new times and some of the contradictions that marked them. The times that were as a little child and have still not properly grown up yet, for social processes do not count in human years. Forgive me for introducing this personal note into the discussion, but I wonder what time, and perhaps also fame, have made of the David Groth I used to know as an ardent champion of our cause, as a man who fought for a better, fairer world, against fascism and imperialism. Yesterday I sat down and went through letters he wrote to me, read articles in old newspapers, read passages from his earlier books. I will never forget the author of Soldiers and Dawn, the advocate of the “Bitterfeld Way” and of harsh but appropriate words against forces I will not name so that they will not pollute the minutes of this meeting. The author of Trotsky is, as has already been said, a writer of muck-raking trash for whom no calumny, no trick is too cheap if it promises to serve his purposes; what these purposes are I do not know, I avoided them when I read the book for I simply could not believe what I was reading and checked the title page several times to see whether it was just a nasty joke and someone had submitted a trashy novel under David Groth’s name. Unfortunately certain stylistic vanities and infelicities, which were always there but compensated for by the substance of his books, taught me otherwise. Not everyone who beats the moral drum is a good writer; not everyone who plays the honest dissident in the West is, looked at honestly, an author worthy of that name. I compared the times after the war to a child. Most of us will probably have children. Do you tell your child all the time that it’s ugly? Do you only see what is ugly in your child? Or are you simply proud and happy at that great gift? There are things that are wrong and ugly about the child that is socialism but it doesn’t need moaners and misery-guts rubbing its nose in it all the time: its legs are too bandy, its arms too short, its body too thin, its voice is husky, its lips are twisted and thin, its intellectual abilities weak … Those are the glasses that only let you see what is bad and ugly in everything, dismiss the good things as trivial or unimportant. The fact is, we have our constitution and one has to stick to it if one wants to remain a member of the Association. David Groth, you and a number of other authors, including Fräulein Schevola, with whom I am above all disappointed, I would have expected better of her — you do not stick to it. You complain that you are not allowed to speak but bring in the Western media before contacting us. We made allowances about that and proceeded on our side according to the requirements of the constitution in article III.7: that the committee should have discussions to see if the qualifications for membership still obtain. You say that you are so profoundly concerned about our socialist cultural policy that you no longer regard the Western media as the instrument of the class enemy but as assistance in changing these allegedly terrible conditions. You say you want to express your criticism but you don’t come to Association meetings where you are free to do so. David Groth: it was not an easy decision to take. I have had sleepless nights. Yet everything has already been decided. By you and by those other authors who decry us. It is not we who are withdrawing from you — you are withdrawing from us. You and your colleagues: you have excluded yourselves.’

‘Thank you, Karlfriede Sinner-Priest. The next speaker is Herr Altberg.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have not brought a prepared speech with me since I only became aware of the subject of our annual general meeting here and the same could be the case for most of you. True, the unusual firmness of the invitation caused me agitation and a sense of foreboding. Seeing many faces among you that I have not seen in our Association before, I wonder whether they belong to authors and, if so, what they can have published. I have a suspicion it’s about obtaining a majority in a vote. Is it about literature as well? Literature is not the maid of politics, the illustrator of what happens to be the current mode. Only idiots or people making malicious insinuations equate a character’s opinion with that of the author — well, there are characters out there in the world that I don’t like but whom I must interest myself in, if I don’t want to portray the world solely through characters that are acceptable to me. Only simpletons think that Judith Schevola’s grey hair or the number of hairs on Georg Altberg’s nasal wart would say anything at all about their books. It doesn’t, does it? Literature is poetry, drama, the essay, the novel; it is not the interview. There are some colleagues whose interview activity far outweighs their literary production, and often not merely in volume. They know about anything and everything, they have no inhibitions about expressing an opinion on space flight and disarmament, women’s rights and cultural policy; but their novels and poems are thin affairs, lacking in life, in world. We, whose task is with language, with words, should not climb on the colourful merry-go-round of opinions. That is for actors, politicians and sportsmen. Please do not misunderstand me. It is a popular exercise in this country to dismiss those who work with words as publicity-mad jack-in-the-boxes when they address certain problems that, in the opinion of certain officials, should be swept under the carpet and left there. That is denunciation. But it is in my opinion also denunciation, my dear David, to respond to Herr Mellis with — just a moment, I’ve noted it down — “anyone who ended up in the wrong uniform, under the wrong flag, in the wrong camp”. You said, “I do not need to be ashamed of my past.” I say: I do. And I think Günter Mellis does so as well. We have both had to pay dearly for the errors and delusions of our youth, and the nightmare of the past is something that haunts me every night. Every one of us has to cope in his own way with what he has or has not done, every one of us has skeletons in the cupboard — and should refrain from confronting others as someone who knows best or even as one entitled to judge them. We will all be judged — but in another place.

‘Toleration — the word that, I believe, has remained unsaid today. There is the law and there are people, but the law is made for people, not people for the law. I know that my words will fall on deaf ears for some, they are those who believe the losses are unavoidable and at times — some of these people, I hope it is not too many — perhaps even hope it will happen because they think their own reputations will rise if others are out of the running. You don’t have to like Judith Schevola but she is one of the most talented writers in the East, along with one who is working clearing the tables in a restaurant out in the country. Do we have so many talented writers that we can afford to drive them away? Are defamation, intolerance, narrow-mindedness the appropriate way of dealing with talented people? Does our society not have to learn, if it is to remain attractive to people, to tolerate its critics?

‘Colleagues, I call on you, I implore you, not to vote for exclusion. It would be a disaster with unforeseeable consequences if our colleagues were to be excluded. You all realize that they would lose their livelihood, that it would be almost impossible for them to continue working in their profession here. Exclusion would not be the end of our problems, just the beginning of the next turn of the screw.’

‘I call on Eduard Eschschloraque to speak.’

‘’Tis hard to speak the truth when / falsehood rules the world. / Who would seek the sun that scorches? / Desert with no shade and no oasis, / the pure and unresponding slate, / the mirror whose reflection’s just a void? / One thing alone is meaningless and sad, / two it takes for question and response, / each to fortify the other’s weakness. / Now I will play the devil’s advocate / and in this gath’ring pose some awkward questions, / such as: What is freedom / when all barriers fall? / For does not Goethe say about the law: / That it alone can give us freedom? / What is our constitution that, like a ring of iron, / binds both tongues and human flesh, / that ages and expires? / What is the boundless ocean for the ship / that’s guided by the hand / of the figurehead atop the prow?’

‘Wow! Off by heart.’

‘ “They are bad people — and yet good musicians,” / Brentano said, inverting the set phrase in Ponce de Leon. / And did we not begin / to get on with each other / but then: “What do you think of him … between ourselves? / A gem-encrusted toad but decomposing. / There he is, watch out. — Eschschloraque, my friend, / it long has been my wish to tell you how / deeply I admire your sh— … shows, / your bravery as well to see / the spirit of the age as water in the loo / and all that floats thereon worth being flushed away.” / — Hypocrisy, for instance. / In my hands you see a catalogue / of class enemies and nicely printed / by a nasty publisher in the West. There / among them is our dear own Günter Mellis / and others of the fauna of our state. / They should be punished, yes. / But I demand the same for Mellis and his ilk / for swine are those who call another swine / and have themselves their snouts deep in the trough.’

‘Outrageous! Off! Off!’

‘The time is out of joint / but faithful I remain unto our fathers’ ways, / hold close to the laws, which makes our dreams unbounded / and people in accord. / Sweet honey often comes from bitter combs! / Order must have order of its own, / discord ne’er was by discord o’erthrown. — By the way, Herr Schade, you should check your German. “A weapon that planes out pencil shavings” — language like that is a monkey with fleas picking at it.’

‘Herr Rohde, Herr Groth, as chairman of this meeting it is my duty to point out that it is our minutes secretaries who are taking everything down in shorthand. After Herr Eschschloraque’s contribution, that was, as ever, both witty and helpful, the last person to speak before the break will be Judith Schevola. After that the buffet will be set out at the rear entrance.’

46. Hispano-Suiza

Dietzsch, the sculptor, kicked the lock, one of the rifle-brown, bug-shaped pieces ‘from the good old days’ such as were occasionally available for special customers from Iron-Feustel’s by Rothenburger Strasse; a lock with a shackle as thick as your finger that only snapped open after the fourth or fifth blow with a cross-pein hammer, ‘like a crocodile’s jaw that has just overcome the resistance of some chewing gum,’ Dietzsch said; Richard thought the comparison childish and enjoyed it; the painter clicked the lock open and shut a few times, it must be a good feeling, security, quality, parts that smoothly fitted together; some people became prison guards for that feeling. Stahl had gone back a little way, which surprised Richard — wasn’t he interested in what Dietzsch wanted to show them and that they’d driven several kilometres to see? The quarry was in Lohmen, a small place near Pirna. Dietzsch had made a great fuss about it and adopted the expression of someone who decides he’s really going to show people something; ‘I know about your hobby, Dr Hoffmann, and you did a great job operating on that carpal-tunnel thing; I think I’ve got something for you.’ Now Stahl was watching two sculptors working at the other end of the quarry. ‘Jerzy, our Pole, and Herr Büchsendreher,’ Dietzsch called out to him, pointing to a rock above them on which bearded faces had been painted.’ Jerzy’s work, art is a weapon, but he wouldn’t harm a fly.’

Stahl shaded his eyes with his hand, surveying the rocky outcrops, the thick brushwood above them. ‘Tell me, is there only the one way in here, through the gate at the front?’ Stahl didn’t turn round to Dietzsch, but studied the dumper trucks, tackle on stands over sandstone blocks, rails leading from the gate to a few goods wagons brooding forlornly in the sun, lowered his hand, then put it back to shade his eyes when Dietzsch replied; the sun was pouring its dazzling light over the unworked blocks lying around and the separate sculptures.

‘Yes, and normally it’s locked. We’re not particularly keen on having visitors, you know, especially not unannounced ones. Sometimes children come in and have even managed to wreck some sculptures. They climbed over the gate. We’ve welded barbed wire onto it and since then we’ve had no problems.’

‘How do we get in, then? Through the bushes?’

‘There’s no way through. Jerzy tried but couldn’t get farther than a couple of metres. — If we do the deal, you’ll get a key from me. You could get in at the weekend as well, usually there’s no one here then. We’ve got electricity, water you’d have to bring yourself; we are connected up, but it’s shut off at weekends.’ Dietzsch slammed back a bolt, opened the shed door, ushered Richard and Stahl in first. Their eyes had to adjust to the dim half-light. The sculptor shooed away a few hens that had presumably got in through the dilapidated roof. The large space was partitioned off into separate areas in which there was a jumble of sculptures, orange boxes, petrol cans, tools, at the side on the left bales of straw, horse collars and a shapeless something underneath a tarpaulin. Dietzsch pulled it off. ‘It’s yours — for five thousand marks, I thought.’

‘Hispano-Suiza.’ Stahl leant over the radiator.

‘One moment.’ Dietzsch tugged at a shutter, the light suddenly pouring in dazzled them.

‘A vintage car.’ Stahl slowly walked round it. Richard stood behind the sculptor, always behind the seller, that was Arthur’s tactic when he was going to buy or swap a clock; never be the first to say something about the goods on offer, if you have to speak, then a vague, casual remark to get your voice under control, to disappoint expectations, reduce tension, no give-away gestures, no indifference that could be seen as feigned.

He could go on and on for hours about bodywork, Meno wrote, mere covers — though of course he would never have called them that — for technology that meant nothing to me and which (like most of his guests, I assumed, especially the women) I found boring; what I didn’t find boring was the way he, a surgeon, raised his hands and indicated shapes, tenderly and bashfully as if it were women’s bodies that the doctor in him was looking at, with a professional eye and yet receptive; names rained down on our poor heads, only Robert seemed to be really taken with the subject, returning the names to his father like table-tennis balls. ‘Saoutchik — did you hear that, Meno? Isn’t that a name, a sound that sends shivers down your spine? Maybach and Duesenberg, Rolls-Royce and Bugatti — don’t they sound like extinct gigantic beasts? This construction drawing, look at the interplay of the lines, so elegant and clear, if you ask me what poetry is, Meno, this is it! If I were a painter, I’d paint construction pieces like that. Gerhart Stahl, I’m calling you by your full name because you understand me. We use all these things every day but hardly anyone apart from a professional reflects on them at all. What, for God’s sake, is a brake? Do you think it’s a matter of course that the steering wheel’s on the left? Can you imagine that there were coachbuilders who covered the bumpers in leather. Do you know how it is and what it means to touch a bumper like that? I have heard that in a museum in Washington there’s a piece of stone from the Moon and no one can go past without touching it — does it feel the same as stone from the Earth? Oh my God, am I going to get some extraterrestrial disease, are there unknown rays in this thing? A leather-covered bumper, that’s the skin of an animal on a machine that is going to vibrate with power. Forged muscles, veins of copper, joints of stainless steel. A giraffe-skin pattern on a bonnet, tough dark-blue paintwork on a Horch, a Daimler-Benz, a Bugatti La Royale, an Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8B with Landaulett-De-Ville bodywork from the Milan coachbuilder Castagna. And what do we have? A hat on wheels by the name of Dacia, a sardine tin transformed into a frog by the name of Saporoshez, a petty-bourgeois’s dream with the aerodynamics of a snow plough by the name of Wartburg; we have a stuttering loaf of army bread by the name of Polski Fiat, a whining abomination by the name of Trabant, known as the cardboard racer, a two-stroke with steering-column gear lever, with jolts and toxic exhaust, but non-standard the earmuffs we ought to be wearing when we’re rattling at 70 kph to the Baltic coast with the feeling we’re inside the throat of a screaming baby!’ That, said Richard, was the theme of his Christmas lectures to students. Only Robert and Ulrich showed any interest, Christian, arms crossed, stared at the floor as if he found it embarrassing to see his father in the role of an enthusiast, Barbara picked fluff off the sleeves of her blouse, Niklas and Gudrun examined the colour pictures of cars Richard slid across the table, then returned to the pieces of cake on their plates –

‘A vintage car, yes,’ Richard said.

‘Not any old vintage car,’ Dietzsch said, ‘a Hispano-Suiza H6B, 1924, right-hand drive, six-cylinder engine with 6.5 litres cubic capacity, rear-wheel drive and a top speed of a hundred and thirty kph.’

‘Mechanical servo-brake back-up,’ Richard said.

‘Doesn’t work all that well in reverse,’ Dietzsch said. ‘Rolls-Royce improved it. Basically normal drum brakes. The inner drum is linked to the drive shaft by a worm shaft.’

‘And thus gives torsion to the whole system,’ Richard said. ‘The shaft rotates anti-clockwise, thus moving the cable drums for the front wheels and the levers for the rear.’

‘One cable drum is missing,’ Dietzsch said.

‘The car’s yellow,’ Stahl said.

‘The leather’s black,’ Richard said.

‘Double-quilted leather from Provençal cows, tanned with plant extract and upholstered with horsehair,’ Dietzsch said. ‘That yellow’s interesting, I had to rack my brains about it. For grapefruit yellow it’s too rich, for banana yellow the scent’s lacking, neither cadmium nor Indian yellow, sulphur’s too loud, it’s not the shade of gamboge or buttercups, not nankeen yellow, not Naples yellow or Hansa yellow, not egg yolk yellow, not saffron yellow.’

‘But?’ Stahl said.

‘The closest is Vatican yellow,’ Dietzsch said. ‘Vatican flag yellow. Papal yellow.’

‘What kind of bird is that?’ Stahl tapped the figure on the bonnet; it was attached over a sideways-on rhombus with a winged Swiss cross.

‘A stork,’ Richard said.

‘Aha, a stork,’ Stahl said.

‘Have you anything against storks?’ Dietzsch said.

‘No,’ Stahl said.

‘Oh yes you have,’ Richard said. ‘ “Aha, a stork” — it sounded like: all animals with wings are blackbirds, if they’re flying at twilight they’re bats, if they’ve a splash of red on their breasts they’re robins.’

‘There are two tyres missing, the exhaust’s hanging loose and can I have a look at the engine?’ Stahl said.

‘There’s a story to the stork,’ Dietzsch said.

‘Obviously,’ Stahl said.

‘Then I won’t bother,’ Dietzsch said.

If a museum, then the Museum of Transport, Meno wrote, or an art galley; at Anne’s insistence he went to the 1984 Klee Exhibition in the Albertinum, outside which the Dresdeners formed 200-metre-long queues in the winter slush; with Ulrich to the Francke Foundations in Halle to see a collection of medical preparations. Richard knew every nook and cranny of the Museum of Transport. Sometimes he went there with Father, the Museum of Transport was one of their common interests. Kurt would say, ‘Look over there, Richard’, Richard would say, ‘Look over there, Kurt.’ Both would say, ‘Oh come on, Meno, look around.’ Richard would talk about spark plugs, something that lasted despite the great strain put on it, as far as one could talk about earthly things lasting. No misfiring right up to the end, at least not in the West. Standing by the Benz, he talked about the first long-distance journey in a car, ironically the first car driver of all had been a woman: at the crack of dawn on an August day in 1888 Bertha Benz, the wife of the man who constructed the car, climbs into the rattling vehicle resembling a horseless carriage with her two sons, not before leaving a note for her husband that they had no intention of abandoning him, and sets off from Mannheim for Pforzheim to visit her mother. Climbing the hills of the Black Forest, Bertha and fifteen-year-old Eugen have to get off, leaving thirteen-year-old Richard to steer. Downhill they go with smoking brakes; the leather brake linings get so worn Bertha has to have them replaced en route by cobblers. A blocked petrol feed is cleared with a hatpin, an ignition wire insulated with a garter after a short circuit. Petrol is bought at the apothecary’s. Everywhere people stand and stare, in one inn two peasants almost get into a fight over an argument as to whether the carriage is driven by clockwork — but then where’s the key to wind it up, it must be huge — or by supernatural forces. They reach Pforzheim before it gets dark. That was the start of the triumphant progress of the car. We went to the Museum of Transport, saw aeroplanes, ships, trains, the array of vintage cars in the glass-roofed yard; as Richard went round, more and more adults and children stopped to listen to his explanations — I had the feeling he was talking deliberately loudly to show off his knowledge, at least he had no objection to other people listening. After a few minutes he was accompanied by an entourage of visitors eager for information and anecdotes, attendants included, as long as they could remain within sight of their exhibits –

After he’d bought the car, Richard went to Lohmen as often as he could. Stahl had more time; he worked in a department for rationalization and innovation and most of his suggested rationalizations and innovations were not accepted by the management. On weekdays when he wasn’t on call, Richard would drive out in the evening, at weekends at dawn. He left the money for Daniel with Nina Schmucke.

47. … count the sunny hours alone

Therefore you must never shut yourself off from your group, crew or unit. It is only among your comrades that you can develop and maintain a socialist soldier’s character.

What It Means to be a Soldier

He couldn’t stop thinking about the frog Siegbert had cut the legs off at the training camp. The animal struggling desperately in the darkness of its lack of language, its slow, as if indifferent movements of resistance — was that any concern of his, could one not say: it’s only a frog? And who knows whether it does actually feel pain? Christian could hear the voices in the block, the coarse laughter when they were chasing someone again. Burre didn’t lack language. Burre wrote poems. Weak, sentimental poems, but he did express himself. He would actually be someone to be friends with, Christian thought. Would be. For he didn’t want to be friends with Burre. Burre was weak and he thought about why that gave him a low opinion of Burre. And he, what was he himself? Couldn’t they do what they wanted with him? But Burre was submissive. Or so it seemed. They tormented him because there had to be someone to torment. They had to find a release for their own torment. But for him, Christian, that wasn’t necessary, and they knew it. To torment Burre was necessary.

They went out to the field camp and came back, they hadn’t washed for ten days and to clean your teeth there was dew from the pines or drops of water, mixed with diesel, from the tank of the tank-tractor, the commander of which, a grumpy lance corporal, called them a load of dirty buggers he wouldn’t give his precious water to. They bashed him about the face a bit, did a bit of sursum corda, as Ruden called it, and Christian smiled as he recalled his contorted face when Ebert, ‘in order to improve abilities and skills’, twisted the guy’s nose with fingers like a vice; he did look funny, the grotesque way his flabby cheeks twisted, and the noise they made when Ruden and Rogalla hit them — poff, botch, gump — made you want to laugh … Christian discovered it could be fun when someone was beaten up; God, the absurd way their eyes rolled, their mugs twisted, the way they grunted like little pigs as they wailed, the way they stumbled along in the poor light made you snort with laughter … Power. When the tanks started up, when the driver closed his hatch, pushed the lever down to lock the hatch, the sheer power you needed for that movement — at the cadet school, deafened by the bawling of the driving instructor in the command tower, they’d hardly been able to do it with both hands and pushing down with their whole weight — when the oil pump could be heard, the driver pressed the starter, the thunder of steel, then the twelve-cylinder engine would give a roar, a dark beast, ready to attack; when the caterpillar tracks made the ground sing and they ripped along over stump and stone, through hedge and ditch: that was power. Smash it in the face. Sometimes a tree got in the way that looked just ripe for shooting. A fish flapping terribly on dry land. A buck with so many points on its antlers that, a monument to horribly useless virility, it could hardly take a step for the weight. What could one do with a buck like that? It was screaming for a Kalashnikov. Safety catch off your automatic and fire, shoot the buck to pieces. Buck, buck, he chewed on the word. It had a hard, harsh sound. Like fuck. He would never be allowed to say a word like that at home. He would never have said a word like that at home. Now, here, almost everyone used it, by now he’d got used to it. It cropped up in every second or third oath. A woman, he learnt here, was not loved or kissed or simply left in peace, a woman was fucked. Go and fuck your old woman, you filthy ponce. Yes. Get fucked to hell. Go and fuck yourself, you little shit. I don’t talk like that. It’s not me, Christian thought. All the things that aren’t me. Shooting. Until the ground around you’s spattered with cartridge cases. At the windowpanes. The whole magazine. And the one taped to it, as the Russians had taught them, after that. Sustained fire. Until the whole damn’ barracks was in ruins. And to fuck. Need to fuck a woman. Sleep with her, he thought. Go out with her. Talk to her.

They loaded ammunition onto the tanks, they unloaded ammunition off the tanks. Did guard duty in the heat, listened to the rustling of the pinewoods when the wind got up. They slept in tents they erected on black sand. At night it was so hot the hands of the older soldiers slipped off the mouths of their victims and the whimpering, the cries, could be heard, panting and desperately relieved groans of relief. Christian kept his knife beside him. Musca drank Dur, Rogalla Tüff aftershave. The Russians, with whom their battalion was on manoeuvre, had vodka and coolant. They didn’t use the ramp to unload the tanks from the goods wagons but turned a steering lever until the tank was sideways on, stepped on the throttle and let it flop down backwards. Crash bang, went the axles. Eat dirt, went the Russians. Parni, they said to their GDR brothers-in-arms, spat and waved, a tank doesn’t need all its axles. Konechno. When they were drunk they took out their Makarovs, stuck them in a pile of sand and proved that they could fire even then. Ochen horosho! Then they sang, danced round the fire, tossed tracer bullets onto it, were delighted at the sparks flying up. There were problems with the local farmers, the Russians were starving, you could tell from the way they looked. They took food wherever they could get it. For example, from the field kitchen of their brothers-in-arms. They were very skilled at plucking chickens. They danced like crazy. One of them challenged Ruden. Ruden was good, but not as good as the Russian. He taught the German parni close-combat tricks from Afghanistan. How to bump off a guard with a knife when you were on reconnaissance. Christian was translating. He didn’t know the word for ‘bump off’. How to ‘take out’ a village, sparing the women as far as possible. A gesture was enough for ‘fuck’.

Talk to her.

They sang well and then all the bad words, the filth, simply vanished. Lots of them could recite Pushkin by the yard; afterwards it got dangerous; once one of them emptied the magazine of an anti-aircraft MG into a pile of ammunition boxes. The soldiers only managed to contain the forest fire that followed the explosion because they leapt into the tanks and flattened wide breaks round the blazing pines. At night, when the wind was calm or in the right direction, we could hear talking, then laughter, then sounds of intercourse from a nearby campsite by a lake. Musca said he reckoned he could get a bite of a cherry or two. The others said he should keep his trap shut, they couldn’t hear a thing. ‘Don’t let me catch any of you tossing off here, you goddamned filthy bastards,’ Ruden, who was mounting guard, bawled.

Ruden. Who wanted to study classical languages. Who knew Nietzsche. Praised be whatever makes us hard. What does not kill me makes me stronger. Ruden had a girlfriend who left him in the summer of ’85. He stood there looking at the photo in the ‘personal compartment’ of his locker, the tall, brawny discharge candidate, sergeant, possessor of the sports badge in gold and various shooting awards, holding the letter in his hand and saying nothing. He wanted to go on leave, there was an exercise coming, the company commander cancelled his leave. Ruden ranted and raved a bit, out in the corridor. The company commander kept his cool. To bawl out Ruden in front of the soldiers would have meant that all the other DCs would have immediately downed tools: farewell top mark for socialist competition. Ruden read Caesar and Xenophon, descriptions of battles. ‘What are you called?’ he asked Christian during ‘baptism’.

‘Christian Hoffmann, Comrade Sergeant.’

‘No. You’re no one. Nemo, that is. From now on you’re called Nemo.’

The drivers had prepared slices of bread for their earholes: one had been spread with mustard, another with shoe polish, Burre’s with excrement. When he refused to eat it, they held him and pushed the slice of excrement bread into his mouth. ‘Eat shit. You’re in the army now, comrade.’ They baptized him Nutella, after the spread from the West.

‘Baptism’: Irrgang was Aquarius. He was given a teaspoon. There was a bucket full of water on the ground floor of the battalion, an empty one on the second floor in headquarters company.

Christian’s turn came during the night, when he was already asleep. He was tied up in a blanket, dragged out into the depot and laid down in front of a tank. Popov started the engine and drove over Christian, who was unable to move. He watched the tank pass above him, saw bolts, the emergency exit flap. The game was called ‘hot dog’. Then Rogalla untied him, handed him a water bottle. ‘Have a drink, comrade, we all had to go through it. They made Ruden lick the company corridor and once almost knocked his eye out. And for me there was piss in the bottle. Oh, by the way, you get clean bedding in a fortnight’s time.’

Talk to her.

Lars Dieritz, known as Costa, the rib, was the saddest soldier doing his penultimate six months Christian knew. He was wretchedly thin, like a baby bird, though tough and with great stamina, only Christian was a match for him at the 3,000 metres. Costa, the rib, had all the privileges of his status but none of the higher ranks respected him. ‘You’re a milksop,’ Ruden said, ‘you’re not a warrior, you’re just a mummy’s boy. And something like that’s in the cavalry! We’re the vanguard of the army. I’d chuck you out if you were younger.’

‘Oh, shut your trap.’ Costa just wanted to get it over with, just wanted to go home. He couldn’t stand Ruden and Rogalla’s muscleman boasting, he had no time for playing the hero.

‘So why did you sign up for three years, then? Nemo did it to get to university, me too. But you? No one was forcing you.’

‘I believed their promises. I had a soft spot for the state, can you imagine? And no idea how lousy things are here.’

‘Hey, Rogi, when we’ve gone, everything will collapse here. Costa in his final six months …’ Ruden made a dismissive gesture. ‘Can’t imagine how he’s going to maintain the proud tradition, the rights and privileges of the discharge candidates. Ah well, Wanda’ll sort things out.’

Costa liked music, best of all Leonard Cohen’s melancholy ballads; since he was in his final year of service he was allowed a record player. ‘My God, Ruden, you are limited. Aren’t you going to go to university? Always coming out with bits of Latin and Greek … I’m just an electrician but it could be I’ve got more candlepower in my upper storey than you.’

In political education they were told about the clear ideological position of socialist members of the army, the danger of an atomic war threatening the existence of humanity caused by imperialism, of the tasks facing them, the comrade NCOs and privates. Socialism needed class-conscious, well-trained and steadfast men who were ready to fight for it and to fulfil their military duty at any time, thus assuring the peaceful future of mankind and victory over war even before it broke out through the strength of socialism. They sang. Sang ‘The Song of the Foe’. The Political Officer had asked who could play an instrument. Costa and Popov could strum a guitar a bit. ‘Soldier, you hold a gun in your hand, / And a worker it was who gave it you. / You carry your gun for the Fatherland, / So the workers’ life stays safe and true. / Our foe is ruthless, crafty, vile, / He took some comrades from us through the years, / He has no thought for love, for wife and child, / Nor for the tears they shed, such bitter tears …’

In their free time they sat in the company recreation room for a communal viewing of TV News, made tanks out of matches for the solidarity bazaar for a Pioneer group the company was sponsoring, wrote letters. Musca had to stand in posture with all his gear for one of the soldiers to do his portrait for the battalion diary: ‘The Tanker’. In the Free German Youth group the achievements of the comrade army members were evaluated. Christian, who was still inexperienced and couldn’t control the tank properly yet, was delegated to the technical circle run by his platoon leader. After their duty was over, the technical circle went out into the depot. ‘There’s only one guarantee / The aggressor can be contained / To be better equipped than he, / Better armed and better trained.’

Staff Sergeant Emmerich, known as Nip, swayed as he distributed the mail and when he read out the names, when he gave out orders, he didn’t articulate correctly, his voice scraped over the outlines of the words, grunted out the short ones and stirred the polysyllabic ones into a linguistic mush, out of which the soldiers’ attuned ears fished what he, the sergeant, wanted. Nip had the dull, lifeless hair and stretched-looking skin of heavy drinkers and the blackheads in his large, slanting pores sat deep and inaccessible as wasp-grubs in their breeding cells. He had been in the army for fifteen years and been given an honourable discharge but he hadn’t known what to do with himself at home, in a flat in a new development in the little town of Grün. The company had been his empire, the soldiers the charges in his care, and morning, noon and night he had dealt with clean underwear, requests for leave, repairs, had the boilers heated, organized tea and sandwiches for his men when they came back, tired and filthy, from field camps to the barracks. He could no longer say how many field exercises he’d taken part in. He’d been at the legendary ‘Comrades-in-Arms’ manoeuvres, he knew Kapustin Yar in Kazakhstan, where battalions of Tank Regiment 19, ‘Karl Liebknecht’, in which Christian was serving, were going with artillery units of other regiments; he knew all the training areas of the Republic, knew about the little difficulties of their shooting and driving ranges. He handed out the wax for polishing the corridors, he sanctioned radios, he had the cassette slots on cassette recorders sealed, he marked with felt tip the tuning for the permitted radio stations. Subordinate to him were the duty sergeant and his assistant, whose attention he personally drew to ‘crud’ in the rooms (Christian learnt that that was what dirt was called, another word was ‘gunge’), whom he personally instructed as to how the two stoves in the battalion staff office — when the trees along the roads turned yellow — were to be stoked; he carried out the inspection of rooms and lockers personally, searching for alcohol, magazines from the West or secret radios; when the day’s work was done he personally pressed the aluminium seal into the crown corks filled with modelling clay on the doors of us soldiers, the bearers of secrets. And he personally saw to it that before the visit of any bigwig even the trunks of the birch trees outside the battalion building were washed. At morning roll-call he checked the tunic collar binds and gave a look of disgust when he found a dirty one. He, as did the officers, knew very well how the young soldiers were treated; complaints dragged on and on until they fizzled out or were dismissed, Nip believed the unofficial privileges exercised by the senior recruits were part of the men’s psychological training. One of his favourite amusements was to come into the barracks secretly at night. When Christian was on duty he could smell the reek of schnapps before Nip came stomping up the steps. According to regulations he should have reported his arrival but Nip would put his finger to his lips and pat a bag that was hanging from his shoulder. In the bag was the ‘drake’, Staff Sergeant Emmerich’s personal hand-siren. Drunk and happy, Nip staggered along the unlit corridor, and after having unlocked the armoury turned the handle of the ‘drake’ like a hurdy-gurdy man and bawled out, ‘Comp’ny Four — action stations!’

One day Nip ordered Christian to come to his room. He ran his thumb over a bundle of postcards. ‘This letter is confiscated, Hoffmann. It has marks from a non-socialist country. From the class enemy! In a facility of the National People’s Army!’

Christian recognized Ina’s handwriting on the envelope. ‘Cuba is a socialist country, Comrade Staff Sergeant. My cousin was there on her honeymoon.’

‘It’s been franked in Hamburg. There are two alternatives. We make a fuss about it, you complain … or the letter disappears. You should be grateful. According to regulations …’

Christian stared at Nip’s collection of pot plants. Anne would have advised him to let the matter drop. Meno, with his coolly observant scientist’s manner, would presumably have waited to see what his nephew would do. Robert would have said, Sell him the letter, you can see how keen he is on it, the poor slob. Try to get something out of it. Only Richard would have lost his temper.

Richard, from whom Christian had inherited his mania for justice, as Barbara put it. But his father wasn’t there. Christian was certainly interested in what would happen if he insisted on having the letter. The Hoffmanns’ daredevil recklessness. Spin the ball and see what turns up on the roulette wheel. ‘Yes, Comrade Staff Sergeant.’

48. ORWO black-and-white

Chug-chug-chug and put-put-put, rumbling and grumbling, baboom, baboom,

‘Something’s rattling, shut the door, Robert.’ — ‘It is shut.’ — ‘I said something’s rattling’, baboom, baboom,

crawling (the traffic jams on the Berlin ring road) and jolting (the hot Pneumant tyres over asphalt bulging out of the joins in the concrete slabs) lip-smacking (hard-boiled eggs, liver sausage on bread, Golden Delicious, peeled cucumbers and carrots at the concrete tables of the autobahn picnic areas) pissing (as Niklas said, there was no other word for it when you had to go into the scraggy pine trees beside the picnic areas where plastic bags, empty bottles, swarms of flies round the traces left by your predecessors — for the women there was a path leading deeper into the little wood — tons of toilet paper all seemed to say, Oh God, how happy we were) baboom, baboom,

Plastics from Schkopau baboom,

Faster — higher — further baboom,

Plastics from Schkopau babang (pothole),

Forward to the XXth Party Conference baboom,

Plastics from Schkopau badong (deep pothole),

fill the tank (VK 88 the fuel that takes you further) boom

(bomb crater — Niklas drove onto the shoulder and checked — the bumper was still attached),

and give thanks (survived it once again, Gudrun groaned in Stralsund, as we straightened ourselves out):

thus one drove away on holiday across the German Democratic Republic.

Stralsund was a sad town. No proud Hanseatic flags any more, no noble regattas. Störtebecker, the pirate, was dead. After being beheaded he walked until he stumbled over the leg of one of the officials. Crumbling brick, dilapidated roofs. The sun was grey, enveloped in clouds of rubbish, hung low over the Sound. They parked the car but left Meno’s luggage in it. He was going to travel on alone. There were a few hours before the ferry for Hiddensee left. Gudrun suggested they wander round the town; Anne and Niklas wanted to go and see the churches; Christian, Robert and Richard were hungry; Meno wanted to go to the Museum of the Sea. The market square was belly-up like a dead fish, gleaming in the fatty air rancid with kitchen fumes; all that was left of the light was some brownish dross that stuck to the walls like traces of tartar. The few people in the market square, which no longer seemed to be the centre of town, kept their heads down and disappeared hurriedly along side streets, as if they were being pursued. The town hall with its pointed Gothic gables seemed glaringly alien; the town was being eaten away by mould and acid discharge from brown coal. There was a long queue at an ice-cream stall offering vanilla ice in a wafer for fifty pfennigs and a cone for a mark; those queuing had the poor, pale skin of holidaymakers from inland before their holiday. Christian and Robert joined the queue. Meno, who had last been in the town as a student — youth hostel, excursions to the Museum of the Sea — wanted to go round by himself.

‘Back at the car in two hours,’ Anne, who seemed to distrust his sense of direction, told him.

In the side streets yellowing curtains were raised and lowered. The window frames had splits, cracked panes were held in place by screws or replaced by plywood. Meno stopped outside a butcher’s; there were two sides of bacon and one sausage hanging in the window, he couldn’t understand why there was still a queue outside. As soon as he bent down to look in the window, where a poster with ‘Long live Marxism — Leninism’ hung over piled-up cans of meat, a woman started to scold: he should kindly join the queue at the back like everyone else. ‘Tourists!’ he heard someone else moan. ‘Probably from Berlin, eh? Buy up everything here then put on airs!’ — ‘Clear off.’

The way to the Museum of the Sea was signposted. Meno slowed down once he could no longer hear the vituperation. He thought about Judith Schevola. He hadn’t seen her since the events at the annual general meeting; she was probably at some machine doing a job no one else wanted. After she’d been expelled from the Association there was hardly anything else left for her. Perhaps Philipp knew more details. At least the book had been printed, in the West, by Munderloh’s publishing house. A few smuggled copies would certainly already have found their way through customs and be passed round the nomenklatura or as typewritten parts stapled together like school exercise books in the Valley of the Clueless. Those in the senior ranks of the Party and favoured officials of the various associations had no need of such subterfuges, they could acquire books from the West quite legally. Perhaps Jochen Londoner had the book and could lend it to him.

An odd idea, housing a museum of the sea in a former monastery. And equally odd that the brickwork of the monastery and the aquariums harmonized, that disciplined drawing, a Gothic silver pencil and unfettered painting, the play of colours, soiled by reality and never to be found in an entirely pure state, should live together so peaceably. The skeleton of a finback whale with a gigantic shoe-shaped mouth and jawbones as thick as your arm hung down from the vaulted ceiling. Children, probably from a holiday camp, were making a racket under the shrill-voiced supervision of two teachers. That, Meno felt, was the unpleasant aspect of natural-history museums: there were always children scurrying around, especially when there was no school, shouting and playing the fool with no consideration, no feeling for the fawn-like stillness, waking the corals from their sleep, making even snails moulded from plastic or alone in jars of formalin pull in their horns. Why could people not stand silence? Zoology was a quiet science and as he walked past preserved dolphins and aquariums bubbling with oxygen, he recalled scenes from his student days in Jena under Falkenhausen, the fraught and taciturn interpreter of the world of central-German spiders who called his predecessor, Haeckel, a fool, though a commendable one, and the Phyletic Museum in Jena a Planet Goethe. Art Forms in Nature. Dried plants, dust-encrusted chandeliers in the shape of jellyfish in blown glass, drawings of diatoms the size of a saucer, Radiolarians, Amphoridea: a stranded kingdom gradually fossilizing.

No more noise, the children had gone; there was no one to be seen, apart from an attendant dozing in a chair. Someone licked Meno’s hand; in the aquarium by which he had stopped there appeared the guileless, panting face of a black dog.

‘Do excuse me. Kastshey’s still rather rude. It’s difficult to teach this breed anything, but they’re good watchdogs. And anyone they’ve taken a liking to … Good afternoon, Herr Rohde.’ Arbogast tipped his cap with the stick with the gryphon handle. The Baron looked fresh and healthy; his usually grey face, which his steel-rimmed spectacles gave an extra touch of coolness to (now he was wearing glasses with tinted oval lenses, a Western pair), had a deep tan. The skin where his watch and ring had been was still white. Arbogast noticed Meno’s glance and, inviting him to walk along with the gesture of an expert guide, explained that that year, contrary to his habit, he had not taken off his watch before going on holiday, nor his ring, which he now hardly noticed during his everyday business; however, it did bother him while sailing. At the moment his boat was in Stralsund harbour. Had Herr Rohde received — ‘as promised’, Arbogast smiled — the packet of pencils? ‘No? Then it’s on its way, or arrived after you left. You’ve moved up, so to speak, there have been some changes in our Institute. I presume you’ve heard that already from Fräulein Schevola?’

Meno said no.

‘Some of my physicists, including Herr Kittwitz, have not come back from a conference in Munich. It caused quite a stir. I spoke up on their behalf to make sure they could go, but they abused my trust. That requires a certain lack of imagination or, to put it better, a fair amount of selfishness, just to clear off like that. They want to go to India. There’s a lot of poverty in India. And they shouldn’t think that all that glitters in the West is gold.’

You can talk, Meno thought but said nothing. He was surprised to hear that Kittwitz had left the country and he felt a stab of pain, for although he had only met the physicist once, he had sense of loss. Contemporaries form a cohort; they watch out for each other, even when the years pass and no one drops a hint.

‘You’ll be thinking I don’t practise what I preach.’ Arbogast pointed to a room with aquariums arranged according to themes, one was ‘The Baltic’, one ‘Symbiosis’, one ‘Poisonous Sea Creatures’. Kastshey was attracted to the ‘Harbour Basin’ aquarium in which wrasse and butterfish, codling with barbels on their lower jaw (they made Meno think of Lange’s goatee), turbot and mackerel were swimming round.

‘I don’t want to sound impolite, but for my part I’d love to travel and I think I’m not the only one who feels like that. I’m sure lots of people would like to see what the world outside is like for themselves, instead of getting it at second hand.’ Meno watched a cuckoo ray with dark blue spots rising up with calm shimmering movements.

‘Of course, there’s no disagreement on that, my dear Rohde. The people in charge should accede to those wishes. Privately I advised the General Secretary to do just that but I fear he’s forced to ignore the suggestion. Unfortunately. In their greed people would take the West for paradise and not return.’ Arbogast pointed to some sea anemones and their iridescent colours. ‘From our own cultures. We’ve had great success at trade fairs.’ He took Meno by the arm and walked on a few steps, as a ruler in affable mood might do with one of the ‘ordinary people’ when it’s politically opportune and there’s a camera nearby. ‘The country would empty, as it did before ’61. The time it took for people to realize their mistake would be enough for the useful and meaningful experiment of socialism to collapse. How are your affairs in Thomas-Mann-Strasse?’ That was where the Hermes offices were. Meno hesitated. Arbogast took a glasses case out of the inside pocket of his elegant, white-linen summer suit, swapped spectacles and, leaning forward, mouth slightly open, observed a red lionfish that was languidly fanning its fins. Its antennae, red-and-white-striped like a stick of candy, were erect.

‘We’ve been sidelined.’

‘Hmmm’ — Arbogast tapped the glass, the lionfish turned away — ‘that’s not the way to go about original projects. — You’re on holiday? In this area?’

‘On Hiddensee.’

‘Kloster? I guessed so. I can take you there.’

‘There are seven of us,’ Meno lied.

‘A nice number. Usually one too many and quarrels break out. No offence meant, you know I like jokes. There’s one they ought to put in the quarantine basin.’ A weever fish with half its tail-fin missing limped past. ‘Taking seven people wouldn’t be a problem on my boat.’ It was a proper yacht, Arbogast explained, and, of course, not only meant for pottering along the coast. His wife was there too, they were heading across the Baltic to the Soviet Union, he had authorization to enter their territorial waters, to sail at night and PM 19, permission to cruise to the land of their socialist brothers. Meno hesitated.

‘I can see I’ve caught you by surprise. But you must come to one of our evenings again. People are already asking if you’re coming. We have an interesting programme.’ Arbogast waved Kastshey over.

Hagstones warded off misfortune. There were some threaded on a faded clothesline over the door of the waiting room in the holiday season doctor’s bungalow, with dazzling white shells with holes bored in them between the stones. To take one off and keep it for later was to steal good fortune and that didn’t count; neither Christian nor Robert touched the chain. Genuine stones with a natural hole were difficult to find. In the grey-yellow sand of the lagoon they found empty ink cartridges, shards of glass, dried dog shit and, if they were lucky, a rusty key; but the white flints, smooth and round from the sea with a hole you could thread a string through, were rare. Mostly a hollow of varying depth had been ground into the stone. Boring it through didn’t count. The hole had to go right through, a talisman-eye for the view from Fuhlendorf beach across Bodstedt lagoon to the Darss, for the pearl-white balls enclosing the bathing area, the jetty with its boathouse, the fish-traps further out with cormorants and seagulls perching on them; to see through to the Baltic sky, to the reeds cradling the August of bleached hair and freckles. Anne thought the lagoon was too warm, too shallow, too unsavoury. Children with brightly coloured buckets built messy sandcastles, threw mud as they waded in the water while their mothers dozed under sunshades, paddled on air beds, dreaming they were on the Kon-Tiki, below them the 5,000 feet of the Humboldt Current full of bonitos and snake mackerel, above them clouds driven by the trade winds, before them South Sea islands. In the lagoon there were ruffe, roach and occasional eelpouts. For zander you needed a boat. Robert had brought his angling equipment and went for non-predatory fish, Christian took the spinning rod, attached a 0.35 mm green line and cast spoons and blinkers. Ruffe bit, little spotted guys with spiny fins and huge appetites, some were shorter than the blinker lure that they’d taken for their prey.

The summer season doctor — for three weeks in August that was, alternating daily, Richard Hoffmann and Niklas Tietze — lived with his family in the bungalow on the village street. A white flag with a red cross was unrolled and placed in the mounting beside a bug-plastered lamp. As soon as the inhabitants of Fuhlendorf, nearby Bodstedt and the communities as far as Michaelsdorf saw the flag they remembered various infirmities that couldn’t stand the long journey to the hospital in Barth and, silent and within their rights, occupied the plasticized-linen waiting-room chairs. There were four rooms in the bungalow, one of which served as the doctor’s surgery. Two WCs (private and patients’). The rooms each had two bunk beds at right angles to each other, two cupboards and a washbasin with a cold tap. If you wanted a shower, you packed your flip-flops, picked up your toiletry bag and went through the German Mail holiday camp, to which the bungalow belonged, into the shower shed beside the canteen kitchen, where you hung your things under one of the clouded mirrors in the corridor and waited on bleached duckboards, a potential source of athlete’s foot, in the cabins open to the corridor, surrounded by cheerful and cursing voices, for warm water to come.

The Hoffmanns had been going to Fuhlendorf since 1972; Richard shared the practice with colleagues (for a long time Hans had joined them), which allowed him to give his family holiday on the Baltic, which were much sought after, and also earn an extra month’s salary. Only once had the family managed to get a holiday that wasn’t associated with Richard’s work: at a German Trades Union holiday hostel in Born, on the Darss lagoon. The food was poor, the weather even worse and that year the lagoon had been full of jellyfish and seaweed. A bell in the corridor to wake them and a radio that couldn’t be switched off. They preferred Fuhlendorf, even if the bungalow beds had horsehair mattresses that were turned over from one doctor to the next, and steel springs on which Richard, who slept in the lower bunk, regularly tore his scalp when he got up. The Tietzes had Room 1, the Hoffmanns Room 2. That room looked out onto the village street and Christian knew it was a disadvantage, for often drunks coming from ‘night angling’ in Redensee Café would go past the bungalow bawling, hammer on the door demanding nurses and booze. Some years previously a soldier from the Soviet forces had appeared and, Kalashnikov at the ready, demanded the practice motorbike, an elderly Zündapp, and zoomed off on it, lurching from side to side, only to be brought back several hours later, bound and held on either side by grim-faced officers in order to have various broken bones seen to.

Christian immediately felt at home again in Fuhlendorf. The storks’ nest on the reed-thatched cottages. The continuous barking of the spitz next door. The light-blue dovecote full of snow-white doves whose cooing and fluttering the Tietzes counted against the risks of the village street. The holiday camp: the dozens of bungalows in rows down the slope with children’s faces looking out of the windows. The gravelled paths edged with white stones, lit by welded toadstool lamps. Wakey, wakey at six in the morning from the camp loudspeakers. Once a week the siren was tested. Roll-calls, the clatter of cutlery at set times in the camp canteen. Socialist competition: races, games of football, volleyball, table tennis on concrete tables, the nets could be collected, after having been signed for, in the camp office. Flags fluttering in the summer breeze.

Christian was on leave, much longed for by members of the army. He didn’t talk very much. What did it smell of in the bungalow? Dry air, aniseed drops from the shop in the Mail holidaymakers’ canteen, twenty pfennigs a tube, the drops always stuck together. There was the smell of the toilets that always had daddy-longlegs sitting on the cistern. Vita-Cola didn’t smell, but tasted good, ice-cold from the humming refrigerator in the recreation room. There, as in the previous thirteen years, was the Junost television with the irrevocably faulty aerial, showing GDR 1 and 2 plus a semolina image of West German Channel Two that suffered additional interference from the military’s Baltic transmissions. It smelt of the wood lining the outer walls that was badly affected by the winter weather, of Florena sun cream, sand, heather: beside the bungalow, shut off from it by a chain-link fence, was a path going to a little pinewood. Floor polish, insect repellent, medicines. Acetate of alumina for wasp stings, Ankerplast spray as a substitute for plasters, Panthenol for sunburn, Sepso tincture. The glass syringes tinkled in the enamel kidney bowls, sweated out strepto-and staphylococci in the cylinder sterilizer. The very sight of wooden spatulas made you feel sick. Scissors and scalpels were submerged in disinfectant solution. Bandages, Gotha adhesive plaster, the smell of rubber: the brick-red, washable sheet on the examination couch, the enema bags, the footplate of the scales, gloves drying off to be used again, dusted with talcum powder. It smelt of brackish water, the air from air pumps, the lemon mist that Gudrun sprayed to combat all the other smells in the bungalow.

‘Hiddensee!’ Lange had exclaimed in both envy and appreciation. ‘We’ve never had a holiday there. Send us a card.’

Without the offer from the Association’s trade union, Meno would have gone to Saxon Switzerland again, would have taken his little room, inserted a sheet of paper in his Fortuna typewriter; but this year, he had been informed, it was his turn to have one of the rooms in Lietzenburg, the Association’s rest home, ‘for the purposes of vacation’ as it said in officialese; attached was a three-page list of house regulations. Meno knew that this was probably the only time he’d have the privilege of staying in Lietzenburg. It was offered in rotation over a cycle of thirty years. Meno’s application had originally been made in 1974, so he’d been lucky. Especially since married couples were given preference. Editors were the lowest of the low in the Association. Only the head of Editorial Section 1 in the central office of the publishing house was said to have managed to get to Lietzenburg twice.

The ferry chugged its way north from the Sound of Strela, above which the needled outlines of St James’s, St Mary’s and St Nicholas’s rose up into the leaden sky, past Altefähr on Rügen, meadow-flat Ummanz. For a while Arbogast’s ship kept alongside with shortened sail, then the wind freshened; the Baron, at the wheel, nodded to Meno, who was standing by the ferry rail watching the manoeuvres that Herr Ritschel, a bosun’s whistle between his lips, piped up to the sailors climbing the rigging with even movements. The sails caught the wind, billowed out, the black-caulked yacht cut across almost silently and disappeared in the haze. Meno filled his pipe, staring at the bottle-green waves flickering with phosphorescence, offered his Orient cigarettes first to Judith Schevola, then to Philipp Londoner, listened to the stories, scratched by loudspeaker noises, that the grey-bearded captain was telling about the steamer, the Caprivi, the author Gerhart Hauptmann had brought to Hiddensee, about Gret Palucca and her longing for dance in the flaxen light of the north that they greeted at dawn, naked and worshipping the sun. Between announcements of lentil stew with sausages, the captain asked if all the passengers had a coin in their pockets, for the deceptive glitter on the waves could be the golden roofs of Vineta, the lost city that emerged every hundred years, seeking deliverance. It had appeared to a boy called Lütt Matten, offering him all its treasures for a mark, a ten-pfennig piece, any coin at all, but the boy had been wearing his swimming trunks and had no money on him at all, so the town had sorrowfully sunk back down.

‘Perhaps our General Secretary ought to go diving here.’ Philipp had spoken to Judith Schevola but she remained silent, lips pursed, blowing smoke rings that the wind blew away. Streaks of cloud, tinged with ochre and pink, announced the approach of the island.

It was evening by the time the ferry berthed at Kloster. Philipp Londoner and Meno carried their cases to the Lietzenburg handcart. They waited until the last day-trippers had gone on board, the few visitors who were staying on the island had disappeared inland. The ferry cast off, turning into the channel for Schaprode. Judith Schevola did a handstand on the harbour edge.

‘Risky,’ Meno said when she dropped back down. ‘I wouldn’t have fancied fishing you out.’

‘We’ve already had a conversation about risks.’ Judith Schevola frizzed her hair until it stuck out like the bristles of a bottle-brush. ‘The gentlemen will pull my luggage.’

‘How is it that you got a place? If I may ask.’

‘Socialist bureaucracy. The Association threw me out but I’m still a member of the trade union with a right to a vacation place. And since I had nothing planned anyway —’

‘How are you making a living now?’ Philipp asked rather brusquely; perhaps he was just annoyed because he had to struggle with the handcart, the tyres of which dragged slackly over the paving stones. Of the ten pieces of luggage, six belonged to Judith Schevola.

‘You won’t believe it. I’m a nightwatchwoman now.’

‘What hare-brained idiot appoints a woman to a job like that?’

‘Someone who can’t even get pensioners to do it. — At a crematorium and graveyard. “Too much future, too many acquaintances,” my seventy-year-old predecessor said as he gave me the keys.’ Taking off her shoes and socks, she threw them into the cart, which Meno was helping to pull, rolled up her jeans and splashed though a puddle. Horse-drawn carriages came in the opposite direction. Cyclists rang their bells for them to make way. It was getting cool, the wind came off the sea. The mosquitos buzzed, with an oath, Philipp slapped his neck, examined what he’d killed with an expression of disgust. The old chestnut trees along the main street of Kloster mingled their scent with that of cow dung and hay coming from the extended meadows between Kloster and Vitte. A Schwalbe moped approached, stopped the three of them; the section representative demanded to see their room confirmation. When he read Lietzenburg, he reminded them that no kisses from the muses were allowed after 8 p.m. The road became a sandy track when they turned off north from the main street, past Kasten’s bakery. Holidaymakers came towards them, bronzed creatures from another age. Women in flowing batik dresses, lots of wooden ornaments, bangles made from coloured leather straps, sandals with strings of glass beads; pipe-smoking men with artists’ locks, the Jesus look, less often short hair and proletarian donkey jackets à la Brecht. Reed-thatched houses beneath the spreading chestnuts, the first lights flashed on.

He could have gone out and perhaps Anne wouldn’t have followed him. Christian sensed that she wanted to talk to him but he hated sentimentality: tears, confessions of weakness, despair — all that women’s stuff, he thought; he imagined his mother on a walk like that, softening him up with sobs and moans or, even worse, with nothing like that, just with sympathetic silence: why? What difference would it make? They were sitting outside the bungalow with a lantern but not enough light for Regine’s letter that Richard wanted to read out; Niklas switched on the light over the door.

Christian didn’t go. He was tired, it was nice that no one asked him anything, it was a mild evening, crickets were chirping sleepily, it was comfortable lying in the lounger. Gudrun suggested they visit Ina on their way back to Berlin, little Erik was over the worst, visitors weren’t a nuisance any more. Anne had made some tea. The shrill of a whistle chopped up the calm of the holiday camp, children came out and stood in two rows in front of the bungalows. Richard didn’t read any louder.

‘… the door was slammed shut from outside. The train was already setting off. We stowed the luggage away. No embraces before the frontier, we were superstitious. The train stopped between stations. Outside there were little men in uniform running up and down, I thought, they’re Russians: lots of scurrying and pattering, already there was one in the compartment. “Passports and customs”, in the Vogtland dialect. The fear returned: is everything going to be all right? First of all he rummaged round in my handbag. “What’s this then?” It was Philipp’s wish list, I’d written it out for him. It said: Papa. A peach as big as a football. The uniform put the piece of paper in his pocket. “And this?” I’d made a driving licence for Philipp with a passport photograph and a stamp drawn on it for his Liliput three-wheeler (he was a master on his scooter, could park backwards better that I can in the car). I stammered out an explanation, I was pretty overwrought. He shut the little folder, put it back in my bag, handed it to me. “Have a good journey”, and he was gone. For a while longer there was noise out in the corridor, clattering, disgruntled voices. Then the train started again. Hansi was annoyed that the guy had stolen the wish list. Philipp slept calmly through everything. We were so exhausted we both dropped off too. The screech of brakes, “Landshut”, from outside, Bavarian dialect this time. Around 11 o’clock the family was reunited in Munich Central Station.’

Robert went into the bungalow; he wanted to do some night fishing in the lagoon. The lantern crackled with diving, fluttering insects. The toadstool lamps lit up, one after the other, each one pouring out brightness, Christian thought, like milk out of a jug in a girl’s hand. There was a vortex in the wall of pines beyond the holiday camp, a frenzy of dissolution on the sky that was being dragged into darkness. Christian felt uneasy. Niklas lit his pipe. Gudrun gargled with tea, leant back, both arms on the arms of her deckchair, began to recite, lines Christian didn’t know:

‘ “Sleeplessness. Homer. Taut sails. I read

The catalogue of ships but halfway through:

That youthful brood, the cranes in retinue

That Hellas saw, once long since, overhead.” ’

Said, ‘Mandelstam.’

Now Niklas took his pipe out of his mouth and declaimed:

‘ “A golden frog, the moon’s bright ring

Floats in the lake’s dark night.

Like apple blossom in the spring

My father’s beard is turning white.” ’

Said, ‘Yesenin.’

Said Anne:

‘ “Like that wedge of cranes to distant lands,

Your princes’ heads becrowned with godly spray,

You sail. Had Helen not been torn away,

What would Troy be to you, Achaean band?” ’

Said, ‘Mandelstam.’

Said Robert, ‘Now I’m going fishing.’

Christian said nothing.

Richard fetched his accordion, sang:

‘ “Goodbye, my friend, no hand nor word,

And let not tears your cheeks bedew.

To die is nothing new, I’ve heard,

And living, yes, that’s old hat too.” ’

Broke off, said, ‘Yesenin.’

Said Gudrun:

‘ “The sea and Homer — both by love impelled.

Which shall I listen to? Now Homer’s fallen silent,

And the black sea, with its heavy swell,

Breaks on my pillow, thunderously eloquent.” ’

Said, ‘Mandelstam.’

Christian said nothing. Anne cried.

49. On Hiddensee

Was that not one of the grey sisters, as Falkenhausen had called them, floating down? Common spider to you, garden spider to me. Or was it a winged fruit from one of the shady trees that surrounded Lietzenburg, only allowing the sun to tiptoe in? The spider scuttled up the window frame, paused, raised its rear end (now it was presumably releasing its gossamer thread, you couldn’t see it), waited until the pull told it that it could let go — and off it went. Meno looked up at the sky: clear, cloudless days, a dry blue, Our Lady’s weather as the old people in Schandau used to call it. Summer’s surface scraped away, hot days paid for with chilly nights; already an extravagance of blossom and insect activity, a burden pulling down upward-striving forces. He thought of the cliffs at the north end of the island. There the god Svantevit vented his swirling fury, boiling current and mud, flowing over sticky loam, the smooth-washed, putty-white flesh of the beach, turning potters’ wheels in the swell, grating on water-organs, binding fast wave-frisbees that swept every swimmer along, sharpening the breakers into knives that cut deep into the island’s body, clawing up shingle and clay, tirelessly paring away, in ever-new upswings of rage, grooves, tunnels and caves in the steep faces that were sagging, eroding, crumbling; sappers’ trenches edged forward between two projecting rocks that marked the line of terra firma, long since gnawed away, and, heralded by trickling, rolling rubble and clouds of dust, collapsed into the sea or onto the remaining narrow strip of sand. Meadows tore off from the overhang like wet paper. Pines, brave and tenacious in the carousels of wind and hurricane, tumbled over. The sparse vegetation on the cliff flanks was scraped off. The tidal runnels gurgled, raged, lashed, sobbed, fizzed, drummed, pounded, depending on the strength and direction of the wind; in the autumn squalls, said the Old Man of the Mountain, who had the room opposite Philipp Londoner’s at the end of the corridor, it sometimes sounded like a ship being wrecked: creaking wood, splintering masts, drowning bodies whirled down into the gullet of the sea surrounded by the howling, growling tarantella of the storm orchestra. A garden spider on the fan of the spokes. So they were already flying, the young spiders. The Indian summer was early this year. For Judith Schevola just one more reason to borrow other people’s clothes (despite the half-dozen pieces of luggage — ‘I always find someone to lug my stuff’), to wear Meno’s pullover with Philipp’s suit when they were sitting round the hall fire in the evening. There was a knock at the door.

‘Are you coming? We’re going for a swim.’ Judith Schevola, a rainbow-bright beach bag, made from strips of cloth sewn together, hanging from her left forefinger, came into the room without waiting for Meno’s answer, pushed the carriage of his typewriter until it went ‘pling’, opened, after having hung her bag on the line-space adjuster, the cupboard and started to rummage through Meno’s things. ‘I would have bet you’d have several of these things. One to dry, one to use, one as replacement. What did I say?’ In triumph she held up three pairs of swimming trunks. ‘How can you sit in here in weather like this — doing what? Don’t tell me you’re writing? Poems?’ Her gravelly laugh had become less husky, the sea air was obviously doing her good and she seemed to be smoking less. ‘You can’t write in here. These crocheted lampshades, these tablecloths, one square red, one square white, the same on the bedspread, red square, white square and always tiny little squares.’ She switched on the room radio. ‘You can hear the sea!’ she commented on the froth of noise interspersed with a swirl of hissing and crackling, occasional deep-sea Scandinavians and snatches of Tchaikovsky, abruptly clear then breaking off, coming from the loudspeaker grille under the faded photograph of the chairman of the trade union. Meno looked at Judith’s bare feet, which, as she walked, no: tripped, produced cheeky facial expressions at the back of the knees of her frayed jeans. She went over to the washbasin, smelt the Fa soap (a present from Ulrich), sniffed at his aftershave, peered at his bushily splayed shaving brush, unscrewed the top of his toothpaste tube, squeezed out a blob onto her index finger and quickly rubbed it round her mouth, not seriously cleaning her teeth. Then she gargled, spat out, said ‘Big nose’ to her mirror image, stuck out her tongue at the fascinated and flabbergasted Meno. ‘Come on, then. What are you waiting for? For the house dragon to come and give us a lecture on socialist morality?’ From Lietzenburg there was a path through dog roses and thickets of sea buckthorn. There was a smell of henbane. Lizards were sunning themselves on broken steps and only gave way hesitantly to a cautious foot. Philipp Londoner and the Old Man of the Mountain were already on the beach. Philipp had built a stockade of sand and put a windbreak between the walls. Now he was busy making the names of the users by laying pebbles in the sand, he’d already done SCHEVOLA and ALTBERG. He was sitting there, naked and tanned, immersed in this, as Judith Schevola declared with a laugh, very German activity, wearing a straw hat underneath which his long hair was blowing in the wind. The Old Man of the Mountain was naked too. Meno had some objections to naturism, and even more to the uninhibited way Schevola went about it. With a few quick movements she was undressed, just keeping her rubber sandals on; the beach was stony, as everywhere along this stretch of the coast. Meno observed her. Her lips curved in a malicious grin, she smeared sun cream all over herself with obvious pleasure. Was one not exposed to enough indiscretion in this country? The naked body was a mystery and should remain so. The same naked body was untouchable when bathing, when flirting it haunted your imagination; he thought you lost something when it was presented unveiled, however attractive it might be. It had been seen, there was no room for the imagination any more. In the House with a Thousand Eyes, alone in the thick foliage of the garden on a warm summer morning, nakedness was something different. Meno stared at Schevola’s beach bag, Philipp at his pebbles, the Old Man of the Mountain pursed his lips and occasionally pretended he had to shake his ears out.

‘Would one of you gentlemen be so good as to rub oil over my back?’

Philipp threw his pebbles on one side, Meno avoided the Old Man of the Mountain’s eye; he scratched the silvery mane on his chest, put his head on one side and, with intricate excuses and verbose self-irony, did it himself.

The water was cold, light green in the shallower areas, with a slight peppermint flavour. Meno put up stoically with Judith Schevola’s attempts to splash water all over him. She seemed to be disappointed that he didn’t squeal. The water in the tank at home in the Elbe Sandstone Hills wasn’t any warmer. Philipp was a good swimmer, he wanted to go out to the Cape and beyond, the Old Man of the Mountain warned him that there were unpredictable whirlpools and the coastal police — he nodded at the concrete tower on the Dornbusch hills — didn’t like to see swimmers heading out for the open sea. So for a while they played with Lührer’s dark-blue Nivea ball.

Meno went for a swim, did the crawl with long, regular strokes. The sun had the sharp clarity of a burning glass. He saw the Cape. There was a cordon of stones round it to break the waves, the spray was thundering against them. Once long since. The Mandelstam lines came back to mind, he and Anne had learnt them off by heart; he’d come across them again in a Reclam volume called Finders of Horseshoes that Madame Eglantine had lent him; the book was printed on poor paper and came armed with a whole battery of afterwords against expected objections. He died in 1938, in the gulag. Now there was Gorbachev and no one had forgotten. To distant lands you sail. The ball splashed in the water beside him, Schevola shouted something to him; Meno punched it back in the direction of the shouts. He propelled himself gently backwards with his arms, sensed he was getting into deeper water, it was darker, colder. ‘Bessoniza. Gomér. Tugije parussa,’ he murmured to himself. Lay with his face down, saw the ripples in the sand, finely ribbed, as if drawn with rakes or sculptor’s combs, at an enticing depth already, he was surprised he didn’t feel afraid. They shouted, he wanted to go a bit further. He suddenly felt his pulse accelerate and that made him go a bit further. He felt himself being pulled down, as if by filaments, caressingly, blue-washed hair, then slender, delicate fingers; for a moment he was disorientated, he struck out and only realized from the rising wall of water that it was in the wrong direction; he dived, the mountain thundered over him, carried him back into the light green of classical antiquity, now he was swimming frantically, for it came back from the beach, mingled with the breakers heading for the shore, forward and back were struggling against each other, on the surface waves grabbed him by the neck, pushing him towards the beach, below currents heading out to sea had taken a fancy to him; he wasn’t making any progress. He dropped into a vertical position: no bottom; the lumps of rock stuck in the clean sand, the seaweed and shells looked deceptively near.

Once he was out, he hoped no one could tell what he’d felt. He waved away Philipp, who’d had his suspicions. Felt Schevola’s mockery at his back and was grateful to the Old Man of the Mountain for interrupting his ‘philosophical sandwalk’ (shoulders hunched, bronzed, slightly paunchy stomach, ribs sticking out and duck-like flat feet with toes marking the sand well in front of the rest of the foot) and starting to argue about the conditions for a game of volleyball; Schevola, Meno could see over his shoulder, seemed to go along with that, at least she still possessed some tact, then. Meno wrapped a towel round his waist, stuffed a towel under the towel, checking that his skirt was unlikely to fall down. His trunks were hanging over his skin like a sodden nappy. He shivered in the wind, which had become sharper, crumpled briefs, shirt and trousers up into a balanceable bundle and slipped over towards the dunes. No volleyball after all, he saw out of the corner of his eye. The Old Man of the Mountain had returned to his reflective walk, Schevola, Philipp and Lührer were stretched out on beach towels by their sand fortress, looking to the right and left, Schevola down; but now — the rubber strap of Meno’s left flip-flop had slipped to a painful position between his longest toe and his big toe — she raised her head. Meno skipped up the dune. The place where the marram grass was particularly tall and thick was already occupied by a courting couple. Skipping was strenuous, he tried to run, but with the tightly tied towel he was holding with one hand while the other was clutching the bundle of clothes he could only manage little, ridiculous waddling steps. By now Schevola was openly devoting her full attention to him. That annoyed him. He wasn’t a specimen to be studied. Now he was skipping again, jumping without looking. Too late it occurred to him that he could have used their sand fortress. He was so annoyed that he didn’t pay attention to the stones stuck in the sand, brown, smooth and rounded, like darning mushrooms. His foot slipped. Meno folded at the waist, stuck out his free leg behind him, obstinately holding on to his towel with his right hand and waving his left to compensate. But the bundle made him unbalanced, for a while he whirled it around in the air, finally dunked it in the sand. As he struggled to right himself, he found himself performing a gymnastic position on one leg, wobbling, his arm and other leg forming a downward slanting line and the towel flopped over, allowing the sun to shine on the Herr Editor’s derrière, pale as two white loaves. ‘Oh, spiders!’ he muttered, using the favourite curse of Mr Fox from the children’s Sandman television programme.

DIARY

(Tuesday)

By now her hair is more ash blonde than grey. Kim Novak’s hair in Vertigo. Hydrogen peroxide. Don’t think Judith uses that. She asked me about Christian — and whether I’d brought my Dawn alarm clock with me. Then we talked about plums (the Old Man of the Mountain’s brought some Zibarten schnapps, a delicious speciality). I told her the Zibarte was a wild plum variety from the late Celtic period. She shrugged her shoulders. Me: ‘Best of all I like plums when they’re young and still almost green; they’re already juicy, plump but without grubs.’ She: ‘But when they’re ripe they’re sweeter, heavier, more intense. These young things, don’t they give you stomach ache?’ Me: ‘Only when you’re insatiable.’ She: ‘You’re not insatiable — as far as plums are concerned?’ I continued my lecture on the Zibarte plum, an interesting excursion into botany. Judith turned away, bored (?). And round here there are cherry plums, bigger and lovelier than I’ve ever seen on the slopes above the Elbe. As a name ‘cherry plum’ shows an odd lack of imagination; I would have called Prunus cerasifera a peach. The Old Man of the Mountain shook his head slowly from side to side, explaining that one did not rechristen something that bore the name myrobalan from the depths of time. — How does Judith know I have an alarm clock?

(Wednesday)

One word about breakfast, for all I have to say about early-morning exercises that here (I have to be fair) are recommended rather than compulsory is: since so far I’ve still managed to get up at five for my lauds and snip off a bit of the day’s work with the scissors of my willpower, I can observe the gathering of keep-fitters on the sports field behind Lietzenburg with an easy eye. You can borrow the army tracksuit — you have to sign for it, of course. Later on in the day the man in charge of Fun and Games (as the official name has it) is the house electrician — they say Günter Mellis, when he’s staying here, is generous in his offers of help — caretaker, messenger and boilerman in winter as well. I spent ages wondering where I’d seen him before: when I met Arbogast on the way to see the Old Man of the Mountain. The man leading the students from the House of the Teacher. Our F&G leader insisted he’d nothing to do with him, he’d always worked here, at Lietzenburg. Similarly Frau Kruke, housekeeper, charwoman and watchdog, Judith’s ‘house dragon’. She insists she’s never heard of Else Alke, even though she’s the spitting image of her. A dwarf shuffling along in slippers. — To get back to breakfast, which she’s in charge of. As Judith takes her plastic plate with the standard two slices of Tilsiter cheese, two slices of blutwurst, two slices of bologna, one little slab of hotel butter, two slices of pumpernickel (Saturdays rolls from Kasten’s bakery, Sundays a piece of cake), Lührer, the writer, who’s in front of her in the queue, says, ‘Enjoy your meal’, and apologizes that ‘recently’ he voted for her expulsion, she must understand that he had four children to provide for. — That’s all I needed! (Judith) Breakfast starts on the dot of eight. At the moment there are thirty-three of us in the house. In the canteen eight tables, each spread with a red-and-white-checked cloth and decorated with a light-green, transparent plastic vase, stand silent. In each vase there is water rising to a line marked one centimetre below the rim and pierced by a single artificial flower, style: red marguerite, from the workshops in Seibnitz. All the stems are ground like a cannula and slightly curved, inclined, as seen from the canteen door, to the right, so that the blooms all look to the east and at eight o’clock on the dot they all (assuming it’s a good day) don a little cap of light the size of your thumbnail. On every table the latest copies of Neues Deutschland, Junge Welt and the Ostsee-Zeitung, in aluminium napkin holders in the shape of a half-sun, await the guests; in addition, on the men’s tables there is Magazin and on the women’s Für Dich and Sowjetfrau. The copy of the satirical weekly Eulenspiegel is chained and on such a short chain that it can only be read at the occasional table by the entrance. There is a board with slots for strips of paper (blue and pink, typewritten) and each morning you have to check where you’re sitting. In order to make us mingle as much as possible and to ‘assure the maximum communicative contact’ (quoted from house regulations) the men and women — always separate — go from table to table. But what is the use of that when the Old Man of the Mountain spreads out his personal napkin, Philipp brings his own cutlery, Judith responds to Karlfriede Sinner-Priest’s comment that Fräulein Schevola actually had no right to be there by sweeping her plate off the table and strolling out of the room, and Lührer, the writer, all too pointedly places a jar of Nutella between himself and the poor editor, Rohde?

(Wednesday evening)

Notions –

Prague ’68. The third way. Stony monumental faces on the canyons of Sacred Theories. The bare You or I that, like everything unavoidable, is not without its comic side, nor without its boring side. There, in ’68 in Czechoslovakia, a humane society seemed possible, a society that does not forget that it consists of individuals. Democracy and open discussion. Criticism, publicly expressed but not simply for its own sake.

Schevola: ‘A dream, Herr Rohde. Crushed by tanks.’

The Old Man of the Mountain: ‘Perhaps Dubček and his friends were just lucky.’

Philipp: ‘You a heretic? Go on.’

The Old Man of the Mountain: ‘The most radiant dreams are those that never need to become reality. Do you, Herr Londoner, seriously consider a capitalist socialism a possibility? Freedom of production, of reaction to the market, demands freedom of thought. Your father had something interesting to say about that recently.’

Philipp: ‘Thought does not have to be unfree in socialism. Unfree socialism isn’t socialism. A genuinely socialist society will develop by openly naming and overcoming its contradictions.’

Schevola: ‘That means we’re not living in socialism.’

The Old Man of the Mountain: ‘Don’t say that so emphatically, my dear. — Dubček has become a martyr, Prague ’68 a legend. It could become a myth because it was spared failure. That was the fault of the fraternal states and we’re left with a fairy-tale flower that never had to prove in the soil of reality that its bloom would be as beautiful as promised. — You think me an opportunist. Maybe that’s what I am. Maybe I’m a coward. I’m on publishers’ advisory boards, now and then the Minister for Books listens to me — and I didn’t dare to speak up loudly for your book, Judith. I’m even prepared to look inside myself and to admit I found a nasty little piece of envy down there. I’m a censor, and not an easy-going one. I was in the SA. I was a soldier in the Wehrmacht. I was in the camp. Despite everything I saw, I believed in the good in people. I’ve remained a child. I’m afraid. For this country as well. I’m no longer young and my life’s consisted of broken dreams, day after day. I don’t believe in anything any more.’

Schevola: ‘Amen to that.’

Philipp: ‘You’re old, that’s all. Indigestion, itchiness, you’ve seen it all before … the whole business! But you’re making things difficult for us. There are lots of people like you in this country and, unfortunately, often in senior positions. Waving things away, weary hands, weary blood — but we need strength, encouragement, it’s not easy —’

Schevola: ‘— to be a revolutionary? Da-da-da-da! It’s so difficult to bring happiness to mankind.’

The Old Man of the Mountain: ‘And to stay polite as you do so. I don’t hold it against you for dismissing me as an old man. But itchiness … that’s tactless, my lad.’

Philipp: ‘Judith Schevola: cool, cynical, ironic. Go on, open your big mouth and make fun of us. We still believe in something. And what do you believe in? Nothing! Like you, Herr Altberg.’

The Old Man of the Mountain: ‘Yesyes, I’ve said that already. It used to be called defeatism. Carried the death penalty by firing squad.’

Philipp: ‘Then resign if you can’t do anything any more. Your generation is hanging on to power, they’d rather die than let someone else take over. And what use to us is all the hullabaloo about young people, the reserves of the Party, if we stay just that: reserves … Oh, what the hell, that’s not really the problem. The problem is that the gerontocracy’s leading this country to rack and ruin! We have new data, the economy’s heading for disaster — and no one seems concerned about it!’

Schevola: ‘A priest was murdered in Poland. Popieluszko he was called. That concerns me.’

Philipp: ‘You think that now you can say whatever you want.’

Schevola: ‘For a while I’ll think about what I’m saying. All that’s left is to lock me up or kill me. Well, Herr Altberg, however long you look at them, the chestnut leaves above us don’t look like ears.’

The Old Man of the Mountain: ‘Oh yes they do. Dachshund’s ears. All that is left us is precision.’

Schevola: ‘How do you imagine your world revolution? A bit of playing Che Guevara in the jungle? You’ll only catch simple-minded girls at the university with that.’

Philipp: ‘Make fun of us, if you like. What does it matter? — By the way, Marisa’s coming here.’

Schevola: ‘Your Chilean whore.’

Philipp: ‘Oh, yes. She’s neither simple-minded nor a student, so what else is there left for you to call her? What was it you said when we were going to Eschschloraque’s?’

The Old Man of the Mountain: ‘Can you explain this garden spider’s nest to me, Herr Rohde?’

Schevola: ‘You’re welcome to stay here, we’ve nothing to hide. It’d be a pity about the juicy bit of gossip you’d miss.’

Herr Altberg: ‘Don’t worry, back then I just happened be in the vicinity; Herr Rohde is as discreet as Pravda.’

Philipp: ‘ “I was never particularly taken with middle-class morality … you’re welcome to bring your little Chilean woman along.” ’

Schevola: ‘Quack, quack, quack.’

We saw the bay, in the haze the cliffs of Møn. Sunlight settled over the clear depths of the bay; an endless shimmer over the slow slapping of the water: as if swarms of grasshoppers were making their wings buzz. Beside it, scenes as peaceful as a jar of night-cream.

(Thursday)

Writers need training! But the tutor, who had come with the ferry from Stralsund bringing ice cream, sections copied from Apprentice Year in the Party and a social science periodical, was shot down by Philipp (‘a hit’, the Old Man of the Mountain said gleefully afterwards, ‘a palpable hit’), who highlighted his errors of logic and misquotations — most of what the tutor was spelling out painfully slowly from typescripts he knew off by heart, precisely, even down to the occasionally old-fashioned spelling of the original; so there the young professor sat, a strand of his long hair in his left fist, a pencil tapping out point-end-point-end in a semicircle in his right, his feet in their openwork slip-ons jogging up and down in time to the click-clack of his pencil on the Sprelacart tabletop until, fed up to the back teeth and examining his fingernails, the tutor suggested: 1) Comrade Smart-aleck should please take over and 2) what did people think of transferring the study of the classics to the beach? Philipp leapt up and wrote on the blackboard:

Petty bourgeois (Educated) Middle class Cabinet with display shelf, budgerigar, knick-knacks, doilies Telephone, Insel series of books, pipe collection Visitors: remove shoes (slippers for guests) Can keep their shoes on Toilet roll in car with crocheted cover, pine-tree air freshener over dashboard, head-wagging dachshund, Smurfs Leather cover for gear lever, ‘No smoking’ sticker ‘A heart for children’ on the dashboard If a dog: Alsatian, Pomeranian, mongrel If a dog: poodle, Afghan hound, Great Dane Invites to barbecue party Invites to coffee or tea Works team party, punch with inhabitants of apartment block Solitary walks (with wrist bag) Watches football (with team scarf) Talks about football, quotes from the legendary Zimmermann commentary on 1954 World Cup Forward to Majorca Back to nature The wife cooks, cleans, goes out to work, looks after the children The wife cooks, cleans, goes out to work, looks after the children Garden plot, swing hammock, garden barbecue, water butt, stock of beer, portable television Dacha Puts his hope in the Federal Chancellor Puts his hope in Gorbachev The world of early rising The world of coming home late

I belong to the working class, the tutor said icily, I stick to Marx, Engels and Lenin. He demanded, ‘Your name, comrade.’ Philipp expressed regret that fewer and fewer cadres had a sense of humour, took a brochure from the Institute of Social Sciences off the desk, searched through it briefly, twirling the ends of his moustache into the curving-up ends of a sleigh, and gave the comrade tutor an autograph.

(Friday)

Choice of activities (‘the house management recommends’): an excursion to Warnow shipyard in Rostock (5 votes), a sightseeing tour of Sassnitz and the smallest museum in the Republic (the goods wagon in which Lenin, a spark on a long fuse, travelled to the powder-keg of pre-revolutionary Russia, 4 votes). Beside it some joker had scribbled BATHING (19 votes). So it was the Warnow shipyard. I wrote a card to the ship’s doctor (the maritime theme of the new development at Lütten Klein outside Rostock seemed appropriate), then I called Libussa. Arbogast’s consignment of pencils has arrived. She said Frau Honich was snooping around my apartment and suggested I threaten to go to the police. I’ve given my manuscripts to Anne for safe keeping so told her to avoid confrontation even though I find it hard to bear the thought of that bitch’s fingers on the ten-minute clock — how familiar, how comforting the gong I heard over the phone — perhaps even breaking it: some people cannot stand other people’s happiness, the dignity of aristocratic and defenceless objects makes some people want to cripple them. Libussa said Chakamankabudibaba had brought up a poorly digested mouse on my copy of Schelling.

(Saturday)

Who wears white gloves nowadays? Marisa’s seem to be of deerskin, so finely tanned that when Marisa closes her fingers to make a fist, shiny infant’s noses form over her knuckles. She wore them with khaki drill trousers, the top of a toothbrush sticking out of the right front pocket, a bright-blue T-shirt with orange flamingos printed on, and a jean jacket casually thrown over her shoulder and held with her little finger. She arrived without luggage. When she saw me (I happened to be listening to some trees with a stethoscope, decaying ones especially are acoustic cathedrals, elms grow with different noises from beeches), she pulled off her soldier’s cap and waved it round and round, as if she were trying to swing an aeroplane propeller. I’d just had a little argument with Judith about reality — Judith’s response to my explanation was to pull up a nettle and show it to me, an impassive expression on her face: ‘That, for me, is reality’; then, still with the nettle in her hand that already had a rash and atolls of itchy spots, she saw Marisa joyfully waving her cap. Philipp was behind us, leaning back against a bent elm branch as thick as an elephant’s leg and rocking to and fro, at the same time leafing through a Reclam volume on utopian socialists (Babeuf, Blanqui); the Old Man of the Mountain was strolling up and down the west side of Lietzenburg, admiring the architectural mixture of art nouveau and English country house, the fairy-tale windows with widespread arms; now and then he would declaim some lines out loud: ‘As when the budding flowers, half dead and half alive / In the cellar’s darkness struggle there to thrive.’ — Judith saw Marisa, went up to her with a smile, embraced her, holding up the hand with the nettle.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ Marisa said. By now her German was almost accent-free.

‘Yes. Lovely T-shirt you’ve got on, Frau Sanchez.’

‘From Santiago de Chile. May I go and clean my gloves first? I was stupid enough to eat a sticky ice cream. Hello, Herr Rohde.’ I took the stethoscope out of my ears.

Judith: ‘I’ve got a knife.’

Marisa: ‘A good one?’

Judith handed it to Marisa, who unclasped it and examined it with an expert eye. ‘A good knife,’ she said, giving it back to Judith, ‘where did you get it? And do you also know where your thrust should go?’

‘Where it hurts, I assume. It’s a genuine French Laguiole, a present from a reader.’

‘Please — give it to me. You don’t know how to handle it.’

‘I’d love to give you one now. There.’ Judith raised her fist and stopped just short of Marisa’s cheekbone.

‘Not very effective, even though it looks spectacular. Don’t deceive yourself, most people find it more difficult than they think to hit someone in the face. I’d be quicker than you, ward the blow off upwards, like this’ — Marisa demonstrated how she would do it — ‘and then hit you there.’ Marisa stopped her little fist in its white glove short of Judith’s Adam’s apple.

‘First the man, then the knife.’ Judith regarded the open, stick-insect-slim blade.

‘You’d use it for Philipp?’

Judith looked round at Philipp, who’d put his book down and, sitting astride the branch, had started to cut his fingernails. Now and then he cried, ‘Stupid’, pushed his cream hat back but didn’t come any closer, and I looked for the Old Man of the Mountain, who was now sitting at his typewriter in the sun, glue pot, draft paper and scissors beside him, working away at his mountain project and not looking up. Judith said, ‘You can have the knife. Your demand is so outrageous that I’m beginning to like you again. I like it when a balance clearly tips down on one side. If I have to lose, then properly, the other pan says. At least it’s empty and free.’

‘You want to stab from outside but that’s quite wrong. Come on, I’ll show you.’ Marisa took the knife out of her hand, linked arms with Judith and they headed for Lietzenburg, deep in conversation, their heads close together.

The Old Man of the Mountain started when the clock struck; there was no one in the library of Lietzenburg apart from himself and Meno. He took off his reading glasses, stood up, groaning, put the Apollodorus book back on the shelf beside the stack of Sibylle magazines from which, in the evenings when the watchtower on the Dornbusch sent segments of light feeling their way over land and sea, Karlfriede Sinner-Priest read out stylistic bloomers; they were hours pampered by the tick-tock of the grandfather clock and, since it was already getting cold when evening fell, the approving puffs of the stove with the windmill tiles. Two censors sitting together, she in a crocheted stole, he in a knitted cardigan, both with flushed cheeks, for when her rocking chair went ‘creak’, his rocking chair went ‘croak’.

‘Time, Herr Rohde. One doesn’t keep Barsano waiting.’

Marisa and Philipp joined them on the beach. They had guitars slung over their shoulders on brightly coloured, folksy woven straps and looked like adventurers with their hair stiff with salt under straw hats casting frayed star-shadows on their feet that, as they waded along the back-and-forth of the water’s edge with its unconsciously stumbling shells, they let glittering hands run over. They were heading for the Cape, the cliffs of which were already gathering the red of sunset, climbing one of the steep paths leading up from the shore. Agrimony and yarrow, black mullein and woody nightshade grew along the path; to Meno’s surprise the Old Man of the Mountain identified them without having to think for long. ‘A pharmacist’s son, Herr Rohde, ought to have sufficient botanical knowledge —’ The rest of the sentence was drowned out by the roar of engines. Beyond the Cape, beach buggies were tearing through the waves and up the dunes that sandslips had rendered less steep there. Philipp shaded his eyes. Meno recognized the Kaminski twins, in the other three buggies were members of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. One of the twins roared up the slope, stopped in front of Philipp. ‘Well, Herr Londoner, in which column of your table does this activity come.’

‘Impudence,’ Philipp said without thinking; Meno grasped his arm.

‘Watch your tongue, Master Londoner, we’ve told you that before. Ah, Herr Rohde, you’ve been invited too? How are things at home? Frau Honich will be sorry you’re not there.’

Kaminski — Meno still couldn’t say which was Timo and which René — grinned, glanced briefly at Marisa, ignored the Old Man of the Mountain.

‘I thought motor vehicles were forbidden on the island?’ Philipp stared at Kaminski, who was coolly taking off his suede openwork racing-driver gloves. ‘Fancy a ride? I’m called Timo.’

‘Thanks, but no, compañero.’ Marisa tried to get Philipp to move on but Barsano was already waving them over. Timo Kaminski put two fingers to his baseball cap in salute. With a roar of the engine, the buggy shot back off towards the beach. Philipp swore at his departing back. His father, he said, was a highly placed cadre in the nomenklatura, a genuine fighter still, but his spawn, Philipp said, spitting on the ground out, were betraying the ideals of the revolution; they were wastrels, exploiting their connections. ‘An apartment — who gets one at that age, single students, huh!’

‘You too,’ Meno ventured to object, but that only exacerbated Philipp’s rage.

‘It’s different with me. I got my flat through people I know … by fighting for it. Yes, you can certainly call it that. Moreover I’m not a student any more!’ Philipp’s tendency to fly off the handle, to become obstreperous; Philipp’s blindness for parallels (that he shared with Hanna); Meno said nothing, he was thinking what Judith Schevola had said on the way to East Rome: the Red aristocracy.

‘I can well imagine what you’re thinking.’ Philipp gave a bush, quietly dreaming of the peak of its aspirations, a kick. ‘And I’d like to remind you that without Father’s intervention you’d never have got the apartment on Mondleite. No question about it. But these guys … they’re gangsters, they have no scruples and belong to our Party — it’s been totally corrupted by bastards like that!’

‘He might be able to hear you, Philipp,’ Meno warned, nodding towards Barsano, who had got out of his buggy and was climbing up the dune. The Old Man of the Mountain whispered that it was impolite to stand around when the First Secretary was approaching, especially from below; he stooped and went to meet Barsano.

‘They’re the ones who have power in the Party, not the honest comrades who’re pinching and scraping at the base in order to preserve at least something … Now, don’t tell on me,’ Philipp said abruptly, outwardly composed again. They followed the Old Man of the Mountain, but Philipp held himself proudly upright.

‘A few toys’ — the First Secretary made a dismissive wave — ‘Father Kaminski had them delivered to the Central Committee’s holiday house. Wouldn’t have thought it was such fun to drive them. Where’ve you left Schevola? We don’t want to see her any more. We can forget her. Pity, we don’t see pretty women that often,’ he said to Marisa, holding out his gloved hand to her with a remark on the work of the Chilean Solidarity Committee. ‘They’re from the Federal Republic, those things. We ought to build them here too. Perhaps Arbogast can manage it. — Off you go up there now, comrades, there’s something to drink at the top.’

50. And if you have worries or problems

Class comrade — give the order. Class comrade — carry it out. The same desire. A common goal. That leads to trust.

What It Means to be a Soldier

When autumn came, the ash came. When November came, the rains and the new recruits came to Grün. During the last ten days of their service anyone who tried to rouse Rogalla and Ruden from their cheerful and yet, in the afternoon, impatient and despairing drunken rest was shown an aluminium spoon that had been rolled flat and made to look like a railway baton, holding up first the side painted red, then the one painted green: Stop. Departure. The discharge candidate’s ‘measure’ of his last months of service, self-made out of a brass grenade case containing a 150 cm tailor’s tape measure sticking out through a slit (was there not a VEB somewhere, Christian wondered, that could proudly announce it had realized its planned targets for these tape measures?) was shortened by one centimetre each day.

Sometimes, when the room and section cleaning was over and the polishing brushes were no longer clattering along the corridor, Christian, together with Burre, would go to fetch coal, that was one of the earholes’ tasks. Burre, whose first name was Jan — Christian never used his nickname — would lumber along, a clumsy bear cub in his black overalls, grasping the rubber handgrips firmly in his work-mittens, muttering and humming, trundling the wheelbarrow with its pneumatic tyres over the cobbles of the road that, years ago, had been tarmacked, past the med centre, from which the bedridden soldiers in brown camouflage uniforms shouted snide comments, the maintenance unit, the tailoring workshop, and swung round, singing by now, towards headquarters, behind which, screened off by a few low-rise sheds and the swimming pool, lay the regiment’s coal supply. The piles were covered in rampant weeds — the coal had to be ordered far in advance and was delivered in the spring; skinny cats had dug out hollows for themselves (the coal was mainly slack, tiny lumps and dust rather than briquettes), crows were arguing over scraps of food: the kitchen dust bins, which never shut properly, stood, immersed in their own kind of melancholy, next to the piles of coal. Whenever Burre and Christian saw men with wheelbarrows from 1st and 3rd Battalions they would start to run and, if no one had got there before them, choose the best places and begin to shovel like mad — those who got the best coal had the hottest stoves and boilers. The full wheelbarrows weighed a good hundredweight and Christian would never have thought that he, the spoilt son of the educated middle classes who’d stayed on at senior high school, would be able to lift such a weight, never mind push it forward over greasy wooden planks between the grassy mounds and obstacles that made the coal in the cart, which looked like an upturned dissected frog, bounce merrily up and down. In addition to that, it was impossible to keep the load in the optimum position, on their tyres that weren’t properly pumped up the barrows wobbled this way and that, and those pushing them staggered like drunks; Christian had the feeling he was trying to transport an ox on a ruler. On the way back Burre would sing even louder, his muttering would become a droning and rhythmical ‘da-da-da’. At such times Christian felt so sorry for him he had to stop for a moment to fight down the sadness that swirled up inside him like an unrestrained garden hose. The birch trees shimmered, from the square in front of headquarters they heard the officer shout, ‘Mount guard!’ Squirrels, fiery red, weightless little fellows, scampered along the barracks wall, overhung by elms. And yet, at such moments Burre was perhaps happy; he seemed to be in a world of his own, kept his head bowed, singing and muttering to help him forget the obstinate wheelbarrow, the evening noises of the barracks, his dripping nose that was a shining black from the coal dust. Christian thought of the slug-yellow paste full of gritty bits they’d have to rub all over their face, neck and hands; he didn’t want to but couldn’t help thinking of the lumps of black snot the size of broad beans they’d blow out of their noses, followed by a dry cough and shivers of horror at the things coming out of their bodies and into the washroom outflow. Burre was staggering and there was a regular occurrence when they drew level with the repair shop of the maintenance unit: there was a speed bump he tried to take at a run — the shovel lying across the barrow jumped up and to one side, lumps of coal squirted up and fell onto the road. Burre, trying to keep his balance, swerved like a figure-skater fighting the centripetal force of the ice in order to prepare another jump, braced himself, still singing, ever more desperately against the wheelbarrow’s determination to topple over and finally jumped aside to let it have its own, mindless way. Then Burre would start to laugh and Christian suspected that at that moment he saw himself from outside, that he burst out laughing at his own uselessness and the film-cartoon-like inevitability of the overturning, in a wobbly fit of shamefaced amusement that was as much a mystery to Christian as the fact that Nip would never allow them to fetch the coal before cleaning the rooms and section. They had to take it up the stairs and for that there was nothing apart from the ‘pig trough’ as they called the sledge, originally painted army green and presumably constructed from an ammunition case resting on two stringers, between the scraped planks of which, irrespective of the panting, the cursing, the gasped instructions from the ‘earhole’ in front and the ‘earhole’ behind, brown coal powder trickled out, leaving a trail on the stairs and the freshly polished wooden floor of the corridor.

Burre came from Grün. He and his mother — his father had walked out on them when Burre’s little sister had drowned in the emergency water pond one winter — had two rooms in one of the tumbledown half-timbered houses behind the market; one evening he had pushed some photos under the dividing wall in the toilets: there, in one of the four stinking WC bays with their iridescent flypapers, was the only place you could have time for yourself, undisturbed, although naturally the more senior soldiers were aware of this and Musca liked to jump up the door, as if it were an assault wall, to see what was going on behind it.

Burre’s mother worked shifts as an adjuster in the Grün metal works. Every two weeks she sent her son a parcel, a tedious (the post office was at the other end of the little town) and expensive way of circumventing the unreliable guards at the barracks checkpoint, to whom she had at first given the parcels — Burre was never given a pass, Nip didn’t like him because, as the staff sergeant indicated, he was one of those who ‘ruin the company’s record’.

‘Injustice is the spice of life,’ Tank Driver Popov said, regarding his toes, which needed some attention, calmly sticking his cap on his head and a turnover in his mouth: Company 4 was on guard duty, five days before the discharge of the soldiers in their third and the NCOs in their sixth half-year. Christian saw Burre’s mother sitting with Musca, Costa and a few drivers who were not on duty; she spoke falteringly, mumbling, Christian was amazed at the similarity in timbre to her son (Burre also had that colourless voice of indeterminate register), the similarity in their features, while at the same time finding it depressing, and as he handed his machine pistol to Ruden, who locked it in a weapons cupboard, as he took off cap and belt (a minor pleasure every time), he tried to remember something that was connected with that feeling of depression; but it only came back to him when he ran his fingers through his shorn hair: ‘The Hoffmanns’ hair whorl,’ his clock grandfather had said, ‘my father had it, I have it, your father has it and if you have children, Christian, you’ll find it on them, as faithful as ever … perhaps you’ll soon understand how funny and sad that is, you laugh and feel resigned. — Upbringing?’ He made a dismissive gesture. Christian had remembered that, although its meaning had remained unclear. Burre’s mother was dressed up in her Sunday best and Christian quickly realized she had come to plead for her son.

Ruden strolled over, said nothing. Rogalla explained it was nothing to do with him any more; Ruden, who probably had been going to say something, nodded, happy at this neat solution that relieved him of responsibility; he followed Rogalla out, holding up the spoon with the green side showing.

‘They were the worst,’ Costa said, ‘they’re leaving in five days’ time. Then he’ll be over the worst.’ Burre’s mother didn’t respond, she hadn’t taken her headscarf off, was still sitting there in her trenchcoat, one of those putty-grey ones with buttons the size of pocket watches, which were still available in the shops alongside green and forest-brown parkas, the sole difference between the men’s and women’s styles being (Barbara claimed) that the women’s buttoned on the left, the men’s on the right.

After a while she turned to Musca. ‘Haven’t you got a mother?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘And if I did have one she wouldn’t come strolling in with five hundred marks in an envelope.’

‘You have no mother?’

‘No, I haven’t! I come from a home, you see, my old lady drank herself to death. I drove her nuts, when I was little she put red wine in my bottle. I was quiet once I’d had it. But you — you just come barging in here with your money and fine words: a sensitive boy — I’m sensitive too, gentlemen. If you only knew how sensitive I sometimes am and how my comrades here sometimes really piss me off —’

‘Heeheehee.’

‘Shutyertraparsehole. — So, what do you have to say to that?’

But Burre’s mother didn’t answer, for her son had come in. At first he didn’t seem to understand, looked irritatedly from one side of the table to the other, then, when he saw the envelope, he abruptly turned round, lowered his head, as if to think, fingering his pack frame with the pockets for his reserve magazine and his water bottle that, against regulations, he’d hooked on to it. ‘You shouldn’t have come here, I asked you not to. And certainly not with money, have we got a golden goose?’ He didn’t turn round, spoke agitatedly, shoulder raised, to an uncomprehending spot on the floor, from which his mother’s answer could reach him by ricochet.

‘But you told me he wouldn’t come,’ Burre’s mother murmured to Costa in a weary, monstrously sad voice.

When autumn came, the DCs left. Not after having given advice: Keep your tank water bottle clean. Your field pack in order. Tell the new ones they should get some material for slings and motorbike goggles.

The new ‘earholes’ arrived, stuffed with rumours, from ‘outside’ and from the cadet schools; they approached with trepidation, panting under the weight of the packed groundsheets, driven by a taskmaster with his hands behind his back, and dispersed into the various companies, like one of those lines of ants that resemble a procession of walking leaves — with one exception: Steffen Kretzschmar, who, because of his baker’s hands, his round face, his short, wiry black hair and ears that stuck out like handles, was immediately dubbed ‘Pancake’. Pancake was pulling a handcart in which he had his things (only the more senior servicemen had sailor’s kitbags, diverted from navy stores): a Weltmeister accordion with cracked mother-of-pearl buttons, a barbell and a box of juggler’s balls. When Musca exulted, he did it with childlike openness, he pushed his cap onto the back of his head so that his protuberant eyes formed a lilac-blue centre in a face creased with laughter lines: widened by knowledge or ideas that were still in the state of chortling anticipation and only after a few seconds would send out shudders all over his skinny body, like a kind of nettlerash.

‘Just look at that dogface! Pullin’ a handcart, have y’ever seen anythin’ like that before!’ He went to his locker, put on his belt, aimed a cherry pit, still a pleasing red, at Karge on his bunk. ‘Hey, Wanda, get your finger out, the virgins are coming and one we can show what’s what.’

Even Christian was actually too tall for the tank, the limit was one metre eighty; but Pancake was at least one metre ninety. ‘The hatch’s goin’ to knock his head into his shoulders,’ Popov said, ‘well, perhaps that’s why they put him in the cavalry. How’s he going to park those spindle-shanks of his between the gear lever and the brakes … and a cap to fit that noddle just don’t exist.’

Musca drew himself up to his full height in front of Pancake, which looked rather ridiculous: he was a whole head shorter and looked like a buzzing insect that, in order finally to attract the attention of the giant explorer — Christian observed Pancake looking down on Musca, at first puzzled, then with increasing interest — had transformed itself into a dancing spider, a raving frog, a double-bass player during the ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’; except that after a while Pancake asked, ‘What d’you want?’

‘… anyway!’ Musca was waving his hands about; Pancake lifted him up with one arm, over his head, popped a cigarette between his lips with his left hand, lit it with the long flame of a red Bic lighter (Musca squealed, the flame was licking round the crotch of his trousers), waited until Musca’s boots had fallen off, then gently put him down in a November puddle, skilfully avoiding his fists flailing round in the air. Karge almost died laughing. ‘Great balls of fire!’

Costa said it served the bigmouth right. Irrgang came from the depot and shouted that if that was one of the privileges accorded discharge candidates, then count him in.

Pancake accepted his nickname, even seemed to be happy with it and look on it as flattery, for he didn’t object to it, on the contrary, sometimes when he was on duty he would report as ‘Private Pancake’, grinning maliciously at the confusion he caused. During the first few days, Christian thought, he was trying things out, giving the officers a look-over: he respected Nip, who, giving him a look from his yellowed sclerotics, breathed out an alcohol-reeking, ‘Imtheonewhodecidesonthefunnybusinessizzatclearcomrade’, looked the battalion commander, Major Klöpfer (whom all the soldiers in his battalion thought totally incompetent), up and down, listened to the political officer with half-closed eyes, observed Christian, who was his tank commander. Pancake seemed to possess an intuitive knowledge of human nature that came to rapid conclusions, a cool ability to see through bluster and poses and assess people as ‘useful’ or ‘no use’, ‘dangerous’ or ‘harmless’, a crude but probably tried-and-tested classification on which he based his behaviour. He seemed to have problems fitting Christian into this classification for more than once Nemo, as Pancake also called him, felt the grey-flecked eyes under their sleepy, heavy lids on him. After a few days Pancake had declared poor Burre his ‘slave’ (what surprised Christian was that none of the other drivers protested; perhaps the performance he’d put on with Musca had convinced them?); Nip’s ‘humming top’ he dismissed with a twitch of his fleshy lips; the company commander did not interfere in the business of the lower ranks and Pancake was in the platoon leader’s good books because he was the best driver the battalion had ever seen. He was better than Popov, for Pancake had the confidence to reverse into the tank shed in the technical depot at full throttle (and without a guide, that was the game when a fractional movement on the steering lever could decide the fate of a Double-T carrier); on the old Wehrmacht practice course, which had been adapted to Russian conditions, he lowered the company record that had been set by a legendary reserve officer in the early seventies; in Pancake’s fist the right-angled steel hook to open the hatch bolt looked as delicate as the handle of a lady’s hatbox.

There was no baptism. Five of them tried to overpower Pancake; Christian, who was duty NCO, woke from his doze with a start when they flung open the door to the drivers’ room; the first Pancake threw out of the open window (a coarse-voiced loader who was ready for any brawl or booze-up, even when it was an NCO — otherwise the various ranks were strictly separated); then Pancake put on a knuckle-duster, sat down at the table, an open clasp-knife in front of him, had a drink of tea and calmly asked if there was anyone else who wanted a go. He seemed to be thinking while the others stood, uncertain what to do, in the doorway, then, smiling, he raised his forefinger and pointed to his locker, letting it circle round a block wrapped in silver foil, gave the bed in which Burre slept a kick and bellowed, ‘Up you get, Nutella, serve us the steaks.’

The new arrivals: among the commanders a man whose cheesy, acne-ridden face creased like a glove puppet when there was something he didn’t like and who was running off all the time to the political officer, who dampened his ardor with a variety of commendations. A taciturn goldsmith, who used a serviette when eating and folded it before throwing it away. There was an argument about the allocation of areas to be cleaned, Burre wanted to keep the toilet. Christian knew it wasn’t the filthy enlisted men’s toilet he was concerned about but the officers’ toilet, which could be locked. But Pancake said he just wanted to get out of the way there and it would be enough if he stayed at the personal disposal of the drivers.

‘But I want to do the toilet,’ Burre insisted. A short, stocky driver refused to give in as well.

‘Aha, you slaves want something. OK.’ Pancake put two dolls on the table, carved from wood, one red, one green. ‘I see things this way. There are basically two kinds of people: those at the top and those at the bottom, those with dough and those without. Those who give orders and those who receive them, and if one wants something and the other doesn’t, God, what happens then? If two want to scrub the loo but only one can do it, they’ll have to fight for it.’

‘We could get them to compare dicks,’ Karge suggested. ‘But that would be unfair. Nutella’s is swollen from all those hand jobs.’

‘It has to be fair,’ Musca crowed. ‘Clever Dicks always have small ones! And who knows whether this mucky pup here will polish my loo seat as well as Nutella does?’

‘Oh man,’ Popov sighed, ‘that I should live to see this. Two earholes sluggin’ it out over who’s to scrub the shithouse. Right, I want to see blood.’

‘They’re to lift weights. A fair competition.’ Pancake went over to his bed, rolled out the bar with the two 50 kg weights. He came from a circus dynasty, his ancestors had bent iron rods, juggled with 25 kg balls, wrestled and taken part in eating competitions; he himself had worked as a smith with the Aeros and Berolina circuses; there had been an argument, ‘some business, sorted out’, as he put it with his malicious grin; for some time he’d been dealing in cars and it was said he’d gone to ground in the army for three years because of some shady affair (there were targets here as well, what did a recruiting officer care about the past if he got a useful recruit because of it). Pancake lifted the weights with no problem. The driver tried first; his head wobbled like a baby with a weak neck but eventually he got his arms stretched. Burre stepped forward and as he bent down Christian knew he’d never lift the weights. His thin arms dangled over the barbell, then Burre put his glasses on the table, spat on his hands and made a show of jogging about a bit, a kind of voodoo or conjuration; perhaps it would help; at last with a vigorous jerk he lifted the weights up to his chest — Christian would never have believed the chubby, clumsy Burre capable of it; it was followed by a shout, like those made by weightlifters on Today’s Sport, then a sidestep to the right, his knees still bent, he puffed, his hands turning white under the bar, concentrated, his right leg, stuck out at an angle, began to tremble, Musca said, ‘Just no one laugh now’; Burre closed his eyes, struggling, his face went red, then he uttered a dull cry, it sounded like casual disappointment, mixed with surprise, this ‘Oooh’, damning his own limited body and weakness, from Burre, whom, at the moment of the change of grip, of the decisive effort to lift the weights, all his poems did nothing to help.

At night, before going to sleep Christian had the feeling his body was floating away, was breaking up in the area where he took breath, something was fraying (he thought of his cello, only briefly, pushed it out of his mind: dead, dead, what are the old ghosts to me, to his inner eye his cello seemed to be smouldering like a hot strip of celluloid film); a bridge collapsed and dark water swept away the voices (Verena’s, Reina’s), the warming memories of Dresden, which might at the moment be as mysteriously and richly filled with conversation, music, old plays as Ali Baba’s cave with treasure; open sesame. But the catfish on the fountain outside Vogelstrom’s fortress wouldn’t take off its mossy cloak of silence, the sound of a porcelain coffee cup being put down on its saucer in Caravel, cut in two by the to and fro of the pendulum of the grandfather clock and the constant violet glow of the amethyst druse, wouldn’t change. He thought of home, had difficulty calling up the images. Did they exist at all, Caravel, the House with a Thousand Eyes, the Rose Gorge, from which at that very moment sleep could be flowing over the city, Evening Star, where Niklas was cocooned in music and voices and his archives, sick with longing for the Nuremberg of the Mastersingers? Christian moved and was back in his bed in the tank commanders’ room of the 2nd Battalion of the 19th Armoured Regiment, which would likewise disappear as soon as he closed his eyes.

The company was sleeping. Dreams and visitations had taken hold of them. Those with a pass wouldn’t come back until shortly before seven, when duty officially started, they would be sitting in the Dutch Courage, the only bar in Grün that didn’t shut at midnight. The worn-out women who hadn’t got married went there after the second shift in the metal works, the late girls of the town, ready for a drink and with ready tongues: they didn’t say ‘a man’ but ‘a guy’ or ‘a dude’. And Christian heard; listened: there was the quiver of the flower water in the plastic vases on the bar tables, two or three waves of a napkin got rid of the smells, the crumbs, the food-filled presence of the previous customer before the waiter gestured with his thumb at the still-warm seat of the chair, next please, dealt with at thirty-minute intervals, only the regulars’ table with, in the middle, the carefully painted sign with a border of oak leaves, was left in peace; and if in Schwanenberg it had been the noises of the brown-coal excavators, the distant screech (or was it cries? Squeals? Feeling hungry? Being tortured?) of skeleton-armed primeval giants that performed their lumbering sumo wrestler change of stance against a sky ranging from burgundy-, piano-, chocolate-, fire-hydrant-red, flamingo- and tongue-pink, islands of matchstick- and vaccination-drops-red, close-your-eyelids-orange to cat’s-paw- and love-letter-rosé; animals buried beneath chains of buckets, burrowing in the treadmills of the open-cast mines, the sounds of tortured creatures that Christian couldn’t forget — here in the small town of Grün it was the shimmering whistles of the goods trains that mostly travelled through the provincial station at night, rumbling tapeworms of carriages filled with the products of the metal works, with coal, with wood from the surrounding spruce monocultures, eaten away by acid rain, with ore from the mountains out of which the people in the works to the west of the town still managed to boil a few grammes of nonferrous metal, with chemicals, an indigestible brew drawn by a landlord lying in a coma. He thought of the Danube delta and the hoopoe on a postcard Kurt had sent him that he had pinned up in the private compartment of his locker, where others had a picture of their wife or girlfriend, a photo from Magazin. He thought of the constellations on Meno’s ten-minute clock, the Southern Cross that he would never get to see, nor the sky into which it had hammered its silver nails.

The senior high and its problems, the final exams preceded by weeks of revision, their fear of the teaching staff in overheated classrooms when they were called in for an oral exam, the discussions with Reina, Falk and Jens by Kaltwasser reservoir all seemed to be in the distant past; his sense of time said: in another life. Had he ever passed the school-leaving exam? Sat in a classroom, in civilian clothing and wearing slippers, bent over a book or a sheet of paper? In another life. A barrier had come down between there and here. Even though he was tired, it hurt when he closed his eyes; a salty pain; but out of habit the inner drive inside his body that was ready for, thirsting for sleep rolled on, could not suddenly halt. In his mind’s eye he saw Burre, his reserved expression, trying for dignity; he was tormented by the way they treated Burre. It wasn’t fair … Fair, fair! came the mocking echo from the dark corner of the room where Musca and Wanda had long been gathered into the claws of a wheezing but in its way caring night deity. What could one do? What can I do? –

Write a report. Describe everything, the conditions here, the reality. Submit it to the Minister of National Defence or, even more effective, straight to the First Secretary personally. They said that such reports were considered … But the postboxes were under observation, especially here in the regiment. And if his complaints were actually checked, Nip would build a pretty Potemkin village, the inhabitants would have snow-white collar binds, clean fingernails; they would all be entirely satisfied comrades (‘I am serving the German Democratic Republic,’ was the prescribed formula) and on that day a soldier like Burre would have been sent on leave. And once the inspectors had left, shaking their heads at the completely unfounded, slanderous accusations of that Private Hoffmann …

The sound of caterpillar tracks from outside, at the entrance to the technical area: the 3rd Battalion returning from an exercise. Was that someone coughing outside? Nip, perhaps, with his ‘drake’? Christian felt restless, got up again. The corridor was empty, gleaming from the evening exertions of the floor-polisher’s barbels; the duty guard’s table was floating, like a tiny island with a yellow position light, in the darkness by the stairs; Costa was sitting there reading.

There was no light on in the toilets. Christian could feel that there was someone there, he had a sixth sense for it, could tell by looking at them whether postboxes were full or not (an ‘aura’, something or other left over from the postman, a change, no greater than an eyelash, in the resonance of the postbox interior, the echo of the clank of the flap?); he could tell by looking at an ice cream whether it contained too much milk fat and he wouldn’t like it; he sensed that someone was sitting in the cubicle by the window, motionless, probably holding his breath, his eyes scouring the tiny gloom over the top of the door; and he sensed that it was Burre. He went into the cubicle next to it, waited.

‘Christian?’

‘I wanted to ask you something, Jan. — Can I do anything for you? I have an uncle, he knows people.’

‘Why don’t you ask him for yourself? I don’t need help.’

‘So you don’t want me to?’

‘I can look after myself. — Makes you feel good, does it? Why do you laugh at my poems?’

Pause; but Christian didn’t want to chicken out. ‘Because they’re not very good — I think. I don’t laugh at them.’

Burre remained silent, there was a rustle of paper, a streak of brightness stabbed across the floor. ‘I know they’re not any good.’

‘My uncle’s a publisher’s editor, perhaps he can help you?’

‘But they’re all I’ve got.’ When boots were heard outside, Burre switched off his torch. Then it was quiet again, Costa must have been stretching his legs. ‘I’d like to be your friend.’

Christian, only wearing his thin pyjamas, started to shiver with cold. ‘This Pancake … perhaps we could make a complaint somewhere?’

‘Perhaps I’ll kill him, one day,’ Burre mused. ‘As his “slave” I get to know him better than he does me, and eventually, perhaps, when he’s asleep … I don’t care. I’m fed up to here, sometimes I just can’t take any more …’ Burre was speaking rapidly, in a strained voice, full of hatred. ‘And at the works they work themselves to the bone, everything to meet the plan’s targets and when my mother comes home she’s so exhausted she falls asleep in front of the television …’

‘Jan, I won’t tell on you, but be careful.’

‘Yes, I thought you wouldn’t do that. — Go now, I’d like to be on my own for a bit. — Thanks.’

Christian didn’t ask what he was thanking him for. On one of the next days there was PNP — preparation for a new period of operation: tank tracks were lying on the ground outside the shed like the dried-up skins of a colony of dragons — he saw Burre outside the regimental office, looking round hastily. He seemed not see Christian, went into the building.

51. In the Valley of the Clueless

November: in the evening, after periods on duty, the operations, Richard began to be more aware of his body than usual. His arm and hand were sore, also the spot on his thigh where the skin transplant had been taken from. Something inside him seemed to slip out of position on these short, waxy days that turned over sluggishly, in a flat trajectory, not properly born and heading for an early, rain-pale death; he didn’t like this epoch of grey skies (even if the days themselves were short, the time they added up to was not, and the year seemed to have two clocks: a small one for blossom, spring and summer — and a big one with the slow, dream-damp November numbers on its face); he became morose in the atmosphere of ill-temper and keeping one’s head down (would they ever disappear, these brown and grey coats with turn-up collars and pockets your arms went into up to the elbows, making him feel impolite when he encountered an acquaintance and held out his hand to him); and in contrast to Meno, who particularly liked going for walks at this time (hat, pipe, scarf, sniffles and memories), the town held no attraction for him either, the slimy streets, houses deadened by catarrh. He was depressed by the ruins, the Frauenkirche, the castle, Taschenberg Palace, Rampische Gasse, which was tumbling down, all said out loud that Dresden was a shadow of its former self, destroyed, sick. The weeds grew rampant on the huge, wind-blown patches of waste ground in the city, in the new districts the pavements and roads were unrecognizable under layers of mire and mud. Rain … In the seeping damp, soaking the finest pores, sieved by the roofs and strained into metronomic drips, the Neustadt houses were like rotting ships. The façades broke out in a pre-winter sweat, the cold sweat of a moribund town, with no official approval … In the art gallery it clung to the walls in a greasy film, removed Giorgione’s Venus to an inaccessible distance, overlaid the joys of the flesh in the Rubens scenes with melancholy, gave Heda’s blackberry pie a withered look, even the roguish faces of the chubby-cheeked cherubs below the Sistine Madonna suffered that too. Mist hung over the meadows by the Elbe. The side roads in the Academy were sodden, the fountains switched off. When Richard came back from a consultation, he looked up at the Academy buildings in Fetscherstrasse, wondered what the sandstone volutes on the roofs reminded him of (the wigs of English judges — he kept on forgetting and that annoyed him!), looked at the lamps, which were on all the time now, like metabolizing leucocytes appearing or disappearing in the glassy-thin, creeping blood vessels of the park trees.

Wernstein was at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, he hadn’t been replaced.

‘You’re always demanding staff, more staff!’ Scheffler, the Rector, raised his hands after Müller had stated his case. Gorbachev’s plump peasant’s face, friendly and unretouched, looked down on the meeting from the place where Andropov and Chernenko had previously hung. Josta brought documents; in the sixth or seventh month, Richard guessed after a look at her stomach.

‘We have none! You know that as well as I do. The planning of requirements —’

Rykenthal, the head of the Paediatric Clinic, broke in, scornfully repeating ‘planning of requirements’. The Paediatric Clinic was falling down, the roof was not watertight; on the top floor the damp patches had now joined hands by their amoeba-like finger processes; black mould was sprouting like a strong growth of beard in the rooms closed down by the authorities. Naturally Rykenthal, a stocky man with the aura of a hippopotamus, a magician’s bow tie and butterfly-blue paediatrician’s eyes, demanded that an end should finally be put to this deplorable state of affairs (‘I don’t know, colleagues, how often I’ve had to make this point already’); at that Reucker became restless and emphasized the, in his opinion, more urgent problems in Nephrology; Heinsloe, the head of Administration, was asked for his opinion but all he could do was, as usual, spread his arms regretfully. ‘The funds, gentlemen, we lack the funds. And the building resources, where do we find them!’ Material, gentlemen, he couldn’t wave a magic wand.

‘There has been an application for a room for hand operations for over five years now,’ Richard broke in, furious when he noticed the looks of pleasure following Josta. ‘It’s surely not possible that in the whole of Dresden we cannot find the means for that minor matter.’

‘All due respect for your private ambitions, Herr Hoffmann, but I have to remind you that the Ear-Nose-and-Throat section has had an application for a new operating theatre in for thirteen years —’

‘What are you calling private ambitions?’

‘You can continue to do operations on the hand in Outpatients, as you have until now, Herr Hoffmann, but it’s preposterous that my patients have to have their dialysis in the ward corridor, because the extension, which was promised years ago —’

‘Please, gentlemen! Our resources are limited. Let us think what is the best use we can make of them. Most urgent, it seems to me, are the repairs to the Paediatric Clinic. My grandson was in there recently, there are drips from the ceiling on the top floor, the nurses have to put bowls underneath them …’

Clarens was sitting quietly in a corner, stroking his beard; he said nothing and was asked nothing. A frail man, Richard thought, whom people automatically wanted to do something for, give him an orange, for example, less in order to be friendly than from a feeling of embarrassment and in order to be noticed by him — Clarens, sitting there as if he were counting their sins, found it impossible to fight, almost disappeared beside the broad-shouldered representatives of the various surgical fields, all fully convinced of their own importance and of that of their requests. Leuser’s urologist’s jokes seemed to cause him physical pain, his hands and ears went an indignant sky-grey, then paled to the colour of synthetic honey when the full-time Party Secretary of the Medical Academy spoke. A humorously down-to-earth workaholic, more interested in doing than talking, who liked to see everyday detail from the perspective of a Party youth camp morning ceremony, whose Chto delat? — What is to be done? — and Kak tebya zovut? — What are you called? (difficulty or enemy) — had stuck with him from a reservoir construction site in Siberia where, during his (‘heart-stirring! heart-stirring!’) days as an official of the Free German Youth, he had had hands-on experience of communism.

‘Always the same,’ Richard moaned outside, ‘lots of talk, nothing done.’ Having left the Administration building, Clarens and he were walking down the Academy road. Clarens talked about suicide. He was an internationally renowned expert on suicide and sometimes said he was lucky to be able to pursue his passion in this country, only the old Austro-Hungarian Empire had had more plentiful material. ‘Oh to be a Viennese psychiatrist,’ Clarens sighed. The suicide cases in the Austrian Empire had shown greater imaginativeness, a tendency to grotesquely droll and out-of-the-way methods, while the Germans mostly ‘ended it all’, at which Clarens put his hand to the back of his neck, jerked it up and stuck his tongue out as he made the death rattle. There were those who used gas, of course, with their peaceful expressions and delicate cherry cheeks; peaking in May and at Christmas; sleeping pills, of course, mostly women, men preferred harder methods. A hammer drill, for example, straight into the heart. Richard remembered the case: the man, a railwayman with long and honoured service, had turned up in Outpatients the night after his retirement party, with all his medals on and the drill in his chest; like all the others, he’d waited at the duty sister’s desk and, when his turn came, made his request. Or the foreman at the garden centre who for his supper one day ate a bowl of chopped-up dieffenbachia with salad dressing and ended up in Intensive Care the next day with his stomach pumped out. Clarens’s enthusiasm suddenly turned into frustration: he was respected throughout the world — at home, on the other hand … plenty of material, true, but also plenty of obstacles and hurdles. Above all when he wanted to pursue research into the causes. Abruptly he changed the subject. ‘Are you still in contact with Manfred?’

‘For a while now we haven’t seen very much of each other.’

‘He seems to hold something against you. He doesn’t have a good word to say for you. — Oh, this November weather! It makes you quite melancholy. And what use is a melancholy psychiatrist to my patients? And they say there’s going to be a frost.’

Richard didn’t respond. He was thinking about the contradictory nature of his companion: sparse appearance — and robust joviality when he got onto his favourite topic … Clarens had other favourite topics as well, he loved the fine arts, sculpture less than drawing, which he called the ‘chamber music of the visual arts’, he was a regular visitor to some studios, knew Meno’s boss very well, also Nina Schmücke and her circle. A further favourite topic was the history of Dresden, in pursuit of which Clarens, who lived in Blasewitz, would often cross the Blue Miracle on foot to go up on the funicular or cable-car to the Urania meetings or Frau Fiebig’s soirées in Guenon House.

‘Did you get a new geyser?’ he asked, clasping his arms round his body. On their way to the meeting in Administration they still hadn’t been able to see their breath. Electric carts clinked and clattered past, shivering students headed for the canteen.

‘No. I know an engineer who improvised something.’

‘The one you’re tinkering at your vintage car in Lohmen with?’

Richard looked up in surprise. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘I recently went to see Dietzsch and bought a little print. Money well invested, I should think.’ Clarens told him that a kind of second market had grown up among a number of artists. Now gallery owners from the Federal Republic regularly visited the studios, looked at this and that, bought this and that. And had no inhibitions about talking to other ladies and gentlemen who also looked at this and that and, by now, were also buying this and that.

‘What is it Manfred’s saying about me?’

‘Oh, it’s not good, not good. I thought you were friends?’ Clarens breathed in deeply and, as it seemed to Richard, with relish. He refused to say what it was that was ‘not good’. Was he slandering Weniger? What would happen if he grabbed Clarens by the tie and shook him … what would appear? A hideous face, a goblin with features distorted with malice? If only one could see behind the masks, explore the mines inside people.

‘Just sounding brass,’ Richard muttered.

‘And a gold tiepin,’ Clarens murmured, taking Richard by the arm and pointing to the rowans along the road, which were being covered in hoar frost before their very eyes.

‘I found the meeting pretty wearying,’ Clarens said. ‘Difficulties, jealousies, constant psychoses … Leuser’s coprolalia, and the full-timer a blindissimus realitensis totalis.’ The psychiatrist made a dismissive gesture. In such situations he preferred to go to the laundry, he said, there were always some overalls or other to be collected, the steam reminded him of his childhood and the busy little irons were so soothing. God, the suicides, the lunatics, including Party secretaries and other psychiatrists!

Richard went to the wards. Nurse Lieselotte was waiting with the cart for the rounds. ‘Your son’s here.’

‘Christian? What’s happened?’ — The alarm of the trauma surgeon whose thoughts immediately go to broken bones, blunt-force traumas, traffic accidents and injuries from machines.

‘No, it’s only me.’ Robert came out of the nurses’ room with an expression of gentle consideration well beyond his years.

‘Coffee?’ Nurse Lieselotte turned her searching look away from Richard’s face, which was gradually recovering its normal colour; he nodded, still confused, shyly embraced Robert. Patients at the other end of the corridor, in dressing gowns, taking little steps as they pushed stands with infusion bottles, stopped.

‘The nurses say you’re doing your rounds; can I come too? I’ve got a coat.’ On his index finger Robert held up a dissecting-room coat that closed at the back, threadbare from washing; they kept some on the ward for forgetful students.

‘I thought you were at school? Have you no classes?’

‘Finished. Came back on the bus, thought: let’s have a look at what Richard does.’

Like the time when Josta was in hospital in Friedrichstadt and Daniel had called her by her Christian name; it must have become general by now, Richard thought. Oh well. Nurse Lieselotte brought his mug with the coffee, a stethoscope, reflex hammer and protractor for Richard.

There were eight patients in the first ward. As they entered they were hit by the smell of sickness, a smell Richard, since his student days, had inhaled more often than what people call ‘fresh air’; the smell of sickness: that mixture of urine, faeces, pus, blood, medication and serum in the bandages and drain bottles, the smell of cold sweat on unshaved skin (they were in a men’s ward, with the women the smell was more of urine titrated with the sickly sweet, over-camomiled efforts of a cosmetic industry that had the humility of a poor relation), of cognac, a breeding ground for bacteria, medicinal spirit and vinegar (the dusting water in which the student nurses and nursing auxiliaries dipped their cloths to clean bedsteads, strip lights, bedside tables); the smell of PVC, wiped with Wofasept; of something age-old that seemed to incubate in the walls of the wards, in the white, washable oil-based paint with an olive-green stripe chest-high — where the arms are bound during arrests, where the respiratory trees branch, where the heart is. Seven of the eight patients had tried to sit up in their beds and had remained in this stand-to-attention position, as the nurses called it, one hand on the bar of the bed trapeze, rusty steel painted tooth-yellow and sagging under the weight; the eighth patient was in a body cast, his arms and trunk immured in the white suit of armour that had square windows over his wounds to allow drains (perforated plastic tubes as thick as your finger and bent like a shoemaker’s awl) to draw off the secretions from the wounds. His left leg, also in plaster, was held up in the air on the stirrup of a Kirschner wire bored into the ankle bone and pulled down, via a cord and pulley, by iron discs, the white paint of which had completely flaked off. His head, from which a pair of eyes looked with quiet anxiety at the nurse and Richard, was in Crutchfield tongs that, fixed in the skull above his ears, were stretching his cervical vertebrae, also via a pulley and weights. The optician, second bed on the left, immediately repeated his offer of marriage to Nurse Lieselotte, who, he said, would never lack for spectacles; moreover, he went on, it was pointless wasting time and money on the poor guy with the skull-hoops, who, he added with the crude humour of some patients, was going to kick the bucket anyway. His own leg, on the other hand, healed? when? And from Nurse Lieselotte, whose stony looks were clearly the visual equivalent of a thumbs-down, he ordered a sledgehammer so that he could finally smash the eternal brass band music of the sky pilot (second bed on the right, a priest, pale as a fish fillet, who had broken his lower leg while removing two bugs, one from the confessional and the other from the Saviour’s crown of thorns) and the revolutionary hymns of the comrade community policeman (third bed on the right, midfacial fracture, at the moment he was on the bedpan behind a screen; on his bedside table were the two Karls, May and Marx), he couldn’t stand any more of their ideological warfare.

‘Well, young man, fresh out of college?’ First bed on the right, a professor of Slav linguistics, emigrated from the Sudetenland to escape the Nazis, emigrated from the Sudetenland to escape the Czechs. Two lacerated arms laboriously emerged out of the white cover made from guinea pig skins: injuries from sabre-slashes (long-established jealousy between long-established rival sword collectors).

‘My son. He simply came straight from school in Waldbrunn to the ward here, wanted to see what kind of thing I did.’

‘Really proud of him, our doc. Start ’em young, my old man used to say,’ the riverboat engineer in the fourth bed on the right cried, closing a catalogue of toupees and waving two mangled fingers; he was twenty-two and still wore his hair long, even though a considerable part of it had been caught up in the rotor of his engine and a patch of scalp the size of his palm had been torn off. The light went out.

‘Good night.’ Third bed on the left, a forklift truck driver from Kofa, the Dresden canned food factory; craniocerebral trauma after falling, drunk, from the dam of Kaltwasser reservoir. In the ward room the late shift were sitting in the dark, a nurse lit candles; in the light of the flame her face looked calm; the objects in the circle of brightness had an unreal, rapt, Christmassy air about them. Nurse Lieselotte hurried to the end of the ward and unlocked the medicines cupboard, where she kept some torches and replacement batteries. The Intensive Care Unit! Richard thought, but already Kohler had come running in through the door followed by Dreyssiger, beams of light moved over the walls of North I. Dreyssiger cried, ‘The operating theatre, they’re down there, nothing’s working. The heart — lung machine’s stopped.’

The telephone was still working. Richard called the ICU. No one answered. ‘What about the anaesthetists, can they keep the oxygen going?’ he asked Dreyssiger over his shoulder.

‘No.’ Just ‘no’, it was Kohler who had said it in an expressionless, impassive tone. ‘If the emergency generator won’t start up’

‘— if it starts up’

‘— they’ll have to insufflate with a bag valve mask’

‘— why’s it not starting up’

‘Just like in the war,’ said one of the nurses anxiously; it was Gerda, who was almost seventy.

‘Africa.’

‘And what do things look like in the operating theatre?’

‘Like Africa. I just told you.’

‘— it’s just not starting’

‘Bananas, jungle.’

In the ward room it smelt of eucalyptus oil, Kohler had knocked the medicine basket off the table.

‘— more like Russia. Russia, so’

‘Africa.’

‘Oh do shut up.’

‘— or can you hear something? It’s not starting up.’

‘The emergency plan will come into force.’

‘Funny that the telephone’s still working.’

‘Comes via a relay station, low voltage. Everything can be dead all round, they’ll still get a tone,’ Dreyssiger said.

‘Africa. Central Congo.’

‘We must go to the ICU,’ Richard said. ‘Nurse Lieselotte, will you please call in all available staff. Robert, you’re coming with us, we can use anyone who can give a hand now.’

They ran to the Intensive Care Unit. Cones of light blazed up, stamping meal carts, nurses’ legs, distraught faces out of the deep-sea darkness of the clinic, somewhere a bedpan clattered onto the floor. Someone was thumping on the lift door, ghostly footsteps echoed in the stairwell. The Medical Academy was a concentrated mass of black stone; there was still light on in Nuclear Medicine, as there was in Administration. Shadowy figures could be seen dashing to and fro. In the ICU a string of torches was hanging over the insufflation beds, candles had been lit. The duty anaesthetist was just switching to pressurized oxygen, the compressor for room-air insufflation, which came out of the walls, had stopped working, as had the monitors over the patients’ heads. ‘An unstable patient, Herr Hoffmann.’

‘Still no current in the emergency generator sockets.’ One of the nurses was transferring cables. ‘What a mess.’

Richard looked at the noradrenaline drip. The patient attached to it seemed peaceful, like a figure in a painting by one of the Old Masters: a scene in a cave. One nurse was constantly measuring his pulse, another his blood pressure. The slightest bit too little or too much and his condition would be up and down like a roller coaster, they had to take countermeasures, that tied staff down.

‘CVP?’ the anaesthetist asked, pressing one of the patient’s fingernails, checking the recapillarization time. One nurse bent down to the venotonometer that measured the central veinous pressure.

‘We could use a man,’ the anaesthetist said. ‘It could take some time until ours get here. Most don’t have a telephone.’

‘What’s it like in the operating theatre, have you heard anything?’ Richard asked.

‘Your boss’s broken off the operation. Insufflation’s continuing manually. One patient in the recovery room — another doctor who can’t get away. And the neurosurgeons want to start on a tumour. Haha.’

Kohler stayed at Intensive Care; Richard, Dreyssiger and Robert went to the A&E. The corridors, also lit by strings of torches, were jam-packed with moaning patients on stretchers; ambulance sirens wailed and died away. No one seemed to be coordinating things, doctors and nurses were rushing to and fro. Porters brought more and more new patients; doors were flung open and slammed shut; exasperated voices from the treatment rooms called for bandages, nurses, drugs. The waiting area by the desk, behind which Nurse Wolfgang was dealing with complaints and demands with a stoical expression on his face, looked like a field hospital. Faintly lit by the candles on the desk, injured people were sitting on the floor, rocking to and fro; a young girl had been laid on a blanket, pale, she endured the lamentations of two older women in silence. Forcefully and with words of comfort, Dreyssiger pushed his way through to the desk. Patients in A&E wheelchairs were either sitting in silence or waving their arms around, most probably with ankle injuries; as he passed Richard glanced at the swollen joints, trying to repress the wave of images, memories of his injuries during the 13 February air raid, the screaming, whimpering wounded who were waiting with him amid detonating bombs, the machine-gun rattle of an isolated Wehrmacht unit, the heat from the burning surgical and paediatric clinics; at that time the Academy had still been called the Gerhard Wagner Hospital, after the Reich doctors’ leader.

‘Have you seen any of the technical guys?’ Nurse Wolfgang called to Dreyssiger. ‘It’d help if they got a cable laid.’

‘X-rays possible?’

‘No. No CAT scanner either.’

‘Then close down,’ said Richard. ‘We can’t deal with all this. We can’t operate.’

‘I’ve called regional headquarters, Herr Hoffmann. They say all the Dresden hospitals want to close down.’

‘But not all of them can have a power cut?’

‘They’re not sending us any multiple traumas, that’s all I managed to get out of them.’

‘Who’s coordinating things?’

‘Grefe. But he can’t get out of the plaster room.’

‘Are there any beds at all?’

‘No.’

Dreyssiger went into a treatment room. Richard picked up the phone. ‘I’m sure the boss will turn up soon, until then I’ll coordinate the surgical clinics. — The line’s busy.’

‘Eddi!’ Wolfgang shouted, waving vigorously to a brawny man in the blue overalls of Technical Services. Eddi was its head, he was a former boxer, there was a punchbag in his office and on the walls, between bunches of boxing gloves, were photos of famous welter- and heavyweights. Eddi panted, ‘The diesel! Someone’s siphoned off the diesel from the emergency generator.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘I’m telling you, Wolfgang. And there’s no reserve, it’s enough to drive me mad.’

‘There must be a few fuckin’ litres of diesel somewhere in the hospital! People are stuck in the lift.’

‘It’s being seen to. We’ll have to jack it up. Internal and Gynaecological’ve got diesel but they need it for their own generators.’

‘Dad,’ Robert said, he’d squeezed himself into a corner behind the desk, ‘there’s some people from the Western Channel 2 out in the car park. Four big diesel lorries, I saw them when I came up to your ward.’

Eddi said, ‘Touch wood’, and he and Robert ran off.

‘Are you just standing around or is someone going to see to us?’ a man in a leather hat said in a querulous voice through the sliding window of the enquiry desk. ‘Oh, Herr Hoffmann.’ Griesel took a step back. ‘I’d no idea it was you, neighbour. I can’t believe how long we have to wait here.’ Suddenly his expression changed. ‘Wouldn’t it be possible …’

‘All patients have equal rights,’ Richard said, a bit too loud for Griesel’s liking.

‘It caught me out on the way home from work, you see …’ Griesel went on in placatory tones and bowing in an ingratiating manner. ‘Our house hasn’t been hit, by the way.’

Emotions a doctor couldn’t afford to permit himself bubbled up like boiling milk inside him as he watched Griesel push his way through the patients back to his chair; hatred and contempt for that man, the conditions, the whole system. To pay them back in their own kind, to be able, just once, to retaliate to power with power, to have an outlet for the impotent rage piling up inside him day after day! He goes to the back of the queue, Richard felt like saying, Wolfgang would have understood and probably approved. The deep-rooted, feared esprit de corps of health professionals. Richard didn’t say it. All patients have equal rights. The welfare of the sick is the final law, that was what was written in Latin on a board in the entrance to Accident and Emergency: Salus aegroti suprema lex.

A commotion outside the entrance, floodlight beams flashing to and fro, powdery snow coming in through the door. Eddi and an auxiliary brought in Robert, who was holding his arm.

‘I slipped and fell. Stupid.’ Robert shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s all frozen outside. But we’ve got the diesel.’

His wrist was swollen but his hand didn’t show a bayonet deformity, as with a fracture in a typical position. Robert gave a quiet cry when Richard examined it.

‘Volar radial fracture, the non-typical type.’

‘Meaning?’ Robert asked in a deliberately calm voice.

‘Prickling in your fingers? Any numbness?’

‘A bit, yes. It’s cold outside.’

‘We’ll have to X-ray it. If that confirms what I think, it means an operation. You can wait in there.’ Richard pointed behind the desk. Once Robert had gone, Richard couldn’t control himself any more and swore. If the lad had fallen with his arm outstretched a plaster cast would have done the job.

‘Smith-Thomas?’ Wolfgang, who’d watched Richard examine him through the desk window, asked, using the technical term for the fracture.

‘It’ll need an operation, yes.’ Richard stamped his foot in his fury, a ridiculous sight and, for the patients waiting, not one to inspire confidence.

Müller came in, behind him the man with the floodlight, followed by one carrying a microphone on a long boom like a fishing rod; three other men, in sharply creased trousers and bomber jackets, had overpowered the cameraman and were dragging him out of the flurries of snow, where a second cameraman was coolly filming the scene, into the crowded waiting area. They stopped short for a moment when they saw all the patients. The cameraman who’d been detained took advantage of that to free himself and protest loudly. The floodlight dug a dazzling white tunnel though A&E.

‘There will be no filming in my clinic and certainly not by your lying station,’ Müller cried angrily.

‘But you take our fuel!’

‘The diesel has been confiscated,’ announced one of the three men in bomber jackets. ‘This is an emergency, as we’ve already explained to you.’

‘The fuel taken will, of course, be replaced, Citizen Capitalist,’ shouted the second of the three in the silence that had arisen all around; even the two women beside the young girl had broken off their lamentations.

‘We need everyone we can get.’ Müller pointed to the three in bomber jackets. ‘You are to help charging the room sterilizers. No, gentlemen, we have no time for discussion. You will do what I, as head of this clinic and of the emergency team, tell you until the Rector and your immediate superiors arrive. No sterile material means no operations. The central sterilizer isn’t working. You’ — he pointed to the West German television men — ‘can make yourselves useful transporting patients and clearing paths. Have them shown what to do, Nurse Wolfgang. Will you please come with me, Herr Hoffmann.’ Müller waved Richard out through the swing door into the corridor to the vestibule and wards. ‘A word in your ear. A difficult situation within a difficult situation. I’ve just had a phone call.’

When Richard said nothing, he went on, ‘A call from the top, Barsano himself. His daughter is on her way to us, he claims. With these African conditions out there … He’s asked me to have our most experienced trauma surgeon operate on his daughter, should an operation be necessary.’

‘My son’s been injured, Herr Professor.’

‘Oh.’

‘Volar radial fracture, the nerve has probably been compressed.’

‘Hm. But you can reset it and put it in plaster, Herr Hoffmann. I know it’s not a permanent solution but it’ll do until the morning and then you can take your time over it.’

‘I’d prefer not to wait until the morning. The results don’t get better if you leave it.’

‘I know that,’ Müller, exasperated, replied with a sweeping gesture. ‘I have a suggestion: when the generator starts, we’ll at least have power in the ICU again and then Herr Kohler can join us. Never operate on a relative, you know that. And you’ve trained up Herr Kohler very well.’

Richard, alarmed, didn’t reply. That possibility had never occurred to him. The maxim he had followed in training Kohler was not in the Hippocratic Oath: If you have to instruct your enemy, teach him just enough to make sure he won’t harm the patients, but not enough that he can replace you.

‘All patients have equal rights,’ Richard muttered. There were sounds of the jacking-up operation from the lift shaft, metal on metal, someone calling for pliers.

‘I can understand you, believe me. But Barsano has protected you. There are those, and not only here in the clinic, who are unhappy with the opinions on certain things you often express quite openly.’ A fragment of the pocket-torch light from South I slipped into the stone in Müller’s signet ring. Beautifully cut, Richard thought. Does he take it off when he’s doing an operation? It wouldn’t fit under the gloves and disinfection to a surgical level wouldn’t be possible either. Why not operate on Robert, take the reprimand and resign?

‘And suggest you have to prove yourself. Nonsense, if you ask me. As if you hadn’t proved yourself here.’

Not a threat, more a plea for understanding. Richard sensed he was getting nowhere the way things were. ‘So far we’ve no power, no X-ray, we can only use one room, if any at all.’

‘The CAT scanner’s working again. Tellkamp has been informed, he’s waiting. The technicians are running a cable from Admin and Nuclear Medicine to us. We’ll be able to operate and X-ray again, even if we don’t have mains current very soon — which I reckon we will. For the moment the generator ought to be enough for the ICU. I’m only halfway through my operation too.’ Müller suddenly spoke in an unusually understanding tone: ‘We’ll manage. You never know, Fräulein Barsano might arrive immediately and you’ll be able to operate on both. Lord alone knows what’s wrong with her: sent with multiple traumas, arrives with athlete’s foot.’

‘But why here, of all places. Can’t she be treated up there in Friedrich Wolf?’

Müller nodded. ‘I’m sure they won’t have a power cut up there, but I’ve no idea, Herr Hoffmann. — Thank you for your cooperation.’

Accident and Emergency did not empty. The doctors from the various surgical areas had formed teams (no one there said ‘collectives’ any more, Richard thought), those from Internal Medicine went to and fro between the wards, Endoscopy and Outpatients. Whenever Richard thought the stream of patients was slackening off, the outside door would swing open and Rapid Medical Assistance, a taxi driver or a relation would bring more people with injuries. They also brought news of how things were in the city outside. From what they said, which was immediately passed on by the nurses rushing in and out, by doctors, porters, waiting patients, the situation outside must be chaotic. Trams were stuck on Platz der Einheit, the power was off there too, passengers had forced open the doors, the people who lived in Neustadt didn’t have far to go and could trudge home through the snow; anyone who wanted to get across Marienbrücke to the city centre tried to hitch a lift from one of the cars crawling past; worst off of all were those who had to go up to the high residential area: with no possibility of hitching a lift, they were faced with several kilometres on foot. The Elbe was covered with a sheet of ice, a Czech tug had been squeezed against the Blue Miracle, the bridge had had to be closed. None of the ferries between the north and south bank were running any more. When Richard went out to get a breath of fresh air, the Academy looked like a darkened honeycomb: the roofs waxy with ice, the snow on the paths and roads knee-deep. In many of the ten-storey buildings in Johannstadt, in the new developments of Prohlis and Gorbitz, the central heating wasn’t working; the people there were shivering in their beds, envious of those on the slopes of the Elbe with their tiled stoves that devoured coal and produced ash but also — and that was the important thing — warmth.

In Outpatients no one seemed to know who had already been treated and who still needed treatment, who could be transferred to a ward and where which of their colleagues was occupied with which case. Wolfgang was still ensconced behind the desk, flanked by sheets of paper on which he tried to provisionally record the details of the arriving and departing patients, telephones were ringing, always someone wanting to know something: patients when they’d be treated, family members where their relations had got to, staff where there were supplies of syringes, bandages, admission forms — and couldn’t someone finally make a decent cup of coffee, after all the emergency generator was working now!

‘Yes, in the ICU and the patient lift to the operating theatre, clever Dick.’

‘Clever Dick yourself! Then they can just make the coffee up there and send it down to us!’

‘And when’s the light going on here again? Oh, sorry, nurse, missed again. But you can hardly see anything here.’

‘I’m sorry to have to put it so frankly, but you’re an old goat.’

‘You’ve completely misunderstood me, nurse. It must be this pitch darkness. Goats have two horns.’

‘Where’s the testicle?’ Frau Doktor Roppe, a urologist, called across Outpatients, arms akimbo. ‘The strangulated one. — You’ve called me away from a septic catheter, Wolfgang, you’ll be sorry if it’s a false alarm.’

‘Here,’ a faint voice said shyly, ‘here, Herr Doktor.’

A National People’s Army tanker was expected but still hadn’t arrived. Scheffler, the Rector, had formed a crisis committee and inspected the clinics. Walkie-talkies were taken out of the Administration safe, important telephone calls, listed in a sealed plan, were made in the prescribed order. The Intensive Care Unit in Internal Medicine was supplied by the emergency generator there, the one in Gynaecology was working too. The idea of transferring urgent surgical cases there was dropped: moving there with all the equipment would be too much of an upheaval, and beside that Eddi and his men were already in the process of laying cables through the Academy’s system of tunnels to supply Outpatients and the operating section. A simultaneous ‘Ah!’ rang out when the lights flickered back on. The heavy X-ray machines started to hum again, the coffee maker in the rest-room sputtered water over the coffee powder, X-rays appeared on the lightboxes, nurses who had been holding torches over lacerations and scalp cuts in Minor Surgery could return to other tasks. Richard helped Grefe with the resetting of broken bones and subsequently putting them in plaster, between the cases (a wearying, mildly comic coming and going between fractures of the radius on the left, fractures of the radius on the right) he went to the enquiry desk, impatiently looking for Alexandra Barsano, telephoned Intensive Care but Kohler couldn’t be spared yet.

Richard had aspirated the haematoma on Robert’s wrist himself and given the anaesthetic that made resetting bearable for the patient. But that he had asked Dreyssiger to do, that brutal-seeming bending up and down over the broken wrist; then they’d put it in plaster, done an X-ray (Dreyssiger had done the resetting excellently, but Richard insisted on the operation; that type of fracture mostly did not stay stable), and put Robert in the duty doctors’ room. Kohler arrived an hour later.

‘I will not operate on your son, at least not immediately.’ Kohler didn’t wait for Richard to respond. ‘All patients have equal rights, you’ve always told me that, Herr Hoffmann, should we disregard it today of all days?’

‘He’s my son, he wants to be a doctor … his hand, he needs his hand.’ Richard was so taken aback by Kohler’s attitude that he didn’t ask him but Müller, who came over, ‘Would you not give your son preferential treatment?’

‘My father’s sitting out there,’ Kohler said calmly. ‘Wolfgang gave me the patients’ names in order of arrival. Others come before him, I don’t want to give anyone an unfair advantage, nor put them at a disadvantage.’

Richard flew into a rage. ‘Strictly according to the rules … like a blockhead!’ How dare the fellow, he’d given him a formal order! ‘Head down and follow the plan, head down whatever the cost, that’s the way it goes … You’re leaving your own father sitting there for the sake of your convictions?’ Richard asked, suddenly interested.

‘I give others the same rights as him. And do you know what?’ Kohler adopted an impatient, hostile tone. ‘He even approves of it. That’s the way he taught me to be. As a convinced communist. Which you are not.’

‘Gentlemen.’ Müller stepped between the two of them, for a moment Richard was surprised he wasn’t furious, that he seemed to have ignored Kohler’s open refusal. ‘Gentlemen,’ he repeated, a pointless, plaintive request, ‘gentlemen!’

‘It is against my beliefs as a doctor to give anyone preferential treatment.’

‘Herr Kohler —’ Müller ushered him out.

‘Herr Hoffmann,’ Wolfgang called from behind the desk, ‘Frau Barsano’s here.’

But it wasn’t Alexandra Barsano coming towards Richard as he went out, but the wife of the Regional Secretary. She was standing, very upright, by the door of her Wartburg. Richard plodded over to her, the blizzard had died down a little, beyond the entrance to the Academy snow-clearing teams could be seen, a lorry, perhaps the impatiently awaited army tanker, was flashing its indicators. The even blanket of fine powder snow seemed to gather the light and reflect it back onto the paths as high as the hips of the passers-by. Frau Barsano’s expression looked reserved when Richard shook her hand. The interior light flickered, he could see Alexandra Barsano, she was staring into space and holding a discoloured bandage round her left wrist.

‘We’re colleagues, of course,’ Frau Barsano said, getting straight down to business, ‘and you have problems here. My husband tells me they’re pulling all the stops out to resolve it and you should have power again in one hour, at the latest two.’ She lit a cigarette, blew out the smoke, looked at the glowing tip that lit up her face when she drew on it. ‘I suggest I treat my daughter in our place, I mean at the Friedrich Wolf Hospital. Herr Müller —’

‘— informed me. — As you wish, Frau Barsano.’

‘That’s also what my daughter wants. We have everything necessary there.’

‘You don’t owe me an explanation. Nor your daughter.’

‘We have even acquired magnifying spectacles and a operation microscope. — Good. I would like, and my husband would also like’ — she inhaled then threw the cigarette away — ‘nothing of this conversation to become more widely known. Can we rely on that? Thank you. Goodbye, Herr Hoffmann.’

‘Goodbye.’

The Wartburg slithered off, Richard watched it go. A few minutes later a figure emerged from the shadow of the park, spoke into a walkie-talkie. The flurries of snow were thicker now. For a few moments the man stood there, irresolute, then raised his arm in an awkward salute. A car drove up. When the chauffeur opened the door, the man bent down to get into the seat; the interior light revealed Max Barsano’s face.

52. Keep the record and needle free of dust

The wind had died down, the Party secretaries fallen silent, in the living rooms there was the flicker of the evening programmes: Potpourri, What’s It Worth?, Portrait by Telephone, a cowboys-and-Indians film with Gojko Mitić. Meno felt he could almost hear it, the whole country breathing a sigh of relief: at least we’ve made it, a comfortable run-up to Christmas with festive roasts, warm stoves, slippers and enough beer. The provision of pretzel sticks and peanut puffs for the New Year was guaranteed, as long as people didn’t go crazy. The masters of entertainment, of giving the people a thrill, calming them and lulling them to sleep, had taken up the baton, Willi Schwabe, in his velvet smoking jacket, white hair neatly parted, went up to his junk room to the tinkling doll-like strains of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Sugar-Plum Fairy’ and chatted, once he’d hung his carriage lamp on a hook, about the Land of Smiles that had been set up in the UFA studios of Potsdam-Babelsberg or of Wien-Film … an old charmer, a soigné esprit from the world of yesterday sashaying elegantly in front of a backdrop of black-and-white photos and theatre curtains, leaning against the curve of a grand piano with a lighted candle on it. Meno loved the programme, Willi Schwabe’s Junk Room, he was annoyed when he missed it, and when, sometimes on a Monday, as he came home late from the office, he could see in many windows of the district the simultaneously changing pictures of GDR TV 1 and imagined he could hear through the glass the well-modulated tones of the presenter reminiscing about Hilde Hildebrandt, Hans Moser, Theo Lingen, ‘the great Paula Wessely’. Once, once there was … and the silent snow, goose-white, downy flakes with grains of soot, more like organisms (starfish, children’s hands) than lifeless crystals, floated through the even tenor of the days. Once, once there was … but the clocks struck, the ten-minute clock signalled the hour with softly resonating strokes; in the evenings the theme tune of TV News crept through the houses, made its way through the apartments on Lindwurmstrasse without upsetting the creations of Lamprecht, the hatmaker, without making the apprentices in Wiener’s hairdressing salon pause in sweeping up the day’s production of fallen hair, rummaged round the premises of Harmonie, the furrier’s, where the manager was still sitting, bent over accounts, with a dutiful sewing machine humming away on fur waistcoats or mittens (no, Meno knew better: at this hour no one was sewing for the people), ignored Dr Fernau’s curses with which, in camel-hair slippers, an open bottle of Felsenkeller-Bräu in his hand, he would toast the newsreader with the lower jaw faultlessly grinding out reports of successes for the annual accounts, made Niklas Tietze, when he stopped below the windows of the Roeckler School of Dancing on his way home from his practice to listen to the out-of-tune piano, the slurred waltzes of the violin and cello, open his bag and pull out his tattered diary: for it was the time, the signal swirling in uncertain outlines from the windows and through vestibules, that reminded him of the time: was it not already Thursday today, which meant he was invited to the regular hour at Däne’s, the music critic’s, on Schlehenleite, had Gudrun asked him to do something that he might possibly have forgotten, were there still house calls he had to make, Frau von Stern, for example, who had an iron constitution but also a will of iron that insisted on her weekly examination by Dr Tietze, who, ‘as always’, ordered cold affusions that did her, the ‘old lizard’ (Frau Zschunke) of over ninety, no harm, prescribed ‘as always’ cardiac drops and digitoxin tablets, that she regularly collected from the pharmacy (one shouldn’t let them go to waste, should one?) and equally regularly (as Meno knew) mixed into the food for her ageing cats, that she called by name to prevent the young ones from snatching their food …

… Atlantis, the contours of which Meno saw returning behind the rooms, a kind of parallel displacement, a flickering projection; the planks, uprights over the Rose Gorge, with a scab of barnacle-like rust, Grauleite was listening in with slowly rotating parabolic dishes, at that hour, when the wooden snow shovels had cleared the paths between the banks of dog roses and been knocked clean beside the snowed-in cars, pupils of the Louis Fürnberg High School were going to the funicular, throwing snowballs onto the roof of Arbogast’s little observatory, at the elegant black numerals of the white enamel oval house numbers — and Meno could hear, when the 11 wasn’t running and he had to use the funicular to go into town, the pupils in the car cheerfully prattling about football (Dynamo Dresden, BFC Dynamo): they were going to Helfenberg Manor Estate for a day’s ‘Instruction in Technical Production’, where they would assemble K-16 cameras, trying to match the standard time and get a good mark. And the elephant-backed dustcarts of the City Cleansing Department were grinding along the streets again, leaving snakes of ash beside their tyre-tracks. ‘Rice pudding with cinnamon’ the Dresdeners called it, glad that the dustcarts, with the coarse-mouthed dustmen on the boards under the dumping device, who were so good as to bowl the dented dustbins out of the yards — cleared and sanded, if you please — were running again; they were said to be the best-paid workers, supposedly earning more than a professor at the Technical University. Lange, wreathed in the smoke from his pungent cigars, muttered his lack of understanding for the overtones of envy in those rumours, reflected out loud on the due reward for hard work, before ringing Guenon House to see whether he should take a ‘decent bottle’ to Frau Fiebig’s rummy evening.

On the Wednesday after Richard’s birthday Meno decided to ask Madame Eglantine to remind him that on Friday he intended finally to start on his long-postponed winter washing. The winter washing! He dreaded the sight of the linen basket full of used sheets, and bed and cushion covers, which in the summer he could give to Anne and sometimes, if the washing machine was working, to Libussa — now in the winter that wasn’t possible, the women had enough to do with hunting for Christmas presents, baking biscuits, getting New Year firecrackers and sparklers. Madame Eglantine grinned as she reminded him and on Friday Meno went home with an uneasy feeling that he was faced with an impossible mountain to climb. Just his bad luck that that year the steam laundry wasn’t taking any more orders! The linen basket, woven out of willow with strengthening hoops, capaciously rotund, was sitting in one corner of his bedroom, brooding and full of malice. Meno dragged the basket over, tried to empty it out, but the washing was stuck as fast as a deep-lying boil. Once he’d managed to pull out the top layer the rest of the washing burst out onto the floor, spreading itself with a sigh of relief. Meno went down to the laundry room, a spark of hope still glowing, even as he opened the door, that Libussa’s washing machine had been repaired, but its place was empty, the Service Combine had been fiddling around with it since the summer washdays. Meno looked round. How he hated this subterranean chamber! He hated it with the hatred of the bachelor who wants to read and smoke a pipe on the balcony before strolling back to his warm living room, at ease and relaxed, at one with the world, sniffing the scent of fresh linen promising a night of sweet dreams. What was it Barbara had said? The washing would turn out whiter if it was soaked overnight. So, take hope and a few spoonfuls of Schneeberg Blue, and off you go into the lye, you children’s ghosts.

He woke at around four in the morning after a terrible nightmare: an incubus was squatting on him, a sheet-demon that kept calling for more and more linen to come flying through the air and, with a grin, piled it up on its back — though all that had happened was that Chakamankabudibaba had crept into his bed and stretched out on his stomach. There were fern-patterns of ice on the windows. Meno went down to the laundry room. The water in the tubs had frozen over. Taking the dolly, he smashed the layer of ice: the sheets floated round in the solution like frozen lumps of dried cod. Too early to light the stove; with weary, leaden steps, Meno went back to bed, even though he was tempted to pay his new neighbours back for their lack of consideration in knocking others up, for the repulsively triumphal radio music accompanying Honich’s bending and stretching before he slammed the front door to go out for his early-morning exercises. But even a combat group commander was exhausted by the winter; and after the Kaminski twins had also quarrelled with him Honich at least showed some consideration at weekends. Meno dreamt of being able to sleep … but Chakamankabudibaba was prowling round the bed, mewing, and upstairs Meno could hear Libussa, already busy with the coal scuttle for the bathroom stove. He dreamt of the laundry room … Saw the ox-like, hoop-bound washtubs, made by a cooper in a past age, quality workmanship the soap-manufacturer presumably thought he owed himself. They stood menacingly on their wooden stands over the drain that kept blocking. Then the male inhabitants of the house had to poke round in the darkness beneath them with long wires, hoping that the suds stuck there would find their way out to the pipes going down the garden slope … the toilets of the House with a Thousand Eyes also drained there and they, too, tended to get blocked. Stahl had explained that to Meno: if such pipes went down too steeply then the fluid quickly ran off but solids remained — and they had to rod them. For that purpose there were iron rods, about five metres long with hooks and eyes, and when Hanna and Meno had moved into the house the ship’s doctor had given them a short introductory course in the problems and peculiarities of life in an old building that hadn’t been renovated for decades. At the sight of the laundry room Hanna had just shaken her head in disbelief, until she’d got married her mother had done the washing for her and she knew nothing of unreliable ‘fully automatic’ washing machines, nothing of the tiny spin-dryers that consisted of a drum standing on end that was full with two towels and, when it was switched on by a plastic bow sticking out over the lid like a record arm, developed such dynamic imbalance that it started to move across the floor, the water came out of the drain-spout beside the basin and the spin-dryer pulled the plug out of the socket, thus switching itself off. Meno remembered Hanna going round the laundry room. The stove, made of bricks with a zinc tub let in, had to be fired up, each tenant taking the wood and briquettes out of their own allocation. There were a table, chunky slabs of soap, packets of powdered Schneeberger Blue that, according to the theory of complementary colours, was added as a whitener to washing that had yellowed. When clothes were being washed there was vapour, that warm, lethargic, cottony steam, saturated with moisture, that made your clothes stick to you, made breathing a struggle and the laundry room a tropical cavern, vapour that billowed up out of the boiler piping hot when, protected by rubber gloves, you lifted the wooden lid in order to use the dolly (Libussa called it a ‘butter paddle’) to stir the 95^°C sludge that had a steel thermometer, long, thin, as beautiful as a tailor’s yardstick, stuck in it. There was a washboard for shirts and underwear; Meno dreamt of scrubbing hands that, instead of soap bubbles, had plectrums growing out of their fingers, making the rasping rhythm for jazz … The inexorable chainsaw screech of his 3ap alarm clock bit into his benumbed mind.

One week later the washing was done and dried in the loft of Caravel. Meno and Anne had managed to get a slot on the wringer that was beside the steam laundry, an eighty-year-old fossil in Sonnenleite.

‘Well now, Herr Rohde,’ said Udo Männchen at Dresdner Edition, ‘are you going to need another day off for spring cleaning?’

‘It’s all very well for you to talk,’ said Meno, irritated by the typographer’s obvious pleasure, ‘living in a three-room all-comfort apartment and with a wife who looks after your, er, fabrics.’

The typographer had taken to wearing wide-sleeved jackets with cuffs at the wrist, self-cut and self-sewn, silk and linen combined and as colourful as the flags of developing countries.

‘How is it that the people in Central Office always go for this Garamond? Why not Baskerville for once, as in the Insel edition of Virginia Woolf? Three-room all-comfort! Are you pulling my leg? During the recent power cut it was three-room blind man’s buff! The maternity hospitals in this city have something in store for them, I can tell you.’

‘Persitif, persitif,’ said Miss Mimi, boldly and determinedly putting a ring of cactus spines round French yearnings.

‘A day off for doing housework? I assume, Herr Rohde, that you’re not a married working woman, so you have no right to a statutory day off for housework,’ Josef Redlich said. ‘Look, I too, wrinkled workhorse that I am, have to take leave when the washing gets too much for me. “The tablets of chocolate and arsenic upon which the laws are written”, Lichtenberg, Volume D.’

A distant creaking in the morning twilight mixed, as Meno and Anne turned from Rissleite into Sonnenleite, with the clatter of the coal the apprentice at Walther’s bakery was shovelling into his wheelbarrow, with the hum of a transformer, the rasp of ice scrapers on windscreens. The creaking was approaching radially from Lindwurmring, Rissleite and lower Sonnenleite; soon Meno perceived dark patches laboriously trudging closer: the women of the district who, like Anne, had the day off for housework and were bringing their washing to the steam laundry in handcarts. They approached through the grey undulations of snow, the brighter patches of their faces gradually separating from the darker ones of their bodies (their coats came down below their knees, their clumpy boots sank into the frozen snow that the few lamps with their white glow made to look like paper; the snow clearers and the winter morning shift would start work later), of those broad-shouldered, warmly wrapped-up, non-gender-specific bodies that, heading, as if drawn by a magnet, for the point of intersection of their tracks (it seemed to be Walther’s bakery, which sold rolls after 7 a.m., there was already a queue), would form an arrowhead aimed at the laundry. The women nodded greetings, but weren’t speaking yet. The creaking was an acoustic foreign body in the morning quiet, Meno thought: a rusty bar rubbed through a pelt; unpleasant, as if it were dragging bad dreams out of the night and into the day. It was the sound of the handcarts in which the women were bringing their washing, the wooden wheels scraping against dry bearings; the wheels had iron rims, on many of which quarter or half circles were missing, or the heavy square nails fixing them had loosened, causing the carts to bump and jolt; it was the screech of the shaft in the pole arm, the rumbling of the stanchions over the front wheels and the knock of the supports over the rear wheels; a medley of sounds, grey as driftwood like the colour of the carts bleached by rain and sun.

‘I just don’t know whether Richard can trust Stahl,’ Anne went on. ‘They spend whole weekends out there in Lohmen. And it’s all “Gerhart” and “Richard”. It’s not for my own sake that I’m asking and Robert often stays the weekend out in Waldbrunn … despite that we could do something together again.’

‘Go to Saxon Switzerland the way we used to,’ Meno said, ‘with Enoeff dishing up the gossip, getting annoyed she can’t find any mushrooms, that she’s got the wrong shoes on because she thought we were going out dancing, and Helmut merry and sliding into a crevasse? And once we’ve lugged him out, Enoeff says, “But we’re not over the hill yet, over the hill we’re definitely not yet.” ’

‘Reserving seats in the wrong restaurant, Niklas bawling out opera arias, Gudrun going on about Bach flower therapy, returning via Schandau …’

‘… where we all pile into Lene’s,’ said Meno, completing her sentence as Anne burst out laughing. ‘Good old Lene Schmidken. Have you been out there recently?’

‘Ulrich wanted to go but now, just before Christmas, they’ve got the Plan Commission on their backs. — They’re not showing their old car to anyone. But you’re Stahl’s neighbour.’

‘I don’t believe he belongs in that street,’ Meno replied. ‘But what does “believe” mean and “I can’t imagine”? The Stahls are certainly having problems with the new tenants.’

The ‘new’ tenants: the Honichs had been living in the House with a Thousand Eyes for almost a year now, but that was the way things were up there: hardly anyone moving in or out, many of the people had been living in the houses with the strange names for thirty or forty years and someone could still be ‘the new inhabitant’ when they’d only managed a quiet decade, hardly enough to acclimatize.

‘They must be uncouth people. Do they at least leave you more or less in peace now?’

‘A bit,’ Meno replied with a grin — had the atmosphere rubbed off on Anne so much that her childhood language had been swapped for the more discriminating mode of expression up here. Meno had noticed that even in everyday conversation they used words that some authors even avoided in written German, ‘Kunigunde-speak’, he called it, ‘uncouth’ where ‘coarse’ or ‘boorish’ didn’t seem precise enough.

‘Perhaps they don’t mean to be importunate, perhaps they think their homespun pleasures are everyone’s idea of happiness — and are baffled when they come across people who see things differently.’ Meno pulled their handcart past the queue, which stretched from the steam laundry to the rotting fencepost. Halting conversations, dirty looks that only cleared when Meno opened the door with the inscription ‘wringer’ in Gothic letters. They’d been given a slot for 7.30.

‘Oh well, perhaps I’m being too demanding as far as Richard’s concerned. He’s pretty overworked and that worries me. You know I was so happy when he came back from that terrible time when he was on duty during the power cut. With Robert in tow! He ought to have been at school! He grasped the lad by the shoulders and pushed him into the apartment. I’ve never seen him so proud of Robert. Of Christian, yes. But he’s quieter about that, doesn’t show it that much. At least not to me or the boys. — Perhaps we should prepare our washing a bit, the ironing-woman’s a real dragon. We mustn’t overrun or she’ll kick up a fuss.’

‘Morning, Herr Rohde,’ came the croaking voice of Else Alke from the door into the laundry. Clouds of steam and squashed transistor radio music poured out of the door. ‘The Baron’s waistcoat over here,’ she ordered one of the assistants. ‘And count the buttons again.’ The red of the waistcoat, the gleaming steel buttons were a refreshing sight.

‘The Baron will be sending you an invitation,’ the old woman rasped before handing the Arbogast handcart over to the assistant with a haughty nod.

53. The laundry wringer

The ironing-woman, full-bosomed with piggy eyes and reddish down on the backs of her fingers and her upper lip, brusquely instructed them in how to operate the machine, after she’d checked their time in a notebook and ticked them off with a sharp pencil stroke. Neither Anne nor Meno were there for the first time and the woman probably recognized them, but the repeat of the instructions was according to regulations, as any observant customer could see from the exclamation-mark-spattered section of the typewritten sheets of paper in the glass frame by the door connecting the wringer-room with the steam laundry, where the ironing-woman was also in charge of the button replacement department (mostly braided buttons for bed linen). The rest of the sheets of paper, printed in Gothic script and not yellowed, presented adages to do with washing and had been left behind by the previous owners, who, expropriated, had long since disappeared westwards: ‘A bar of soap, no more, no less, / brings healthy skin and happiness.’ ‘On linen white / we start and end our life.’ ‘What smooths out our wrinkles, / what can we rely on / to keep our faces young? / The wringer and the iron.’ Meno, fascinated by these reflections, would have most liked to have started thinking about them immediately; above all he felt the urge to check the substance of these axioms presented as folk wisdom (and therefore infallible): on linen white … Ulrich and he had been born in a Moscow clinic, had they had white sheets there? And for those born during the war? Anne was pointing to the clock suspended on two struts over the table, an octagonal model with hands ending in a heart shape and curved numerals on a face that was now grey; she wasn’t smiling, as she so often was when she roused her brother from one of his abstractions (a touch, an insistent look), she seemed nervous — Meno knew she was afraid of the monster in the room. Even in the clear 100-watt light of a bare bulb the wringer looked like a tarantula that had been forced onto its back and gagged; one of the giant specimens with wolf’s hair such as can be seen, modelled in synthetic material, sucking at Tertiary insects in the dioramas of museums of natural history (the stalked eyes in the woolly carnivore’s face sticking out like a binocular periscope) or circulated at research conferences on arachnids in the form of copper engravings, such as those made for Brehm’s Life of Animals, both praised for their technical skill and dismissed with a smile. Meno recalled Arbogast’s ‘our friend Arachne’ as he opened the safety grating to pick up the three beechwood rollers off the sliding table in front of the wringer box, which had returned to the starting position — first of all he stretched out to get the one farthest away, prepared in case the box, which was filled with boulders weighing tons, should shoot out towards him like a vicious prehensile claw to drag him into its gullet (in fact there wasn’t one, all that there was behind the mechanism was a black-and-yellow-striped wall, but he was haunted by the idea that there were digestive organs hidden in the casing); Meno grabbed the two remaining rollers with exaggerated speed and handed them to Anne, who silently and with the same exaggerated speed took them off him and went with them to the set-up table. She wrapped the washing, which had to be dry for this machine, round them. Now came the more difficult part of the preparation: Meno placed the three rollers with sheets and bed covers round them on the sliding table the way the ironing-woman had demonstrated (in a whiny, scarcely comprehensible voice and without switching on the wringer); rollers at a precise right angle to the direction of travel, only in that way was free rotation in both directions possible, only in that way would nothing get jammed — the wooden rollers could move freely under the box — holes wouldn’t be rubbed in the washing, as would happen should the sliding process be disrupted by a wrong angle. The difficulty lay in the precision with which the wooden cylinders had to be aligned; Meno felt less afraid offering the gagged tarantula full rollers than he had removing the empty ones previously — he stepped back, let the safety grille down, anxiously watching the box that, when Anne pressed a button, started to hum forward on a toothed rail and slowly moved onto the rollers that smoothly took up the motion. Anne nodded, pressed a second button and now it sounded as if someone — or something — were being tortured, torment and pain were flying over the solid beechwood, worn by decades of use, of the wringer, shuttling to and fro, the boulders in the box thundering and rattling, a convulsive tremor from the transmission belts running over driving wheels on the side of the machine, obeying the blind, unfeeling voltage commands of a motor. For the moment there was nothing to do. Meno looked into the laundry through the little window in the wall: steam was rising from the huge vessels, resembling autoclaves, with rod thermometers stuck into them that an assistant in grey overalls kept his eye on (his other one was, as could be clearly seen, made of glass); now and then the one-eyed man pulled over a kind of brass shawm that went into an endoscopically flexible tube, and grunted something down it, probably telling a stoker hidden in the cellar to regulate the steam pressure in the boiler. — The ironing-woman appeared right on time.

54. Be at home

… but the clocks struck, it grew colder, it grew warmer, for days on end it seemed as if that year we would have a green Christmas but on the third Sunday in Advent the sky’s pillows were shaken, the arched wooden candle-holders in the windows, the illuminated Moravian stars on the balconies, in the tops of the trees (Stahl had hung one up in the copper beech, despite Pedro Honich’s protest), disappeared in the hazy snow; the lamps, when Meno strode round the streets in the evening, his Yugoslav hat pulled well down, his pipe filled with Copenhagen vanilla tobacco, were like jellyfish hanging below the branches of the elms on Mondleite and Wolfsleite with gelatinous haloes of light. In the kitchens there was a smell of gingerbread dough and cinnamon; Holfix and the grocer’s on Bautzner Strasse were both out of icing sugar and hundreds-and-thousands and when Meno stopped at the door of Caravel, his hand already on the handle inside, he could see the winged shadows of a revolving wooden pyramid from Seiffen moving across the ceiling of the Hoffmanns’ living room. In Evening Star the light was on in the Orrés’ bathroom (Erik Orré was in the habit of learning his lines in the bath), the lights were on in the Tietzes’ music room, the yellow glow was seeping through the dilapidated veranda, half hidden by a spruce tree. Meno could see a shadow bow dancing up and down the ceiling of the children’s room: Ezzo was practising. Was he using Anne’s chin rest? It was still too early for Niklas’s music hour. At this time, if Gudrun didn’t have to go to the theatre and Niklas had no more house calls to make, the music room was filled with the delicate aroma of baked apples; the tiled stove beside the mirror and chaise longue had a warming compartment in which Niklas steamed rather than baked the deep-red Consinots, Cox’s Orange Pippins, Rheinische Krummstiefel, Winterstettiner from the gardens on the slope above the Elbe — with incomparable results, Meno had never eaten such tasty baked apples as at the Tietzes’. When, a few minutes later, he went down Heinrichstrasse, he was often roused from his reflections by a loud ‘Watch out!’ — toboggans with curved-up horns, flat, wooden Davos sledges or ancient metal ones with tubular runners and seats of plaited strips of leather were on their way to the steep Dachsleite, where a merry crowd was enjoying skiing and sledging, unconcerned about the darkness and flurries of snow.

For Christmas the fathers put up the family Christmas tree that they’d bought at the Striezelmarkt or from Busse, the forester (they were the better, though of course dearer, ones), brought the stands down from the loft, the angels and coloured glass balls to decorate it, hung tinsel over the branches.

Niklas still had strips of silver foil and decorated the tree in traditional style with wooden ornaments from the Erzgebirge that had been handed down from generation to generation, and with genuine candles, for which he pinned on pine-cone holders. Green, red and silver balls, on the topmost sprig the star, between them the crinkled aluminium fringes that the Christmas department of the Centrum store sold under the name of ‘lametta’: thus decked out, the standard Dresden fir tree (that was, if truth be told, a blue spruce) stood in its place of honour in the living rooms and shed its first needles even before its owners had gone to the watchnight service. Meno spent Christmas Eve with the Londoners; Jochen Londoner had invited him: Hanna was busy at the embassy in Prague, he’d said, Philipp and his ‘companion’ (as Londoner put it after a moment’s pause for thought) would ‘bring their youthful joy and colour / to light the smoky grey of our days’. Meno didn’t buy a present; Libussa cut some roses for Irmtraud Londoner and stared wide-eyed in surprise when he said they weren’t a present, just a small token he’d take along, even though he knew how much Irmtraud Londoner loved flowers. With a lovely bouquet of flowers in her hand she could even become prickly towards her husband, something that never happened otherwise: Do you see, Jochen, you study economy and the whole house is full of scholarly treatises, but it’s this young man here who’s brought me roses in the winter. Libussa didn’t feel hurt, she knew Meno would pay her back for the roses by chopping wood and bringing up coal, four bucketfuls, Pedro Honich was going to see to the rest as ‘Timur Assistance’. Frau Honich promptly brought some wrapping paper, and a creamy smile spread over her face when she enquired: Londoner — had she heard correctly? — She had. — The famous Jochen Londoner who wrote for the weekly magazine Horizon — and a book now and then?

Now and then: Londoner’s output was notorious; he had no compunction about making use of left-over scraps, reworking things that had been printed long ago and passing them off as new; Meno responded to Babett Honich’s smile (even if suspiciously); he remembered that they were Londoner’s own words — ‘and now and then we write a little book’ — which he had the habit of repeating in his countless interviews, from which no one dared to edit out that ‘we’ — the royal ‘we’? Londoner as the head of a capitalistically enterprising business concern? — But then Herr Rohde must be an important person if he counted Londoner among his friends! Babett Honich was quite carried away. She’d realized at once that Herr Rohde was made from finer stuff, well, who was called Meno anyway, he had a ‘certain something’ about him (‘but that you write about spiders of all things, my God, yeuch!’); could he not invite Herr Londoner to tea here? — Herr Rohde had to go now, he was in a hurry and as far as she knew, old Jochen didn’t drink tea.

On Turmstrasse, waiting for a parade of Father Christmases to march past (Grauleite had taken over special shifts for the children of East Rome), Meno was still chuckling at Libussa’s presence of mind and her casual, saucy ‘old Jochen’ that had left even Babett Honich speechless. The guard in the sentry box subjected his papers and invitation to a thorough check.

‘Purpose of your visit?’ The first lieutenant had become a captain. He waited, fingers on the typewriter keys, for Meno’s answer.

‘To spend the Feast of Hanukah with Comrade Jochen Londoner.’ Meno couldn’t have said himself why he suddenly felt his oats. The Feast of Hanukah! The duty officer, who would certainly have a wife and children and had to be on guard here instead of spending Christmas with them, would probably not know what he was talking about.

‘Hannucker? Are you pulling my leg?’ The comrade immediately got worked up. ‘We’ll soon see about that.’ He picked up the telephone. The Brezhnev portrait had been removed from the guardhouses, it hadn’t been replaced by one of Gorbachev but by a sour-faced black-and-white likeness of the Minister of Security. ‘Aha.’ The captain remained sceptical. ‘A full pass? That has recently been forbidden for visitors, Frau Comrade Londoner. — I’ve no idea why. Instruction from the top. — Correct, Frau Comrade Londoner, if he gets a half-pass he’ll have to report on the Oberer Plan tomorrow morning. — No, we’re not allowed to do that. Two one-third passes, that’s the most I’m allowed to do.’

He put the phone down, typed, put a second sheet into the typewriter. ‘Sign here.’ Meno picked up the ballpoint pen and form off the revolving tray and while he was signing he could hear the captain muttering, ‘Hannucker, Hannucker’ to himself. ‘The things there are. Didn’t it use to be called Christmas? Is that official now?’

Meno tipped his hat, turned up his collar and left the captain without replying. The gusts of wind were making the bridge hum, the bulbs, of which only a few were working, were swinging between the parapets; Meno stuck the roses inside the lapels of his coat. The mule is trying to find its way in the fog, he thought; the deep snow on the bridge seemed like mist, the tracks of the Father Christmases had already been blown away. With every step Meno sank in up to his knees so that he was only making slow progress, holding on to the railing. Cobweb House loomed up black in the smoky white air in which swirls and twists of snow were dancing over the steep valley; perhaps Vogelstrom was working on the panorama of revolution or was communing in the dark with the painted garden scenes, perhaps he was away, spending Christmas with his children, though the painter never talked about them. ‘Doesn’t mean anything!’ Meno forced the words out against the assaults of the wind. Recalling Meyer’s poem, he addressed it, ‘Thou heavenly child.’ This wind was an unruly child with a mind of its own, a raging brat. Sometimes the child paused, seemed to be wondering how it could get the better of the solitary man plodding across the bridge, scurried on ahead, whirled back over his hat and dropped down in a flurry of snowflakes to try it from behind, came whirring at him from the right and the left, only, after blustering blasts, vengeful rattling of the bridge’s cables, to collapse, as if its fury had earned it a click of the fingers from up there, out of the air: then, soothingly bronchitic, the hoarse roar of the Weisse Schwester could be heard. Meno hurried up. True, Jochen Londoner had not stated a time. Even though in East Rome they were prepared to tolerate Christmas as an obviously ineradicable relic of Christianity, until there would no longer be a place for it in the period of transition from socialism to communism, even though they were prepared to remain silent, to conform to the code of conduct requiring a Christmas tree and window decorations, to sit back and, after the presents had been handed out to wife and children on Christmas Eve, enjoy the television programmes with the family, Jochen Londoner was and remained an East Roman and one who frequently indulged in mockery of that evening: so they had a family Christmas and Jochen insisted that both Irmtraud and the children first of all respected the customs, then ‘celebrated Christmas critically’. He called it the dialectical approach. That is: he took care about the decor but treated the ritual, of which the decor was, after all, an abbreviated symbol, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders, even with disdain and dismissive pride, pride in half-recognition, in a freedom that for him might lie in not fulfilling a cliché and the demands concealed within it. He, the ‘merry Marxist and Mr Rigorous’ as he called himself, half ironically, half threateningly, took the liberty of coming up with laissez-faire where others didn’t expect it, where they would react with dismay to the stereotyped thought thus revealed or ‘at best’ (sometimes he would say ‘at worst’) with curiosity: ‘The Jew,’ he would then growl irritably, ‘was in exile, and the Jew, who was in exile, must know the Jewish customs, mustn’t he? And if he knows them, surely he must follow them? That’s what you always think, isn’t it? For how can the Jew take the liberty of ignoring customs that cost so many fellow sufferers their lives?’ And when Meno remained silent, horrified, he went on, ‘But I take (a), the liberty of deciding for myself who or what I am; I’m not a Jew, I’m a human being and as such I also take (b), the liberty of determining which customs are important to me and which not, which I do or do not have to follow.’ So he lit a Hanukah menorah and the lights on the Christmas tree, baked with Irmtraud and Hanna, when she was at home over Christmas, gingerbread and sufganiyot, the tasty jelly doughnuts, fried latkes that Philipp called hash browns, hung up lametta and little toy spinning tops on the Christmas tree. ‘We’re having Chrisnukah!’ And instead of ‘Maos zur jeschuati’ the sound of the Beatles echoed round the house at 9 Zetkinweg, a cul-de-sac at the end of Krupskaja-Strasse.

Chocolate and wood — that was the smell of books and Meno knew of no house where it was such a commanding and inviting presence as at the Londoners’.

‘Chanukah!’ Irmtraud cried when she opened the door, grasped Meno by the shoulders and touched him ‘cheek-to-cheek’, a greeting he loved because of its discreet, delicate intimacy. ‘You really gave the poor guy a fright. I had to explain it to him. He’ll be telephoning now. — But you know Jochen doesn’t like that sort of joke, don’t say anything about it; he thinks it’s no one else’s concern how we live. Be at home.’

Be at home, not ‘make yourself at home’, Meno had always found that simple greeting moving; he felt slightly ashamed at having to take the roses out of his coat in such an unceremonious manner since he’d forgotten to unwrap them before ringing the bell — and since he wanted to conceal how moved he was, he held out the budding Maréchal Niels to Irmtraud, who had his hat and gloves in her hands, with an awkward firmness that was nothing other than embarrassment, which he had never managed entirely to shed at the Londoners’. Jochen knew that. Meno took his time fiddling with his shoelaces, drips or dirt from the streets made Irmtraud furious. At his first visit, to be introduced as Hanna’s ‘boyfriend’, before which he had given himself Dutch courage with three miniatures of bitters from Lange’s stock, the ‘old connoisseur of life’ (as the ‘Herr Professor’ that Jochen Londoner had been for Meno at that time put it with an understanding nod and ironically crossed fingers) had not found anything to dispel his embarrassment: neither a tour of his personal library, taking down first editions of Kant and signed copies of Brecht and leafing through them at length, nor the table loaded with delicacies, the celebrated scholar’s markedly homely attire of cardigan and tartan slippers or his amiable questions, going into detail and offering a wide range of interests. On the contrary, the wealth (both material and intellectual) of the Londoner household had intimidated Meno even more and Londoner could well have sensed that, for on future occasions he changed his ‘tactics’, as he said: since then it was Irmtraud who greeted him with ‘be at home’ and called him ‘Menodear’ or ‘my dear’, which for a long time he assumed was a bizarre term of affection, softened in the Saxon manner, until he saw it at the beginning of a letter and realized she was speaking English.

But he recognized the bat-cap on the clothes stand, and listened for what was being said in the living room instead of to Irmtraud singing the praises of the roses, and since it was what he expected to hear, it wasn’t long before it came: Judith Schevola’s gravelly laugh. Philipp was showing off, Meno heard that as well; Irmtraud now, with a mute and conspiratorial gesture to the stairs down to the basement kitchen, left him to his own devices. A brief, warm greeting, a gesture of invitation and then the guest could, if he was a friend of the family, spend the time until the official part of the invitation (the beginning of which was announced by a dinner gong or a little bell, such as the chairman of the television Professors’ Forum, of which Londoner was a member, rang) doing as he liked: sit in the wing chair in the living room and browse through one of the magazines set out there (among them Literaturnaya gazeta and the Times Literary Supplement), leaf through the books or, if there were two of you, play a game of ice hockey on the slot machine in a niche in the basement; there was always a supply of ten-pfennig pieces there; if you put one in you could use a wheel to make the red or blue lead figures, with sticks that had been bent by the steel ball, revolve. You could also go home again, as Eschschloraque had once done: immersed in a book-covered wall on the stairs up to Londoner’s sanctum (‘The Haunted Chamber’ it said in English and in cursive letters on an oval pottery sign), the dramatist had been gripped by a scene, glassy-eyed and waving his arms about (Meno had quickly put a pencil in his hand) he had drifted down to the little telephone table, where, without success and ever more desperate, he searched for a sheet of paper (he didn’t find one; there were printed sheets of paper by the million in the Londoner residence, blank ones the old man stored in the ‘Haunted Chamber’ and kept a strict watch over where they were left; do not leave anything handwritten lying around in the house, no addresses, no notes that might be misunderstood — a maxim from the time when he’d been active in the underground), until Meno, who always put some in his pocket when he went to see Londoner, gave a sheet to Eschschloraque; in a world of his own, the Marshal of Moderation had picked up the phone, rolled out iambic lines and belaboured an imaginary public with the receiver; at that moment Londoner had come down the stairs, he too glassy-eyed, he too with accumulations of word, thought and deduction within reach, had shuffled over to the telephone, where instead of the receiver he took the pencil from Eschschloraque, nodded, stared at it intently and, shaking it in his raised hand, carried it off, leaving Eschschloraque staring uncomprehending at the receiver before leaving the house without a word and still wearing the house slippers he’d put on.

They were discussing things that were often discussed at the Londoners’: the history of the working class, economics, appropriately for the occasion the history of the Christmas roast, dates and events in the history of the Communist Party. Judith Schevola was sitting, an amused expression on her face, beside Jochen Londoner, who, in his rocking chair, had got so carried away that he kept losing one of his tartan slippers, which Philipp fitted back on his foot, addressing his father, as did Hanna, by the familiar form of Josef: ‘Seppel’ (Irmtraud was called ‘Traudel’ by her husband and children). Jochen Londoner would certainly have preferred not to be repeatedly reminded of the mortality of euphoria (let the slipper fly wherever it wanted!); in Judith Schevola there were unknown ears that had never been exposed to the Londoner fount of knowledge, at least not the old man’s one that delighted in the world around. A glass of port, filled while rocking in the middle of an extensive drilling-core analysis of the ‘main task’ and handed to him with neither comment nor eye contact was sufficient greeting for Meno; out of amazement at Schevola’s presence and a creeping feeling of discontent at the elegance and self-evident pleasure with which Philipp basked in the splendour of the house, bobbing up and down like an excited schoolboy, Meno had already poured the glass down his throat and was now perched like a tawny owl, limed to the heavy wash of the wine, in the wing chair opposite the old historian. Now ‘Londoner-speak’ flew between three points round the room, giving Meno the feeling he was sitting by the edge of sparkling electricity; Irmtraud asked when dinner should be served: ‘When kenn I servier ze roast herr, my dear?’ And Seppel, deep in a description of the starvation conditions created by the beasts of prey in the Manchester cotton mills, spread his arms interrogatively, indicating democracy — which Philipp took up instead of Judith Schevola, who was snorting with laughter, and Meno, who, assuming Londoner’s son had a bad conscience, sat there in silent ill-humour, with ‘We love you dermassen, Traudel, you are ä Heldin, denn I sink there’s not matsch fun in de Kittschen?’

‘You really don’t have tomatoes on your eyes,’ said Traudel, confirming his observation. ‘Bleib sitting, my dear’ (that to Judith Schevola), ‘de patätohs are alle geschält bei now, än I sink de Rosenkohl is quite reddy.’

‘Okäh,’ the paterfamilias decreed, ‘zänn I sink we take sammsink zu nibbeln in de Zwischentime.’

A call on the upstairs telephone and the trucks of the Michurin complex on Gagarinweg were on their way with a selection of snacks. Irmtraud hadn’t wanted that, even though Jochen had made the offer several times, as Meno knew from Philipp, who by now was casting revolting sheep’s eyes at Judith Schevola. As at the time when they’d been going to see Eschschloraque, Meno felt like inquiring about Marisa; perhaps she was having Christmas with fellow Chilean exiles or playing with Judith Schevola’s knife in Philipp’s room opposite the cotton mill. Meno observed Philipp: did this man have any idea at all what he wanted? Surely you’re not jealous? He waved the idea away with a vigorous gesture that set the hand with the ring on the index finger in motion, offering Meno a bowl of pretzels; without interrupting his flow of speech or taking any notice of Meno’s reaction (perhaps Jochen Londoner took it for acceptance), the scholar continued his Manchester speech. Philipp had put a Gorbachev badge on the table in front of him, the head with its birthmark on a red background; the tin disc had a pin on the back, ironically it came from the West; Philipp had brought it back from Berlin, where these ‘sweet liddel provocations’ (as Jochen Londoner called them, he had examined it closely, praising the quality of the soldering of the pin) had been on sale for several months.

Philipp, the child of heroes. Who wanted to keep the Party pure and to uphold the ideals for which his parents had fought and suffered one (Meno could not imagine the pair of them separately) of the terrible destinies of that century: all of Irmtraud’s and Jochen’s relations had been murdered in the Nazi death camps, they themselves had escaped by hazardous routes to England (‘mit nothing in de pockets and hunger, my dear, immer hunger’), where he had worked for the British Museum Library and she as a cleaner in Guy’s Hospital before they had been interned as ‘enemy aliens’. Philipp, who attacked corrupt officials and believed in socialism as something sacred — in discussions he would never be prepared to go beyond a certain limit, to call the whole system in question, as Richard did (and Anne? had she not been brought up in the same way as Philipp and he, Meno Rohde, the bearers of a proud name in the hierarchy of communism? … at that moment she was probably in church to hear Pastor Magenstock’s sermon and see the nativity play); Philipp never doubted that socialism had the better, the more hopeful future. Everything for the welfare of the people … Philipp donated a significant part of his salary to a workers’ retirement home in Leipzig; while a student he had worked on the Baikal — Amur railway. And his science? It served the people, for whom socialism had been thought up and planned; Meno was convinced that Philipp regarded his science, his professorship, as a contribution to the strengthening of socialism and would have relinquished them without hesitation had that seemed necessary for the defence of the ‘just cause’ (as people here liked to call the dictatorship of the proletariat).

The whistle of Black Mathilda was heard, at which Jochen Londoner, taking a sip of sherry, interrupted his peroration and made Meno prick up his ears with a drawn-out ‘… by the way …’; mostly this preceded an important tip about everyday matters, as was the case this time as well. It had struck him, he said, that the energy-saving programmes on the Republic’s television had been on the increase again, Meno ‘and you too, my dear’ (Judith Schevola came back with a start from the contemplation of the many original prints on the walls between the rows of books) would be well advised to order more coal in time; if necessary he could help them in that, they only had to ask. And if there was anything else …? This offer was to be seen as a ‘liddel advance’ on the presents that were to be distributed later. Meno took it up, he had thought of doing so before setting off and asked whether Jochen could do anything for Christian, transfer to another unit, for example, a post as headquarters clerk; Londoner said sorry, that was the army, he could do nothing there, nothing at all, he had enough to do sorting out Philipp’s idiotic petty bourgeois/educated middle class comparison on Hiddensee, the comrade had played the stool pigeon and reported him; dangerous, Jochen Londoner said, but it could presumably be sorted out. And, by the way, was the telephone working again? Groaning slightly, he pushed himself up out of his rocking chair; the expression of intent listening returned as Londoner grasped his chin between thumb and forefinger. Irmtraud raised the stick of the dinner gong and said, ‘The gong is gonging.’

Meno watched as Londoner shuffled over to the telephone, hesitated a few moments before lifting the receiver and, with a concentrated expression, put it to his ear. ‘Oh, could you come round some time. Yes, I can’t get a connection when I dial. It would be a pity about all those conversations, wouldn’t it? If I can’t talk to people on the phone, you’ll have nothing to record, don’t you have your plan targets too? Goodbye and a merry Christmas.’ He remained standing while Irmtraud served up the roast hare. ‘Let’s have a liddel feastolos,’ he said in Londoner Greek.

After the meal, the presents: Meno watched Schevola, who spoke less than usual, maintained her reserve even at the old man’s sly compliments; they weren’t suggestive; Londoner liked talking and liked listening to himself (‘with crit’cal love, not that I can’t see through myself’), well aware that monologues can hold people’s attention, but not for long. Schevola was watching Philipp and the old man, as she ate her assessing gaze went from Irmtraud’s pearl necklace to the Meissen porcelain, the serviettes with monograms (all that vaguely illuminated by the first candle, lit too early, on the menorah); Meno suspected that, like himself, Judith Schevola was waiting for the moment, the ‘characterology of moments’, of which the moment would consist: the translation of the old scholar from professed revolutionary (who served the juiciest portions of the roast to his wife and Judith) into property-owning bourgeois. Would the smile on the Liebermann portrait above the settee be any less fierce, would hints of forbearance, of weariness even, an awareness of the darker side, cross the painter’s wide-awake, pitiless expression with its glint of wit? — A clearing of the throat, embarrassment, reluctance. Jochen Londoner stood in front of the tree and invited the family (his heavy eyelids pushed the word ‘guests’ aside) to join him, passed his hands, searching, over the tweed of his jacket, found a pair of glasses and, with appeasing words, much furrowing of the brow and ‘So — for you’ and ‘There — for you’, handed out envelopes that, as Meno knew, contained cheques for considerable sums of money. ‘No, no’ — Londoner raised his hands to wave away objections that hadn’t even been made — ‘warm hands, children. / Not with cold hands should you give your gifts, / the young need wings like these to fly. No, no, take it, forget it, buy yourselves sammsink. You know you shouldn’t give us presents. We don’t want any. Not one word more. But there is something’ — he nodded to Irmtraud and turned to Judith Schevola — ‘we would like from you.’ Irmtraud opened Judith’s novel, The Depths of These Years, with the mark of Munderloh’s publishing company that was so familiar to Meno, and asked for a dedication. Judith Schevola was not in the least embarrassed. Jochen Londoner read it out in a disheartened voice, ‘Since you’ve decided to be a horse — then pull.’

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Irmtraud Londoner suggested.

‘What have I done wrong?’ Schevola whispered to Meno in the hall.

‘Touched on a sore point,’ he whispered back.

‘How stupid of me, how tactless,’ she said.

‘Child’ — Irmtraud Londoner plucked her sleeve — ‘you couldn’t know. Don’t let it worry you. If you’re going to be part of the family it would be best if you got used to these swings of mood now. We are all very unstable,’ she went on, switching to English. ‘Isn’t that so, my son?’

‘It is so, my sunshine,’ Philipp agreed, helping his mother on with her coat.

Outside Jochen Londoner tried to divert attention away from the scene, discussing the book, praising its dense atmosphere, the figure of the father, applying the ‘you don’t have to be long-winded if you vant to say sammsink ernsthaftly’ that hung, in Londoner English, over his desk, to Schevola’s novel — Meno recalled reviews Londoner had written for Neue Deutsche Literatur and Neues Deutschland, in which he indulged in high-sounding phrases and empty grandiloquence without having more than sampled the books; Schevola seemed to feel that his praise was honestly meant, for she pushed it aside with a reaction Meno had seen in other authors (and they weren’t the worst): she pointed out weaknesses, played the novel down by not simply mentioning parts of the plot she felt were not quite successful, but showing them in a critical light (in East Rome the street lamps worked) in order not to appear presumptuous. What did Meno as an editor have to say to the book, Londoner asked cautiously. — Meno replied that he really couldn’t say anything since he didn’t know the book, at least in its printed form. Meno behaved as if he were having difficulty lighting the tobacco he’d tamped down in his pipe. — Had he not received it? Schevola asked in alarm. She had asked for a copy to be sent to him.

‘We read good books,’ Londoner said, waving a shopping bag and lending Meno a box of matches, ‘with a sense of security.’ He regretted that it hadn’t been possible for it to appear in the country. If it was any comfort, if it gave her any encouragement, he too knew what a muzzle felt like, he’d had to wait six years for permission for what was probably his most popular book, A Short Critique of Soap, to be printed. Did Meno know (‘by the way’) that after the book had appeared Ulrich Rohde had sent him a whole carton of the substance? After a lecture on astronomy in the Orient at Arbogast’s place. ‘You know’ — Londoner merrily hit himself on either side of his chest with his unencumbered left hand — ‘here the medals — and here the Party’s punishments, that’s the way things are; don’t imagine people like Barsano or even our Friedel Sinner-Priest can do their work without receiving such correction for their own good.’

Meno was surprised at what Londoner had said. Some of the passages he’d remembered from Schevola’s book contained strong criticism of the Party, a few were even openly aggressive … There it was again, the schizophrenia he was familiar with from Kurt. If they ever talked about such matters at all, it was the Party that punished but those it punished fell to their knees and would not say anything against the Great Mother. Even when facing the firing squad, condemned men had shouted, ‘Long live Stalin, long live the Bolshevik Party, long live the revolution.’ Meno recalled what a shock it had been for him when Irmtraud, who hadn’t worked for ages now, had talked in a casual conversation about her previous job. She had been a censor for ‘books of philosophical content’, she had even rejected Philipp’s dissertation for ‘deviant readings’. They were both, as Philipp put it, ‘coldly curious’ as to whether their children would ‘make it’ and at the same time well-disposed towards their dreams: ‘We will help, but you must do your fighting yourselves.’ And now they were both praising a book that Irmtraud would have rejected and Jochen Londoner, had he had to speak in an official capacity about it, would have classed as ‘ideologically unclear’, perhaps even as ‘harmful’.

‘ “The world’s abuzz with rumour, / The truth they would deny. / Hearts may lose their way, / We have climbed so high!” ’ Judith Schevola broke off; for a moment, so it seemed to Meno, Londoner was about quote another verse of Becher’s Tower of Babel himself, but remained silent instead. Philipp and Irmtraud were ahead of them, Philipp gesticulating.

‘May I ask you something? — Ernsthaftly.’

‘Go ahead, my dear, if I can answer it.’

‘Philipp often says I’m not interested in the problems in this country — I mean the economic problems. That’s not true. I do keep my eyes open. Do you think —’

‘Lennin,’ Londoner broke in with a sweeping gesture of his right hand; he seemed to move away from Schevola slightly. ‘As soon as the war was over Lennin introduced a capitalist economy into Soviet Russia; he always used to say, capitalism is our enemy but it is also our teacher.’ He gave her a suspicious look, perhaps he thought he’d ventured too far. ‘And it was Lennin who said that, the man who taught us all our trade.’

Meno permitted himself a quiet grin at this ‘Lennin’; it sounded like Lennon with an ‘i’ and Jochen Londoner was a professed fan of the Beatles.

‘And since it’s Christmas I’ll just add this, my dear: Lennin’s theory of the necessity of grassroots democracy. Lennin at the head of the October Revolution, ten days that changed the world — and we’re part of the Soviet Union, we couldn’t survive alone. I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions, in regard to current politics as well.’

They regrouped; Irmtraud and Jochen Londoner fell behind. They were holding hands, looking at the road, saying nothing. Philipp would probably not have been allowed to ask his father such a question; from Meno’s experience problems of that kind were not discussed in the nomenklatura, at least not between the generations. No addresses in the house, except in the safe, no doubts that threatened to become matters of substance in their own four walls, no deviancy, unquestioning loyalty to the Party. Meno recalled Londoner’s malicious subtlety in getting Philipp to invite the Old Man of the Mountain; what a humiliation — and what a strange reaction from the old man. He had been furious with the Londoners for inviting him; he thought that in such a way they had exposed his loneliness, which — and this made it worse — must be so great ‘that it was not even possible for me to decline the invitation in a friendly way’. ‘Act-u-al-ly a substitute invitation,’ that was what he had called it, ‘the way they used to issue a kind invitation to lackeys or the children of the servants to the table with the Christmas presents from which they were allowed to take home a few crumbs.’

‘Do you want to go along with this?’ Meno asked Judith Schevola softly. Philipp was in full flight, Meno was familiar with it, Hanna had also had these ecstatic states; it was something that was alien to him but that he admired, something he’d loved Hanna for. On Philipp’s lips words such as ‘world revolution’, ‘a community in which everyone has a good life, in which no one goes hungry any more and no one is oppressed’ didn’t sound like hollow phrases, as they so often did from the hardliners. Philipp believed in the future. It belonged to socialism — and it belonged to them, the children of heroes, the children of people who had gone through unimaginable suffering for the realization of their ideals. When Philipp’s eyes shone, as they did now, when his enthusiasm at being able to take part in the struggles of this age, which according to the law of history would lead to a tomorrow without exploitation and want, put a flush on his cheeks, he was beautiful and, with his long hair, though with a hat instead of a beret and star, he did resemble his ideal, Che Guevara, a little. At this point usually a different tone broke through, for he, Philipp, and others of a similar background, were the children of the victors of history, of genuine revolutionaries that was, who had not stuck to theory but put it into practice — ‘while the petty bourgeois, the shit-scared and all the riffraff, for whom men and women like my parents put their lives at risk, had kept their heads down and betrayed everything they had worked for’. Meno bit back the question of whether the ‘riffraff’, whom Philipp dismissed with a disparaging wave of the hand, did not also belong to the people, to the working class whom he and his comrades wanted to stand by; when he was in one of these ‘states’ Philipp no longer seemed open to critical arguments.

‘Go along? You mean into the jungle? Where the true revolutionaries live? — Why not?’ Meno remained silent after this reply and with a shrug of the shoulders Judith Schevola went on, ‘It’s for a better world, I once went to Prague for that … however often Altberg might try to decry it. In the end we all have to die, and live … better to burn short and bright like a firework than to spend a long time poking around in cold ash.’ Hostile tones! Meno dropped back, flabbergasted at the way Judith Schevola had spoken, sickened by the smitten sidelong looks she was giving Philipp; it offended him, he recalled their conversation when they were going to see Eschschloraque, the part about calling each other ‘du’ and about wailing geniuses — smitten geniuses were at least equally disappointing.

‘Well, lad’ — Jochen Londoner took his arm — ‘is she the right one for Philipp, what d’you think? You know, I’m starting to get old, this morning Traudel and I were talking about how nice it would be if we had grandchildren and could play with them under the Christmas tree. Grandfather ambitions! Don’t you think a pair of old bracket funguses like us have the right to let the world go hang and just concern ourselves with happy smiling children? We had so hoped that Hanna and you … that you would get back together again. No fnuky, as my Polish friend calls the pleasures of being a grandfather, from those in front either. — Oh well, enough of that.’ But Londoner hadn’t finished yet — Meno, he said, still didn’t seem to realize what he’d lost. ‘Your country, lad, your real home!’, the things that would be possible if … days spent reading in the West Berlin State Library, there were visas for personal and for official travel; he, Londoner, had the ear of the General Secretary; with a document like that one could dip into one world and then another, like an amphibian, unchecked, and if Meno felt that went against his conscience (‘which I could understand’), then the ‘Archipelago’ would still be open to him, the Socialist Union, a continent of unsuspected richness that people ‘over there’, arrogant and with their Atlantic fixation, had absolutely no idea about … the Crimea, the Adriatic islands off Yugoslavia, Cuba, Vietnam, China, the mind-numbing oriental part of the Soviet Union … Dushanbe was wonderful; Bokhara, Samarkand awaited you on the Silk Road, you could sense the very breath of history … after all, Meno, like Hanna and Philipp, was a ‘child of heroes’ (Meno was grateful that Londoner had become ironic again); he was respected (‘oh, definitely’) by the leaders of Party and state, by some, ‘as I have it from a reliable source’, even very highly regarded! ‘You could have a very easy time of it, my dear boy. If you only wanted. That subordinate post in Editorial Office Seven …’

‘The roast hare was very good,’ Meno said when Londoner fell silent. Irmtraud Londoner said nothing.

‘Edu Eschschloraque told me that you all went to see him once.’ Londoner’s voice was firm again; the scholar, measured and well-disposed, had returned to his body. ‘It gave him much food for thought. I think he likes you.’

Meno had to laugh at that. ‘Altberg thinks Eschschloraque hates me.’

‘Oh yes, the red comma. That’s a sensitive matter with him. Like Siegfried, we all have our vulnerable spots. — Georgie Altberg, hm. What do you think of him?’

‘A brilliant essayist, supports young writers like no one else in this country.’

‘That’s not what I was asking.’

‘A man in the depths of despair.’

‘An opportunist, I think. A censor, an author but out of the limelight, an old pal.’ Tapping the fence with his signet ring, the old scholar slipped into his bizarre English again. ‘We are stränsch. Really stränsch.’

They were approaching the limit of East Rome, below them was Block A. The sound of dogs barking came up to them.

‘I go for a walk here almost every evening and they still always bark. Real brutes they are, I wouldn’t like to meet them when they’re running free. Or is it this here?’ Londoner raised his shopping bag.

‘Where are we going actually?’

‘You just wait and see,’ Londoner said with a sly grin. By now a special lamp was burning beside the statues of the ‘Upright Fighters’ outside the House of Culture, Eternal Flames were flickering in the pylons, guarded by two sentries either side of the avenue leading to Engelsweg.

‘Look.’ Following Londoner’s eye, Meno looked over to Coal Island, lying like a wreck dotted with yellow Argus eyes in the snowy twilight. ‘That’s where the listeners-in are, they’re even busy on Christmas Eve.’

They walked along the path that the street had become until a searchlight was turned on full beam and someone shouted, ‘Password?’

‘Roast hare.’ The searchlight was turned down, Londoner signalled to Meno to follow him. They walked slowly up to the barrier, which consisted of a concrete wall with barbed wire pointing outwards on top; there was a watchtower every fifty metres. From the nearest one a rope was let down in the beam of a torch; Londoner tied the shopping bag to it, gave it a brief tug, the rope was pulled up. Meno went up to the wall. Where he could reach the stone it felt greasy and warm; there was no snow here, the brambles, which were growing all over the concrete and barbed wire, which had climbed up the watchtower and started to wrap it in a cocoon, to catch on to the tops of trees, shimmered like oiled metal.

‘We always do it, my lad. At Christmas something is smuggled up to one of the guards on the watchtower,’ Londoner said, rubbing his hands with a conspiratorial wink. They walked back. The old scholar proudly reported his illegal mercy mission to Irmtraud, who, with an indulgently loving smile, guided him round potholes.

… but the clocks struck, snow dribbled, swirled, fluttered down on Dresden, became firmer, became softer, then grey like flakes of kapok, crusts of snow formed at the crossing points of gutters, swelled up, inflamed by ash, grew into brownish coral outcrops. Between the years Meno heard the carpet beaters again, saw the ‘Persian’ carpets from Vietnam and Tashkent, the rugs from Laos and the People’s Republic of China, saw fathers and their sons brandishing carpet beaters from Zückel’s workshop (behind the little City Hall Park with its weathered statue of Hygieia, savings bank and woodland café, which had ice cream in the summer and hot sausages and grog in the winter, and the ‘Reading Room’ inviting one to peruse the newspapers), working off, beating off, thumping off, knocking down, thwacking down, battering down the rage that had built up over the year; they pounded, they struck with the elegant weapons, with the rococo loops that sat neatly in the hand and, with a crunching, willowy blow, got rid of dirt, fluff and carpet beetle larvae; Zückel would contemplate them meditatively ‘in action’ when he walked round the district … but the clocks struck, inside, in the living rooms heated with difficulty, struck at Ticktock Simmchen’s and Pieper’s Clocks on Turmstrasse; in Malthakus’s stamp shop, on the counter with the picture-postcard albums; in Trüpel’s record shop; on Postmaster Gutzsch’s table in the post office; in Binneberg’s café; in Frau Zschunke’s greengrocer’s; and in the pharmacy: inside –

outside, however, outside the wind got up again and snowstorms danced across the country.

55. The underwater drive

Life with your comrades-in-arms will give you unforgettable experiences

What It Means to be a Soldier

Whistles like that are a fatal stab to sleep.

‘Company Four: Stand to!’

Costa’s clock with the luminous dial moved on to 3 a.m.

‘Go and jump out of the window, Nip, you measly rat.’ — ‘How I hate it! How I hate it!’ — ‘You corpsefuckers, trouser-hangers, fartarses!’ — ‘You Bunsen burners, shit-for-brains, scumbags!’ — ‘Tossers, douchebuckets, cockburners, shirtlifters!’ the commanders growl, desperately trying to get dressed (underpants, field coverall, protection pack, gas mask, belt, tank hood) in the gloomy chill of their room –

‘Dear Mum, What gives you the idea I might do something silly? Because the dear comrades I share the room with keep the radio on all the time? Basically Costa’s a poor soul, his mother died from cancer at 42, she came from the “sleeping villages”, his father worked for Wismut, was retired at 45 on health grounds — bone cancer. Big Irrgang swears like a trooper — but that’s what we all are here — gets on our superior officers’ nerves with his absolute refusal to use the dative and is a real sly fox. Recently he smuggled in litres of “stuff”, his father, who works in refrigerator construction, inserted a false bottom in his travel bag, lined with metal foil, into which they poured several bottles of some sugary Romanian hooch called Murfatlar that turned an honest tank crew into seamen on deck during a storm and doubled the company. Musca, the fly, needs a girlfriend, that’s all, but here there’s only the regimental cultural officer, 130 kg of model worker, and those left on the shelf in the Dutch Courage‚ and even they don’t want to know. Which goes to show that aftershave is not for internal use. Pancake was on a charge of manslaughter but they couldn’t prove anything and now he’s my driver. Recently he waylaid the company commander, put on his lopsided grin and said, “If you want a car, Comrade Captain … you earn peanuts. All you need to do is to tell me, I just have to make a call and you can take your choice. What would you like? A Lada, a Dacia, a Wartburg — or would you go for something more high-powered? No problem.” Our CC merely laughed and said, “You’re after something, aren’t you, Kretzschmar?” — “Yes, well, it won’t be completely free, Comrade Captain; if I could just make that phone call?” A few hours later the cars drove up outside the barracks for him to have a look at. Guys in leather jackets and shades, drinking apple juice and shouting, “Why’re you running round in that uniform?” to Pancake. He put on his grin again. “Well, Comrade Captain? For you I’ll make a special price.” — why should I “do something silly” when I’ve the chance of seeing expressions like that on the face of our CC at that moment?

‘Well, well, Reina Kossmann wants to go and see you, does she?’

A whistle: ‘Company Four — fall in to receive weapons!’ Nip had unlocked the grille, waved the men of the first platoon into the armoury; this time the alert (the siren in the corridor started to wail) wasn’t one of his little jokes; Nip was stone-cold sober and really pissed-off and had stuck a steel helmet on his head; Christian took his AK-47 out of the cupboard, signed for it with the duty corporal in the armoury, dismiss, c’mon, c’mon, down the stairs at the double, Company 4 and 5 gathered outside battalion headquarters, staff officers running to and fro, gesticulating wildly; it had been raining, a mild April night, the smell of the smoke from the metal works mingled with the scent of flowers, line up, number off, march off to the technical depot –

‘Dear Reglinde, I almost envy you that you can now enjoy the view from Father’s study. I know how important it is to him, but Anne told me that it was only by concluding a tenancy agreement with you that they could avoid having someone quartered on them. Griesel set something in motion, probably to show the Herr Medical Councillor that you can’t ignore your neighbours with impunity. And now you’re working with the apes. Congratulations. At least you’ll be seeing some human faces. I remember the gorilla sitting behind the glass with a grumpy expression on its face, morosely poking round in carrots and lettuce leaves, now and then picking something up off the ground; it particularly seemed to enjoy eating vomit. We sometimes play at “zoo” as well, though to be more precise it’s called “Alfred Brehm House”: the drivers mimic chimpanzees, soldiers bound down the company corridor like chamois, traditionally the commanders are rhinoceroses or elephants: stretch out one arm, bend the other back and hold your nose and then “toot, toot”. — Thanks for the postcards you got from Malthakus, that was a really nice surprise. I have a set of Constantinople postcards and when I was on leave I also bought some of the South Sea islands — expensive, but I earn a decent amount here. Tahiti and Nouméa, New Caledonia …’

Whistles, shouts, the stamp of boots, searchlights wandering over the concrete tracks, the startled faces of the soldiers, the platoon leaders with map-holders hanging round their necks hurried over to the company commander, who, expressionless, broke the seal on a little folder, took out a document, glanced over it in the light of a torch, then gave the platoon leaders brief instructions — Christian saw his lieutenant make windmill movements with his right arm: start engines; the sound of the oil pump, Pancake pressed the ignition, Christian plugged his helmet into the radio, adopted the commander’s position: standing on his seat above the gun pointer, chest behind the secured hatch cover, the loader wailed, ‘It’s war now, dammit, now war’s broken out’, the gun pointer said, ‘Shut your gob, you over there, you’ve more days of service left than the Eiffel Tower has rivets, my time’s almost up and now this — d’you know anything, Nemo?’ Christian’s answer became a stutter as the tank seesawed its way through the depot gate: ‘The orders the CC had were to wait’, then, as per regulations, he had to trot along in front of his tank and behind Musca’s, hatch spotlight on so that the red and yellow guide flags were visible to Pancake; along the stretch of road, it was on the edge of the town, lights splashed on in the houses that were rundown, supported by scaffolding and eaten away by brick cancer; shadows in the windows and Christian wondered: What do they think of us, do they hate us, do they not care either way (that was unlikely at that time in the morning), do they admire us or pity us with our Afrika Korps outfit: goggles on our tank helmets, a sling such as medical orderlies use to immobilize broken arms over our faces, like a bank robber’s mask, and we’re sneaking out at dead of night and along the edge of the town — going where? Alternative concentration area, the platoon leaders ordered –

‘Dear Barbara, Your package has arrived, thank you very much. Uncle Uli’s soap is particularly useful, of course, and since the Military Trading Outlet here has been closed “for technical reasons” for several weeks, the eleven tubes of toothpaste are also very welcome. Little Erik’s nine months old already … True, he’s crying in the first photo you included in the package but at least he’s standing on his own two feet, and the way he’s gnawing the bear in the second — I assume the blobs at the side are its entrails? — shows he’s at least starting to develop a capacity for empathy. You asked about two things: leave and a girlfriend. The situation with leave is that I can’t say what the situation with leave is. If you apply, then you get the notorious 6×D: derided, dealt with, declined: squaddie due for deployment. In the army leave is the great unknown … I hope I can get back in the early autumn, perhaps in September or the beginning of October, by then we’ll have the summer field camps behind us. By the way, I know what it was Gorbachev said that you and Gudrun quarrelled about. The political education here is strict, the notebooks we keep are checked. It was the report to the plenum of the Central Committee at which they were discussing calling the XXVII Convention of the Soviet Communist Party; there was no word he used more often or more emphatically than “acceleration”. Heated political argument under cold damp patches, with an opera in between that no one apart from Niklas and Fabian, perhaps Meno too, is interested in: such are the “family musical evenings” as I see from your letter. I’d give a lot to hear one of those operas. I’m glad Niklas could repair the water damage over the secretaire with the roofing felt I sent; despite that, sometimes when I’m lying awake at night in my bunk I think there’ll soon be underwater plants growing in the music room, that mermaid sopranos and an orchestra of fishes will emerge from the photos on the wall.

a restricted area full of ammunition boxes and covered vehicles in which the men were loading up, switching from the exercise rounds to the live ammunition that was here; new orders were given, by now the regimental staff had arrived; the order that it was to continue, that from now on radio messages were only to be sent in code; Christian told his crew to relax, he knew what lay ahead of them: hard work driven on by bellowing officers running to and fro, shells out, shells in without a break, camouflage the tanks, leave for the freight line at Grün station, load the tanks onto goods wagons, then transport to an unknown destination –

‘Dear Christian, Your parents have given me your address, I also learnt from them that you are in a tank regiment and things aren’t that great. That’s why I wanted to write to you and I hope you’re not annoyed with me because of that. Now I’m in Leipzig, doing medicine — nothing came of chemistry, but medicine’s not that far away from it. I often think of that evening at your uncle’s in the House with a Thousand Eyes, of the Bird of Paradise Bar. By the way, I’ve made some tapes, Neustadt have been on DT 64 recently, if you want I can send you one. The way you sat at the table in the garden when the others were in the bar and I couldn’t go over to you because you were completely self-absorbed and I had the feeling you didn’t need other people, at least not at that moment. I have a room in the student residence, sharing with three other students, one of them’s Hungarian, she’s very jolly, I get on best with her. It’s the evening now, the others have gone out, I ought to be studying but by chance I happened to see the title of a book one of the others is reading, The Count of Monte Cristo, and all at once I could hear our conversations again, the walks in Saxon Switzerland, your voice. Your father sounds similar, it gave me a start when he answered the phone, and he also takes sudden breaths in through his nose like you if there’s too long a pause in the conversation. I can tell that this letter’s getting stupid, I keep jumping from one thing to another and all I wanted to do was to make contact again. On the card I’ve put in it’s meant to be a female flamingo staring at an empty postbox. I can’t draw as well as Heike. I didn’t put the card in with the letter as a reproach to you but because the empty, lifeless postbox simply doesn’t express for me what I feel when I read your letters. You wrote three to me, I’ve read through them again and again. It isn’t very easy finding the right words to express what fascinates me so about your letters. Under philosophy I’ve always imagined Chief Red Eagle or something supernatural. Or screwballs. It was your letters that have made me want to know more about the subject — but not because I feel I have to keep up with your interests. I haven’t failed to notice with what loving care your letters are written, in contrast to mine, but I didn’t know how to reply, to make my letters more confiding, more personal. Reina shy? That’s what you might perhaps be thinking now. I know that’s not the way I seem but actually I’m quite a reserved creature. Sometimes I’d really like to say something but can’t get a word out. And in Saxon Switzerland I finally had the chance to take a “risk” and put aside the characteristics of my quiet type. My fear of being rejected, of perhaps not finding the right words, has its origin in my partial lack of self-confidence. There are people who think they have to show something and so develop into “pushy” types. Probably one of the reasons why I feel affection for you is that you’re not like all the others but have something individual about you. I’m well aware that your free time will be very limited; it’s all right if you can’t write very often. Perhaps I think too seriously about many things. I’m sure that makes it more difficult to find answers and I tend to see the situation as more critical than it really is. Can we meet some time? There is a train from Leipzig to Grün. I would really like that. (Please answer this letter.) Reina.’

a grumpy railway inspector held up his lantern in front of the tanks, no, he knew nothing about this, yes, there were goods wagons ready but they weren’t for the army; and while the staff officers got on their walkie-talkies, turned the handles of their field telephones, Christian felt for Reina’s letter, for his Constantinople and South Sea talismans; lamps were hanging like white-hot pots over the station tracks, most of the railway clocks, encrusted in fly-shit and ash, weren’t working, had shattered glass, bent hands or only one; on the passenger platforms a few drunks were staggering round, waving bottles of beer and, as soon as they saw the soldiers, flying into a rage; they shouted and swore, just about managing to stand upright, upper bodies tilting forward, shaking their bottles, until Pancake, who was looking out of the driver’s hatch, said, ‘Hey guys, they’re not angry, they want to sell us some hooch!’ and scurried across, unnoticed by the bearers of the silver epaulettes, quickly did a deal and ran back, crouching, to the tank, where he threw the spoils, a shopping bag full of beer bottles, to the loader, who stuffed it under the machine gun on his side of the tank –

‘Load tanks!’ a voice ordered brusquely, torches made circles, the sign of ‘start engines’, the tanks moved forward to the loading ramp.

Christian and Pancake changed places, the better driver gave the instructions, the worse one drove; Christian raised the seat, he hadn’t driven since cadet school, the tank moved off, Christian let in the clutch far too quickly, straight as possible up the ramp, the gun above his head threw a dark shadow, a halogen spotlight on the left was dazzling, now the slope of the ramp, the tank had to be precisely aligned with the wagon, Pancake had to get the timing of the turn exactly right, a tank had no radius of curve, it turned on the spot and on the goods wagon the tracks would stick out a good way on either side, Pancake gesticulated with the flags, Christian tugged at the steering lever, now Pancake was waving ‘Stop’, Christian realized he was going too fast but couldn’t stop, suddenly found he couldn’t reach the brakes and gear lever, his uniform trousers had got stuck, as had his upper body between the edge of the hatch and the driver’s seat, ‘Stop!’ Pancake roared, appearing and disappearing in the sharp whiteness of the halogen lamp and the shadow beside it, ‘Stop, stop!’

Christian tried to switch the engine off with the lever above the knurled section but he was paralysed, could see the lever, the brown, oval plate of hard plastic you pulled down and pushed from side to side to regulate the revs but couldn’t reach it; now others were shouting, ‘Switch off, you idiot’ and ‘Down’, he saw the soldiers leap off the goods wagon; their task would have been to wedge the hefty steel chocks with the spikes into the wooden floor of the wagon in front of and behind the T55:

He pulled the steering levers into the ‘second position’ but the tank didn’t stop, as it ought to have, an old Russian thing, Christian thought,

and:

I might not be able to answer Reina’s letter at all

and:

What shall I say to Mum?

and:

This thing’s tipping over –

Growth; a moment, gentle as a pinprick at the beginning, a break, a tear, Richard could see the shed, Stahl’s bent back and, when he turned round again, the overgrown quarry in the sudden and alarming second of an explosion after which there were smells all at once: sun-warmed stone; plants keeping their flowers at the ready, like crazy archers desperate to start shooting, a bundle of ten arrows on their bowstring; of axle-grease, chicken shit; the light swivelled like a cutting torch, hitting his face full force: it made you want to suck in the fresh spring air, fists clenched, get drunk on the colours (a postbox-yellow oil can on a black shelf) — the way all that was growing and sprouting and bursting and splitting rotten husks, the way the sap was returning to the trees, making them vibrate and the leaves, like a thousand green fingers that touched and wanted to be touched, swell out, branches hummed with bee electricity; and how it was growing, his ‘baby’, as he called the Hispano — that wasn’t a car, wasn’t a lifeless machine, it had eyes that looked now happy, now sad, it was a living being with nickel veins and character.

‘Damned useless rubbish.’ Stahl threw a wrench on the ground.

‘I can’t join you, Gerhart. They’ve got me in their sights anyway.’

‘I know, you explained that.’

‘But are you really going to do it? With an aeroplane?!’

‘Crazy, yes. But there’s method in my madness. That’s exactly why it’ll succeed. They won’t be expecting something like that. And it will work, I tell you. With two MZ motorcycle engines. Fuselage wooden planks, covered in plastered fabric. Very easy to make, despite that warp-resistant. Plastic for the cockpit, I was thinking of the windscreen of a Schwalbe motorbike.’

‘Four of you!’

‘Martin will be at the back, all of us lying down. The engines ought to produce the power, I’ve done the calculations. — The only question is — can I trust you?’

‘And if you can’t.’

‘Then it’s just my bad luck. It’s not possible without outside help. And you’ve told me about your problems yourself. That wouldn’t have been very clever of you if you were going to report me.’

‘For God’s sake, I could still do it now.’

‘Like hell you would. I think I know you better than that.’ –

tipped, and Christian said, ‘Nono’, screamed:

‘No!’

felt the tank, the steel hull weighing tons, slowly sink down, so slowly that it probably looked as if it were making itself comfortable, and Christian, in the oddly uncertain light on the ramp, had time to look at everything again and take in all the details: the distressed but interested expressions of the soldiers watching, a few officers who had become aware of what was happening, Pancake’s expression that seemed to be saying, stupid, you don’t turn like that, the searchlights, the flat goods wagons along which he should have driven:

The tank fell on its track, which, since the engine was still running, dug into the ground beside the rails. Christian saw a spot of gold on a puddle, perhaps a reflection of the turret searchlight, the tank came to a stop on its side, its barrel pointing in the direction of the town, Christian felt someone grasp his shoulders and pull him out through the hatch and just let it happen, it was pleasant and the guy who’d grabbed him by the scruff of the neck would know what he was doing, it would be what was necessary; Pancake’s face, turned into a huge, black puffball by the shapeless helmet, the white side-pieces, the sheepskin of which had a bizarre glow — phosphorescence? could it be? — dangling like a dachshund’s ears: ‘Man, you could be dead!’

another voice, ‘The turret would have squashed him flat, like a mashed potato. He was sitting right at the top. Funny, a machine like that turning turtle.’

‘Must’ve been out of his mind, mustn’t he?’

‘An SI … That’s an SI … as perfect a Special Incident as you could hope to see that Hoffmann’s managed to cause … ’s he still alive?’

‘— or drowned. It probably wouldn’t ’ve squashed him but drowned him in that puddle there. I waded through it earlier on, it was deeper than I thought. Shit, I’ve got some of it in my boots.’

‘You mean head down?’

‘Head down and he can’t get out. I mean, who’s going to heave a tank up just with his feet and nothing to brace himself against?’

‘But don’t y’think it could’ve squashed him anyway? First of all snap-crack and then glug-glug.’

Then Christian was standing to one side, like an Untouchable, recalling a lesson at school when he was a child and the teacher, when there was no other way, had made him stand in a corner of the classroom (‘Facing the wall and there’ll be trouble if you move’), recalling the whispers and the quiet laughs, the idea, which made him break out in a cold sweat, that something might be wrong with his shoes, stockings, trousers, with the seat of his trousers: could he have … had his shirt gone threadbare at the back and split open, did he look funny from behind (for the first time he was made aware that others could see him from behind, could see a Christian Hoffmann he himself didn’t know); over there they were dragging the tank, the tracks of which were still going round and round, back into its normal position, organizing hawsers and the tank recovery vehicle — What’s going to happen now? Christian thought. What will they do with me? He whistled a tune. Would there be birds’ nests in this station? He’d seen a lot of bird droppings. Pigeons. He rummaged round in his pockets felt his penknife, box of matches, army ID — and something that rustled, something granular and yielding: a packet of lemonade powder, already much the worse for wear, he tore it open, tipped the contents into the hollow of his hand, spat on it, making it foam up, licked and ate the lemon-tasting powder until there was none left apart from a thin film of food-colouring on his hand that couldn’t be licked off. –

Richard waited until it was dark. On the mezzanine floor of the building, one of the typical Striesen-Blasewitz ‘coffee-grinder’ houses, the light was on, illuminating the path from the garden gate to the entrance; that would make it more difficult. Richard put on the work-jacket that he wore out in Lohmen, tightened the laces of his trainers, pulled the buckle of his belt round to the side (he’d heard that electricians working on pylons did that). It occurred to him that it would be better to creep up from the back. He climbed over the garden wall, swung himself hand over hand past an arbour, jumped down onto a concrete path. He avoided the dark, loosened soil of the flowerbed beside it, there was a shimmer of early flowers (crocuses? narcissi?) in it, pale ghosts. A trellis was no use to him, the bevelled posts were too thin and the soil below it had also been dug over. He felt the ground with the tips of his toes at a point on the wall that seemed suitable; a paving slab would provide a firm enough base for him to push off from; the slab was granite, vaguely lit by the light in the room above the window ledge: children’s room? bedroom? he didn’t know; often in this kind of house the rooms of growth and sleep were at the back, giving onto the garden. Strange how the silence seemed to fill with sounds, like a funnel sucking them in but letting too few pass through; as if the sounds were like him, waiting in the dark for a movement, but losing patience sooner since their time was limited: the crunch of a car driving out, clocks striking from the lungs of the house, garden whispers, the Sandman’s evening greeting from the television. Now a baby was crying, sobs of tired protest, it seemed to come from the other side of the apartment. Josta’s little one, Richard thought. Off we go! He jumped up but couldn’t reach the window ledge. The impact of his soles on the slab sounded unexpectedly harsh. Take off his trainers? And if he had to run for it …? You’ll be doing that anyway, he joked. What did it matter? He took his shoes off and tried again. This time he jumped higher, reached the window ledge, dangled there. Immediately his right hand, his forearm weakened from his old injury, started to hurt. What was worse was that the window ledge was sloping and was made of smooth tiles. Richard, holding on with four fingers, started to slip. One sock got stuck on the trellis when he scrabbled with his feet on either side to try and find support; in the pale light his bare foot looked like an anaemic flatfish with fringes, the house wall was icy cold. He jumped down, his bare foot landed on a piece of gravel which made him hop around in silence for a while. The sock had been pulled off by a splinter of wood precisely between his big toe and second toe. A piece of luck. He tried again with his shoes on, hung there, swaying, couldn’t manage to pull himself up. He thought of rock climbers on an ascent but that made him feel weak all at once. In an access of rage he flung up his left leg, his foot, clenched in the trainer, stuck on something, fairly high up, fragile; Richard pulled himself up; centimetre by centimetre, his fingers trembling with the effort, until he could see in through the window. He was breathing stertorously, it sounded like a faulty compressed-air valve, his right hand found something strangely flexible to hold on to (radio cable? lightning conductor?), just at that moment he felt the urge to laugh. Daniel was sitting in the room, applying dubbin to a football; Lucie, opposite him, was sitting at a children’s table wearing a white coat and a cap with a red cross, with, above it, an examination mirror such as ENT doctors use; she was bent over a naked doll, cutting a leg off with a bread knife.

unload, travel, pine twigs, parts of puzzles, bizarre, unsolved. The Elbe at Torgau was awake, Christian had never seen an awake river before, large clock face numbers were drifting down it. Could Muriel hear it? The reformatory was somewhere round here. Fields, filled with surf, bursting, crackling. Swill? Wind? Ready to pounce. The wind was grimy, heavy, little slowcoaches of graphite grease in it. ‘Alight!’ was ordered. Searchlights. Playing at knitting. The Elbe at Torgau was an awake river, a livingmost giant, no: it was whispering, shivering: a ‘listening-post giant’. With rotting boots. Yes, precisely, that was it, Pancake swirling piss-flowers over the ground covered in bird feathers: a bed linen factory (cambric; he knew the word from Emmy) in the vicinity. The river had eyeballs, one after the other. Then none again. Colour? Shoe-polish black. Keep a tight hold on it. Streaks of rotten-apple-brown, there where the crêpe-paper-grey fairy rings are dotted down. Forest honey, ever so glutinous. Just don’t try it. Flapping, swallowing: nightingale-box paint, that black. Swish, swish: trees crumbling in the star-swell, on the downriver bank where the company’s taken up position. Listen. A river like that is alive, sleeps, dreams, digests, tosses and turns, lives its giant’s life. What has it got to say?

It’s talking of the wheat.

Whispering of the ships it’s seen.

The haulers that pulled the barges upstream on chains. There were still milestones. The burlaks sang, the singsong of the barge-haulers, on the Elbe, the Volga. He recalled a picture by Ilya Repin, men in tattered clothes, greybeards and downy-faced youths, in broad harnesses dragging the ship upstream. They said, What do you want? — Music. To be alone in silence. The music of the river, the throaty murmuring down the ages. ‘To walk until you’re free, that is what you want,’ Christian chattered, unconcerned whether anyone could hear. The river wanted nothing. The river was a molten magnet, a baroque ship was stuck in it, wanted to sail on but the algae, the filth, the garbage from the towns made a slick round the bow, twisted round the throttled propeller. It couldn’t move forward, it couldn’t drift back. It was full of people, it was a city, you could see houses, electric cables, the entrails of the city. Dresden … the sigh went through the air, Dresden … a stranded ship, stuck in the past, clinging with every fibre onto the past that had never been as beautiful as the raptures you go into. Dresden … Christian took a mouthful of water. Am I a human being? What do you want? No one’s interested in what you want. Now orders will come and you will have to obey them. Now orders will be expected and you will have to give them. What is an order? How is it that there are orders anyway?

The river didn’t know. It stank of cellulose and sewage farms. Of solid glue and burnt animal skins, of shampoo from Wutha, yellow as marzipan, washing powders from Ilmenau and Genthin: IMI, Spee, Wofalor: don’t forget anything. Don’t forget anything. At Torgau the Elbe was a dead river; the water was rusty and if you threw a pfennig in, it floated for a long time.

Christian looked for a flat pebble and had a go at skimming: he heard the stone hit the water four times. It should have been five since seven times for a first try (and he hadn’t done it since he was a boy) would have been unrealistic. One too few, Christian thought. One too few is a broken leg: as the saying Anne had brought from childhood went.

The most disagreeable thing about a tank was that it gave you the feeling of being safe and sound. The company commander was pacing up and down in the preparation area, checking with the platoon leaders, the crews that were making their T55s ready for the underwater drive, known as a UD. Christian had been on one twice, for Pancake it was something new, he kept running over to the machines beside theirs. The Elbe at Torgau was wide and it was also more than a metre deep, the tanks couldn’t get across without assistance. The two underwater drives Christian had been on had been in daylight; this time they were to cross the river by night, an exercise everyone was afraid of. The preparation area was lit by several floodlights, it was a sandy clearing in a pinewood. The crews were working hurriedly, the commanders had to report their tanks as ready for UD in thirty minutes. All the things that had to be done! There was a lot Christian had had to learn; he had to know this, to be able to do that; he was the commander for whose orders the crew would wait if they didn’t know what to do next. He had to know what came next. He bore the responsibility for the crew and he would never have dreamt of being in such a tricky situation: hating the tank, the noise, the drill, the military life — but having to have mastered it because he was the commander. Technology, the principles of operation (why can’t I start a tank cold, why must the driver pre-heat the diesel and, if there’s an alert, why must I run to the tank hangar, in my pyjamas if necessary, in order to switch on the pre-heating battery?), writing surveys on tactical and strategic problems. Here as well, in the army, he was part of a Great Plan, of a great computation of mankind; here as well they used the words ‘collective’ (his crew was a ‘combat collective’) and ‘main task’.

He worked mechanically, starting in alarm when he lost concentration. He forced himself to think systematically, to go through everything step by step. Seals on the hatches exchanged for the sponge rubber ones? The loader and the gun pointer were sharply delineated shadows heaving the packed anti-aircraft machine gun onto the turret. Pancake had dropped down into his driver’s hatch, Christian heard the hum of the course indicator starting up — the device that made it possible to drive in a straight line under water. He climbed into the forward area, closed the drain of the mantlet over the cylindrical mounts, checked whether the breech wedge of the gun was closed, lashed down the turret and tightened the seal of the turret ring, which had turned out to be one of the trouble spots during previous underwater drives. Inspected and closed the filter fan next to the gun. Checked and closed the overflow slide on the rear wall of the forward area, below the heavy fragmentation and hollow-charge shells. He heard the voice of his platoon leader asking, ‘Why do we need that, Lance Corporal Hoffmann?’ — ‘In order to divert water that’s got in the drive into the forward area and pump it out from there, Comrade Lieutenant.’ — ‘And why must there be no water in the drive?’ — ‘So that it doesn’t get into the engine, Comrade Lieutenant.’ — ‘And why mustn’t any water get in? Irrgang?’ You’re the pupil and they’re the teachers Christian had sometimes thought during these instruction periods — only that here they ask about seventeen-disc dry clutches and epicycloidal gears; a school, the whole country’s a school! ‘Hey, Pancake, batteries charged up?’

‘As charged up as a sailor on shore leave. I’ve been thinking. I know the Stenzels. Trick riders from the circus.’

‘Checked lower compressed-air cylinder?’

‘One thirty kPa, enough. — Course indicator working, Comrade Mummy’s Boy.’

‘Level, earhole?’ Responding in kind, Pancake was probably grinning. Christian inserted the bilge pump.

‘Track cover plates secured, changed elephant’s rubber,’ the gun pointer shouted down the turret hatch. Elephant’s rubber — the muzzle cap on the gun. Funny words you learnt here. Close ejector plate, open dividing wall fans. What was the point of that thing there? A window between the forward area and the engine room that looked oddly like the black radiation trefoil printed on yellow: a diesel engine guzzled air and under water it couldn’t get it in the usual way through the slats in the drive-cover — they were sealed — but drew it in through the periscope tube, which was like a snorkel fixed on the loader’s side.

‘Fuel three-way tap set to interior container unit,’ Pancake reported.

‘Checking driver guide system.’ Christian pressed the buttons to activate the device with which he could guide the driver should radio contact fail. Port red, starboard green, as on a ship.

‘Left. Right.’ Pancake repeated Christian’s commands.

‘Right then. Shitting yourself?’ One of the driving instructors had stuck his head into Pancake’s hatch.

‘I’ve never drowned yet.’

‘Keep an eye on the auxiliary transmission. Forgot the cover plate last time, just a tiny leak and it poured in like a mountain stream. Hey, Nemo,’ the driving instructor shouted. ‘Pancake’s to go over, to One, the CC’s driver’s unwell.’

‘And who’s his replacement?’

‘Nutella.’

Christian switched on the command frequency, on which the CC could communicate with the tank commander, and the recovery frequency, which called the recovery tank. The next tank, Irrgang’s, hooted twice, a diesel engine roared into life. Christian looked across: the gun pointer was controlling the fuel with the Bowden cable through the closed driver’s hatch, the driver watched the manometer, Irrgang, holding a stopwatch, raised his arm. They were already on the low-pressure-leak test — and had come through it to go by Irrgang’s expression. They had hardly anything to do with each other any more; each went his own way and tried as far as possible to get the upper hand … Say nothing, keep your head down, be invisible. Lie. Christian had not told Anne the truth in his letter. The art of knowing how to lie — how to praise enthusiastically, how to keep a serious expression when saying stupid things that are empty of meaning but please the person you’re flattering, how to encourage illusions. Herr Orré had taken great pains. And Irrgang had lost his witty repartee. After duty he mostly lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to Costa’s melancholy music that he’d copied onto cassettes before Costa was discharged. If he had a pass, he came back drunk. That was presumably what was meant by being brought into line. Big Irrgang, never at a loss for a quick saucy response, now jumped smartly to attention for every officer, didn’t argue any more, said what was expected in political education, secretly cut the monthly seal off the string of seals the more junior soldiers used to count the days until they were due for discharge … Leak test OK, they continued. Thirty seconds had to pass before the pressure fell from 1,200 to 200 mm of water. Since he had been commander Christian’s tank had never managed that; like most of the tanks in the regiment, his T55 was an ‘old banger’, a ‘rust bucket’ and the best servicing could do nothing about it. Tank 302 remained watertight for twenty-five seconds, despite the layers of UD putty that had been smeared over it, actually five seconds too few for the forthcoming exercise, but what did they say: Actually the sun’s shining, you just can’t see it for all this rain.

Burre. All the sympathy Christian felt for him couldn’t alter the fact that he was a lousy driver.

He reported for duty: ‘I’m to join you.’ He attempted a grin, tilted his head, climbed aboard the tank.

‘C’mon, c’mon, time’s passing,’ the platoon leader urged them. ‘The drive’s still open, shut the thing, get your finger out.’

Burre disappeared down the driver’s hatch.

‘Slats position five,’ Christian ordered, shining the hand lamp. Moths flew out, the pines smelt of resin. ‘Position two!’ The gun pointer and he stamped the lock on the drive unit shut. ‘Lock!’ Check the lugs — the drive unit was closed. Musca had already collimated the UD pipe, transferred the recovery hawsers, tied on the floating buoys, white in front, red at the back. During the first UD exercise Christian had put them the wrong way round and had had to suffer the bawling-out of the tug commander: should there be an accident, a tank was pulled out by the stern hawser to which the red buoy was tied — ‘if you’d got stuck I’d ’ve had to drag your bow round ’n people ’ve drowned when that happens, dickhead!’ –

‘Dear Christian, Comet fever has broken out here, everyone’s humming Halley, Halley; even Herr Honich, whom we know as a dyed-in-the-wool materialist, had none of his dismissive remarks based on scientific dialectics for the Widow Fiebig in the queue for rolls recently — it was so impressive in the night of the comet (I spent it in Arbogast’s observatory with the Urania group, Ulrich was there, Barbara and Gudrun came along later) the way, just at the moment when the sky cleared and such a wealth of constellations appeared, that we felt like Babylonian astrologers — the way that at that moment the clocks all struck, all at the same time it seemed, from near and from afar; a jingling, tolling, tinkling, pealing, gonging, Westminster-chiming, as if all their hands were in collusion and all that despite the fact that this time the comet couldn’t be seen in the northern hemisphere; only the Widow Fiebig refused to believe it, craned her neck and shouted, “There, there! That’s it’s sulphur tail!” But it was only one of Herr Malthakus’s jokes, he’d set off an anachronistic New Year’s rocket from the roses below Arbogast’s Institute. We also thought it was a joke, something we couldn’t really take seriously, when Professor Teerwagen was arrested recently. He was supposed to be a spy, it was said; dubious dealings in Mexico; his wife seems to have known nothing at all about it and now she’s in the Academy, being treated by Dr Clarens. — Lange’s turning strange. On the evening of the comet, after the talks (Stahl spoke about reservoir dams, Ulrich about the Babylonians) Arbogast organized a guided tour of his estate, as smiling and inscrutable as ever, and Lange suddenly groaned and started to ramble, pointed to a sealed bottle, saying, “Lead, it’s made of lead, and the seal on top, encrusted with gold — King Solomon’s bottle!” — “But Herr Lange,” Arbogast laughed, “who believes such fairy tales? That’s an eighteen-twelve cognac trapped in ethyl alcohol from Kutusov’s supplies, he took it from the French general staff as they were retreating across the Beresina.” Sometimes Libussa comes down and takes me to one side. Alois, she says, is spending all their money on sailing ships: photographs, ships in bottles, books; sometimes in his sleep he mutters the names of the captains of the Laeisz Line, the names of the ships, he knows all the legends, every one of their sails — and that when he’s never been on a sailing ship himself. And what does he say to her? “My little Brunetka,” he replies, “I have to know all about it for when the great hell-ship comes and the press gang tell me to join the crew …” That’s the latest from up here. Let me know if you need any books. Libussa’s just shouted for me to send you her best wishes. She’s going to make up a package of preserves for you. Frau Honich has started a Timur Assistance project for the elderly here, does the shopping for them, deals with the authorities (commendable, you can’t deny), her husband’s carrying coal, also has a package to take to the post office. Perhaps it’ll include socialist greetings for you. You have the honour of guarding the peace for us. You should look on it as experience, Libussa’s just shouted. Worth recording, says Adeling the waiter, alias Skinny. Best wishes, Meno.’

Twenty-five seconds for the leak test, the platoon leader had called the company commander over, he waved the objection away, ‘Drive on. They’ll be on the other side before the tank’s full.’ Christian was sitting on the loader’s side, from now on it was radio traffic over the command frequency of the UD route; he was worked up, he could only see an occasional gleam of light through the periscope, perhaps from the regiment in the woods, perhaps from the Elbe already, from the recovery armoured personnel carrier, the engineers’ boat or the motor tractors. They’d passed the initial checkpoint and were travelling along the line of departure, Musca’s tank in front of them, the goldsmith behind; Burre accelerated too much and didn’t steer smoothly enough, the UD tube, which was now extended, scraped against twigs. The direction indicator, a gyro compass, added its hum to the crackle of the radio. He hoped Burre was familiar with the direction indicator — if not, the tank could veer off course if Christian couldn’t manage to guide it by the periscope. Vision: a disc the size of a saucer, no more. Across there, on the other side of the Elbe, floodlights had been set up, he had to focus on them before the serious business started.

Checkpoint. Musca stopped. The other tanks continued steadily on their way. Christian heard shouts, someone closed the shutter valve on the exhaust; footsteps, stamping, flap 6 over the drive was closed. ‘Idle at eleven hundred revs,’ Christian ordered, Burre repeated.

‘Line up on floodlights.’

‘Is lined up.’

‘Unlock direction indicator.’

‘Is unlocked.’

‘… foor-ward!’ Christian heard the company commander order over the radio. So now the serious business was starting. His diving goggles were pinching. Was the glass misting over? That ought not to happen. Gun pointer, loader, driver — they all wore diving goggles over their padded helmets. The black life-saving equipment over their chest so that the loader, who was on Christian’s seat above the gun pointer, could only twist and turn with the greatest difficulty. The light filled the forward area with a misty ochre. Was the turret really lashed tight? Burre let the clutch in gently, the shutter valve made a snort of irritation. That wasn’t the earlier noise, the one they’d listened for with tense expressions during the leak test; the sucking in of the outside air at the turret race ring, almost ending in a slurp. The company commander wasn’t replying; the noise floor of the radio, a crackling, as if from slight electrical discharges. The tank tipped forward. Christian could see through the periscope that they were nicely lined up on the floodlights, were going down the UD track. The river was known there, but not on either side of it. Musca’s tank was already in the middle of the river. No one knew anything about underwater obstacles. Nip had told them a story from his time as an ensign: when recovering a T54 that had got stuck, a motor tractor had struck an unexploded bomb. It was here at Torgau that the Americans and Russians had met; the Elbe was silent about what had been before. There were channels and potholes in rivers, Christian knew that from fishing, treacherous deeps, wash-outs made by the current where the old fish liked to stay. There were shoals, places where the bank had been undermined, others where the river bed would give way, inner and outer banks at bends. He switched over to internal radio. Burre was muttering, the gun pointer was muttering.

‘Coolant temperature?’

‘Ninety.’

‘Brief report, Jan.’ A hundred and ten degrees was the maximum temperature for coolant, more than that and the tank could be damaged. A slight draught — the diesel engine was taking in air from the cockpit. Woe betide them if the UD tube went under water. Water from above, the air sucked out from behind.

‘Report, three-zero-two,’ it crackled over the radio. Christian switched over, then the radio went off. The internal radio too. Christian guided the driver via the driver guide system. ‘To the left. To the right. Not so far! To the left!’ Burre made the correction. Christian could hear him talking. The tank creaked, the struts at the back were being wrung by hydraulic forces, the wind got caught in the periscope tube, swirled up and down making an odd rumbling noise, perhaps there was sand in it, as the ship’s doctor had told him about the old sailing ships: in a storm the captains would stay on the poop deck and if they felt sand scouring their face, they would know the ship was in danger of running aground, there must be land or a sandbank out there. He couldn’t see anything. The navigation light on the other bank had disappeared.

‘Report direction indicator.’

No reply from Burre.

‘Position!’ Christian bawled. The loader raised his head that he was apathetically leaning against the gun pointer’s shoulders, as if the latter were giving him a piggyback; his eyes were large dark splodges.

‘Ze-hero,’ Burre sang out. He was actually singing. Anything that occurred to him, it seemed: the ‘Internationale’, the hymn of the German Socialist Party, a setting of a Goethe poem and the song of the Thälmann Column in the Spanish Civil War. The sound of flowing water changed, suddenly the tank slipped to the right, sank down, took a knock.

‘What are you doing, arsehole?’ The gun pointer stamped down but his boot caught in the MG cartridge holder; he stamped down again, directing a stereotyped ‘arsehole, arsehole’ at the space between the optical periscope and the cylinders of compressed air, where Burre’s back must be. And now water burst in. Before that the tank had been sweating, Christian had observed drops swelling up in the join of the turret race ring, thinking, OK then, it’s sweating as well, it’s pretty hot in here. A sauna. Warm sweat from his feet was going through his grey military socks into his boots, where it sloshed about for a while; sweat dripped from the extensor side of his thigh to the flexor side, built up, dribbled down when he moved, mingling with the sweat from his feet; sweat was trickling down from his back into the groove between his buttocks, he was sitting in warm soup. The cover plate of the intermediate transmission, Christian thought. He hadn’t checked it. Pancake had climbed through to the back but shortly afterwards the order to change drivers had come. Criminal, really, Christian thought, you don’t split up a crew used to working together and certainly not just before a night UD. The loader caught some drips and rubbed them between his hands. Christian looked at the gun pointer. He didn’t even know his full name, only his surname and that he came from a village in Thuringia and was a mechanic for farm machinery. ‘Pump out.’ The bilge pump began to spin, bubbling, smacking noises, reassuring. Funny that a tank had similarities to a U-boat. The bilge pump couldn’t cope with all the water, by now it was also coming from the drive into the forward area, Christian was surprised the engine was still running. The radio still wasn’t working. The water was rising. It was up to the gun pointer’s boot. Burre must be right in it. And the smell: a mixture of burnt rubber and fossil hen’s eggs. The tank tilted further down. Christian tried the periscope, found a floodlight far to the left. They must have come off the route. They’d be doing something up there — if they’d noticed, which Christian hoped they had. ‘Left, left,’ he shouted as the tank went further to the right. His diving goggles were gradually misting over and his view of the others was blurred. And then the stupid tank hood with its fleece getting wetter and wetter. Where was all the water coming from? The bilge pump couldn’t cope with it –

‘Dear Christian, There’s not much that’s new to tell. I hope you can read my “gentian script” (as Gudrun calls it); I prefer phoning to writing, but since you haven’t got a phone I’m sending you these brief items of news. Please excuse the “case history” sheet, I’m writing this between seeing two patients. Our veranda’s almost completely rotten by now, perhaps Meno told you. It’s also sunk so that the windows are squint and the glass has cracked. The glazier cut the new ones to fit the slanting frames. We had to supply the material ourselves. We went all round the town. The leak in the roof hasn’t got worse, thank God — the roofing felt you got us is worth its weight in gold. The roofer said, Have you got an allocation for roofing felt? One for adhesive? No? Then let the rain come in, pal. Not long ago I was sitting in my favourite chair with a pipe and Tannhäuser (Max Lorenz, State Orchestra, Fritz Busch) and there was a crack! then plaster crumbling, one of the wall ties had come out. I thought: well, to sink slowly down into the spruce tree along with the veranda, listening to Tannhäuser (and that recording above all), having just got my pipe going and enjoying a nice little glass of liqueur, that could definitely be a source of new insights. For three and a half months now, since the severe frost in January, it’s been like living on a farm here, both toilets were frozen up, only the water in the kitchen was still working, we have to get water from there to fill the buckets we use to flush the lavatories. The Schwedes below us have this ingenious water-pipe-heating-ring (one of Herr Stahl’s brilliant inventions) that has just the one disadvantage — it’s dependent on electricity. If there hadn’t been a power cut the pipes wouldn’t have frozen. The Communal Housing Department immediately wanted to copy the water-pipe-heating-ring — but, God, who’s going to do that? The next time you’re here, pop in to the practice to see me; I’ll take you with me on my rounds. Or to the Friends of Music, we’ve managed to find some more lovely records. Since Chernobyl old Frau Zschunke’s been stuck with all her vegetables. The accident to the reactor’s the big topic of conversation in the town. Officially it’s played down, but the Valley of the Clueless borders on the hills that can receive Western television. See you soon. Best wishes, Niklas.’

then the engine stopped. The bilge pump gurgled on for a while then that fell silent too. The light made a rasping noise but stayed on. Christian could just make out the outlines of the others. The lashing bar of the gun had an unnatural white gleam. The water was rising more slowly, a dark mass that looked as if it had crackling cellophane stretched over it; it calmly started to swallow a fragmentation shell.

‘Jan?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Jan!’ Christian bellowed. The gun pointer shook his head. ‘Can’t see him.’

‘Restart!’

No one answered. The characteristic rumbling start of the engine after the explosion of the compressed-air ignition didn’t come. ‘Switch on recovery frequency.’ Nothing there either. It was quiet, the warmth was pleasant now. If they had to get out then it must be the way they’d practised in the diving bell, enclosed in a flooded steel chamber. Swimming goggles and life-saving equipment on, breathing, the others panicking but not him, Christian Hoffmann, the son of a metalworker and trauma surgeon. Under water the sounds came with a delay, echoed sleepily, taps with a wrench were used for communication. Unlock hatch, calmly climb up into the water-filled cylinder — don’t panic, that was the most important thing. Panic destroyed everything, made an ordered sequence of actions impossible. An algorithm, Baumann, the apple-cheeked mathematician from Waldbrunn, would have said. Why did that occur to him now, of all times? What was the matter with Burre? Why wasn’t he replying? Christian signalled to the gun pointer to go and check. He pointed to the rising water. But then the light did finally go out.

‘RG-UD on.’ The instruments gradually took on a phosphorescent glow: infrared sighting mechanism, radio dial and the stupid thermometer the gun pointer had brought that wasn’t part of standard equipment. Sixty-eight degrees in the tank. They had to get out. He thumped the turret walls, perhaps someone from the rescue boat would hear, perhaps the tug commander was experienced enough to realize what had happened. White buoy at the front, red buoy at the rear. Put the hawsers on the downstream side, otherwise they’ll be pressed against the turret and could twist. It was dark but he could breathe. At this moment a verse by Goethe occurred to him. ‘White as lilies, candle-pure, / Starlike, bowing modestly, / From their centre, from their hearts, / The fire of love is glowing brightly.’ The Chinese — German Book of Seasons and Hours. He murmured to himself. He heard the boat, someone was tapping the UD tube. Christian tapped a response; wait. ‘The water roared, the water rose, / A fisher sat beside it.’ If Burre had tried to climb out of the exit hatch at the bottom of the hull, the tank might crush him when the tractor pulled the recovery hawser.

‘Dear Reina, Thank you for your letter. Perhaps we can see each other. There’s been an accident. My driver was injured during an exercise and died in hospital. I did something stupid, I attacked my company commander. Now I’m back in the barracks with no idea what they’re going to do with me. It’s possible I might get a pass since almost the whole of the regiment is still out on the exercise; officially I’m confined to barracks but I know the company clerk who’s in charge of the passes that have been signed but aren’t filled in very well. Please don’t say anything to my parents. Best wishes, Christian.’

56. Perhaps you repeated often-said words, pointed out things you’d often seen, and drew attention to things you knew anyway

‘There’s no salt.’

‘My weak side. Here. Sorry. I’m always forgetting it. I’ve made three cups of coffee for you. You can leave them, if you like. I’m on the afternoon shift.’

‘Do you need the car? It’d be nice if I could have it. When I’ve finished I could go to the plumber’s, they’ve finally got some instantaneous water heaters in stock again.’

‘If you’d finally got your Süza working you could go in that.’

‘Suiza.’

‘It seems a bit fishy to me what the pair of you are doing out there. Are we ever going to get to see the car?’

‘Why don’t you come out there. Bring Robert with you, he’s interested in it.’

‘He’s to concentrate on his work for the school-leaving exam. — And Stahl’s helping you just for the sake of it, with nothing in it for him? Because, as an engineer, he loves the Süza?’

‘Are you suspicious?’

‘There’s just one thing I ask: don’t get involved in anything. Think of the children.’

‘Morning, Reglinde.’

‘Morning. Can I use the bathroom?’

‘I just need to wash my hands, then you can. Would you take the rubbish when you go? Do you need anything from the chemist’s? I’m going shopping when I’ve finished.’

‘Just some toothpaste, Anne. I’m starting a bit later today, I can give you a hand, if you like.’

‘My God, who can that be at the door at this time in the morning?’

‘I’ll get it. — Morning, Niklas. Something urgent?’

‘Morning, Richard. Switch on West German radio. Our radio’s on the blink.’

‘The one from Japan? The one you brought back when you were abroad with the State Orchestra?’

‘Morning, Anne. Yeah, the Sharp. And who’s going to repair it for me now? Just listen. — It’s a disgrace. And they don’t tell us, the devious swine. Think we won’t cotton on. They’ll end up blowing us all sky high. A nice breakfast there. I wouldn’t say no to a cup of coffee.’

‘Do sit down.’

‘Morning, Lindy.’

‘Morning, Schmoops.’

‘And what have your monkeys to say about that?’

‘They’re radiant.’

‘They’ll poison us, I tell you. Sell us down the river, down the toxic river. Bastards. — What have you on today, Richard?’

‘As per schedule.’

‘Aha, routine, eh. For me too. There’s a bit of flu about again. Meno’s going to drop in later on, the poor soul’s got a bit of a cough. Well, I’ll be on my way again. Thanks for the coffee. But it’s a funny business with Teerwagen, don’t you think? Was supposed to have secret papers on him. Rockets or something of the kind. A U-boat the like of which has never been seen before. Oh God, when I go back I’ll have all the stoves to do … It’s nice and warm in here. Well, Ezzo has to do the stove in the children’s room himself. But the living room, the music room … The one in the living room’s on its last legs. Fibrosis of the lungs, the final stage, I’d say. When I think I’ll have to let a stove fitter loose on it, oh horror! The dirt, the noise!’

‘Do sit down, Niklas, you’re getting on my nerves going up and down like that.’

‘Thanks, Richard, but I’m off. Though if you have another cup of coffee there … One has to keep awake. Any news from Christian?’

‘His regiment was on an exercise, night alert and so on.’

‘Now then, Anne, don’t take on. The lad’ll get through. Takes after Richard as far as his constitution’s concerned — I’d like to know how you can stand it all, mate, operating for hours on end, then writing reports and your outpatients. By the way, I’ve got some more great records. Great records, I tell you. We must listen to some again. State Orchestra, Rudi Kempe, Strauss. Terrific. Simply terrific.’

‘Won’t you have something to eat?’

‘Well, if you insist. I wouldn’t say no to that piece of cherry cake. It’s a real miracle is your cherry cake. — Tell me, Richard: Müller, he’s retired now, isn’t he?’

‘Officially from the first of May but he’s already had his leaving party.’

‘And you’re the boss now?’

‘Whatever gave you that idea! Trautson’s the temporary head of the clinic until the appointment procedure’s completed. I haven’t applied.’

‘You just be careful you don’t get sidelined. That sometimes happens after change-overs. — It’s an absolute disgrace, this Chernobyl, I’m really getting worked up about it. The dirty liars, that gang of criminals, no, no. Where’s it all going to end? You tell me, where’s it all going to end? There’s a little space here, Lindy.’

‘You know Sperber, don’t you, Niklas?’

‘Not personally and not particularly well. Why?’

‘He’s invited us round. To his house.’

‘Tricky business. A dubious character, if you ask me. A go-between — and he doesn’t get stung by either side, as my teacher Rudi Citroën used to say. — Y’know what? I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.’

‘I’ll make some more.’

‘Oh, I’m bein’ a nuisance, putting you to all this bother. I’ll toddle along at once. If things go on like this we’ll have to get out, Richard. ’s not the money, you know. But you have the feeling … as if you’re slowly being drowned. But wouldn’t that be betraying our patients?’

‘That keeps on cropping up: the doctor as a bastion of morality. There are patients on the other side as well.’

‘Yes, but you’re here to make the patients here well again.’

‘With what? What should I do if the health service is ailing itself? Use empty syringes? Is that moral?’

‘I didn’t even get any more plasters the last time. You’re right, y’know, it’s all very well for them to talk about it being morally unprincipled for a doctor to skedaddle over there. You never hear anything about how morally unprincipled it is to be a doctor with nothing to give your patients here. I’ve been havin’ to prescribe Julie from the riding school cold-water treatment that she doesn’t even administer to herself. It wouldn’t be ’cause of the money. That’s jus’ what they say it’s about. An’ then havin’ to tell your children to lie so they don’t get into trouble. An’ to tell the “firm” what you hear from your patients. Oh yes, that’ll be moral all right, won’t it? Not that I do that, though.’

‘Dad.’

‘OK, OK. But that’s the way things are. You get drowned here, slowly and thoroughly. Y’have to breathe through y’r ears, keep y’r trap shut with y’r eyes, an’ you’re s’posed to stay here into the bargain. All right, all right, I’m on my way.’

57. Suspended matter

‘Reina?’

‘Richard?’

‘— I do too.’

58. Sing and be happy

You will include the woman or the girl you love in all these considerations, wishes and dreams. You will write to her and receive mail from her. Through her love she will help you to meet the high demands and master the strains of military life.

What It Means to be a Soldier

He stood on the platform, between two dustbins that were full to overflowing, thinking. He was thinking about how it had come about that he was stuck here and had had to steal a pass. Reina would arrive on the 4 p.m. train from Leipzig. Philosophy. It was about power and nothing else. You’re to go there and there, and if you don’t do that we’ll lock you up. And then two men will come and arrest you and if you kick out with your legs you’ll get a thump on the head. And if you knock the two of them down, four will come. And even if you can deal with them, a fifth will appear. Christian was sweating in his walking-out uniform but didn’t roll up the sleeves of his blue-grey shirt — the military patrols carried out checks here at the station above all, and presumably first and foremost on soldiers with a pass who were not dressed according to regulations. He felt like smoking, he’d allowed himself a cigarette now and then, to relieve the pressure, but he’d stink of it and he didn’t have enough mints to cover the smell. Moreover, when he smoked he could see Ann’s worried expression in his mind’s eye; it spoilt the pleasure of smoking and he was annoyed at that.

Officers came and went, passenger trains stopped with a squeal of brakes, no one waved to him. Perhaps Reina looked different — a new hairstyle, her face no longer that of a girl, a year and a half could be a long time. He was twenty-and-a-half years old and when he thought back to their conversations by Kaltwasser reservoir, to his mania for learning as much as possible, his delusion about becoming famous, he felt he could smile like an old man. He’d had light work during the day, Nip had chased him round the company a bit, tidying up, polishing floors, cleaning weapons, heating the bathroom stove (for four men: himself, Pancake and two sick soldiers on barracks duty). Breathing space. Burre had died in the military hospital, there had only been a brief interruption to the exercise, during the initial questioning by the military prosecutor; Burre’s mother had only been informed after the death of her son. That was the ‘Burre case’, the ‘Hoffmann case’ was still pending. But that was a dream, it couldn’t be anything else. All that just wasn’t right. Burre’s slack body, still half stuck in the hatch while the recovery tank was already pulling. The gurgling darkness, the gun pointer helplessly flailing round above him until he gave him a kick: Get out of the way, crawl over to the loader’s side or behind the gun, open the hatch and climb out, but let me get at Burre. If that was true, then how could he be out here on Grün Station waiting for a train from Leipzig in his walking-out uniform? People stared at him. You couldn’t wear these things, even in a small garrison town like Grün, without getting hostile or contemptuous looks. But I’m not one of them! he wanted to cry out. I hate these things just as much as you do. Surely you must realize that, lots of you have done military service. The blue-grey shirt made of poor-quality material with the dull aluminium buttons and the ‘Monkey’s swing’, the silver braided marksman’s cord, dangling down; some, who had shown greater ambition than he, had the military sports badge, the marksman’s bar, pinned to their chest; the cap with its stiff plastic peak and cheap cockade, the grey felt trousers and the black shoes; the plastic arch of the sole had to be polished — an old Wehrmacht tradition, as Christian had been told at cadet school: there were seams on the arches of their military boots and woe to thee, Russia, if they hadn’t been greased. You had to have your sewing kit with you as well: torn trousers, always a possibility, would be detrimental to the dignity of the member of the army and therefore to the armed forces as a whole, so had to be mended immediately.

The train, a grumpy voice that sounded as if it were made of felt announced, was delayed. But now the light was falling, withdrawing, seemed to be saying, Come on, it’s up to you now, to the twilight. This was the hour of the day Christian liked best. He used to like the early morning just as much, when the air was still fresh and had a silky dampness, like a sensitive photo that had just been taken out of the fixative; but those hours no longer belonged to him, for eighteen months now they had been the hours of whistles and shrill shouts, of the start of terrible days. This wilting, this hardly perceptible waning was something different. The station, with its grubby concourse, the sleepers with their dusting of ash, the smell of toilets, Mitropa snack bars and coal, seemed to be drinking in the thinning light, gradually filling itself with it until, with its rusty red dusting of ash, it had entirely become non-poisonous copper bloom. At this moment it would be enough to spread your arms to be able to fly — as he knew and it filled him with joy and satisfaction. The other people on the platforms seemed to feel the same, he saw workers throw out their chests, stride up and down with a bouncing gait, then, when they once more became aware of being watched, pluck at their overalls in embarrassment; he saw the down-and-outs hold up their bottles of beer assessingly to the light; and all at once the two men in the uniform of the transport police were casually swinging their batons. And he — he had cyclamen. Bought at Centraflor on the station forecourt where a supply had just been unloaded from a lorry; hundreds of pots of cyclamen; no cut flowers.

Reina alighted from the last carriage of the train that had just arrived. Christian gave an embarrassed wave, waited, set off hesitantly; he suddenly felt this meeting was inappropriate, the pot of cyclamen, which he was holding like a basket full of bees, ridiculous; the purple, turned-back flowers waved dementedly in the evening breeze. For a moment Christian thought of Ina in Berlin, of his wedding present for her and the awkward gesture with which he’d put it in her hand. He lifted up the pot, at the same time Reina also lifted up her present; unlike him she’d unpacked her cyclamen and as they exchanged their ‘Hello, Christian’ and ‘Hi, Reina’, they also exchanged their pots of cyclamen. Reina raised her shoulders, scratched her upper arm, looking for an insect bite, and Christian couldn’t think of anything to say; he searched desperately for some compliment but what occurred to him, of all things, was that the scar on her neck brought out the delicacy of her skin, the lovingly scattered freckles. But he didn’t want to say that, just like that. It would have made her even more confused, more inhibited than she seemed to be: standing there, uncertain what to do, for now she was there and that left the question of what they should do, in a strange town that Christian too only knew from its station — barracks, metal works, chemical smells, the Dutch Courage were none of them the kind of place one knew because one was at home there.

Reina was there; he had no expectations. She’d changed in the eighteen months since the senior high, the woman she was becoming shimmered through her still girlish features, her hair was done differently: Christian found these changes strangely arousing and since he immediately began to reflect on that, he trotted along beside Reina in silence, head bowed, sensing the torment that she was trying to cover over with words that didn’t get to him. He wasn’t quite sure but he felt for a moment that he wanted to annoy her a little — that was when she was at her prettiest. She hadn’t put on very much make-up, for that he was grateful. Her new hairstyle, yes, that did look a bit dolled up, that would be the effect of the big city. That and the womanliness in her features made Reina strange beyond what he had expected and imagined, and that was precisely what aroused him, not her smell, her voice, not the glances of the others on the platform that awoke from their torpor as they passed over Reina and drew back into contempt, perhaps just indifference, when they looked at Christian. I don’t belong to you any more, the womanliness in Reina seemed to be saying and aroused desire, the instinct for possession. She fell silent; immediately he withdrew into himself, even more than he had already done with his discourteous silence that made their encounter hard work for her, an exhausting search for ways of getting a conversation going, leaving the approach to her; and now he felt bitter, decided it had been a mistake to meet Reina, especially in his situation.

Christian sought out the shade, looked nervously to the left and right, taking on the skipping gait, ever ready to flee, to manoeuvre, of those who believe they are being followed. Sometimes he quickly ducked, clenched his fists (he’d stowed the cyclamen in the knapsack he’d brought with him) as if there were something in the empty air between them that he could only ward off in that way; sometimes he abruptly took one step back, which, as he noticed, Reina at first found irritating, then merely awkward, it seemed; but he was only avoiding an anticipated burst of light, an as yet invisible punishment that he didn’t know and couldn’t have explained but was sure to come, perhaps already had a face and was observing him; whatever he did, it would encounter him, and differently, in a different form from the one he expected. But he too could behave unexpectedly, not avoid a patch of brightness here, there take fifteen paces straight forward and suddenly swerve to the right because the punishment was thinking, right, I’ve got you now, at the sixteenth pace you’re mine — but that was precisely when he’d gone off to the side, the spear had been thrust into empty space! Christian realized that Reina had stopped.

‘You’re being very odd, what’s wrong? I think you’re not even listening to me.’

That was true. Like a euphoric sower on his field, the neon sign over the station concourse kept on casting a cheerful ‘Welcome to Grün — the pearl of the West Erzgebirge’ over the floor, unconcerned that it was pale from carefully torn-up newspaper. Reina wouldn’t start to cry now. The shy Reina, as she’d written in her letter; she began to dissolve into the mocking Reina who could turn into the hurtful Reina; he felt sorry about that and yet incapable of making things any easier for her. He felt paralysed, he would have known what words to use, but they refused to roll off his tongue, it was lumpy and too steep a climb and they just couldn’t make it.

‘Your letter, have they … I did receive your letter.’

Yes: he just nodded, briefly observed the way her fingers were tapping the edge of the cyclamen pot, then he gave her a bag that she accepted with a thoughtful look. There was a cupboard on the station forecourt and Christian would have thought it quite natural if the door had opened to reveal a skinny, white-eyed girl. ‘They haven’t decided anything yet. There’ll be a hearing. Military court. We should talk about something else.’

‘I went to see your parents.’

‘You said so in your letter.’

‘Should I go back? You’re so negative.’

‘No. No.’ And then another word that took a great effort to say but for that very reason he wanted to see what would happen when he did say it: ‘Sorry.’ It came out fairly easily and made him think of Waldbrunn, his walk along the Wilde Bergfrau, his arrogance that was directed at Verena.

‘Where are we going?’ Reina looked round, didn’t seem to like what she saw.

‘Dunno. Have you any suggestions? I don’t really know my way round here. Cinema?’ he said, in the hope that they would sit there next to each other, watch some film or other, remain silent. Silence was what was best. Each close to the other, just close, without words. But Reina said no. ‘We can’t talk there. Perhaps … perhaps that sounded too challenging: Where are we going? It was just …’

They passed the cinema, it was the only one in the town. It was showing Soviet fairy-tale films: The Scarlet Flower, Gharib in the Land of the Djinns. Christian liked to go to the cinema when he had a pass. It reminded him of the Tannhäuser Cinema. The roof was damaged, on fine days the sunlight came in through a gap, rain on wet days — on sunny days a black umbrella with balloons tied on and guided by a string was floated up underneath the hole, on wet days a bucket placed under it.

‘You always called me Montecristo. My real name made you laugh.’

‘I didn’t say anything to your parents, just as you told me. But don’t you think … Your father could do something for you.’

‘No. They have enough worries as it is. Especially my mother. — We could go and have a meal. My treat.’

‘Verena’s made an application to leave. She’s in Leipzig too, I sometimes see her.’

‘That could harm you.’

‘I’ve already had a discussion in the dean’s office. It was two of them who conducted the discussion. — But she’s my friend, they can’t forbid me to see her.’

‘Oh yes they can. They have ways of doing it. The guy who died offered to spy for them if they saw to it that he was transferred. They said: It’s where you are now that we need you, Comrade Burre. Of course we’ll protect you, we know what military ethics means. They can do as they like.’ They crossed the marketplace to the fountain. Jets of water came from a four-headed gryphon in black sandstone. ‘And Siegbert?’ Christian asked.

‘They’ve separated.’ That wasn’t the self-confident, sometimes haughty Reina he’d known any more. She seemed apprehensive, cautious, often looking round, scrutinizing the passers-by, the policemen strolling across the marketplace. ‘You know, I always wanted to write to you, but I didn’t dare. So much has changed. We left school and … well, perhaps it sounds odd now … so naive. Perhaps that’s the way we were. I mean, I knew I couldn’t say everything, not to Schnürchel nor to Red Eagle and certainly not to Fahner. And I asked myself: why not, actually? They’re communists, they claim to be honest … And us? Why do we talk one way at home and quite differently at school … just churn out what we know’s expected of us so as not to get into trouble? But why should you get into trouble when you have an opinion that’s counter to other opinions? And why is there this contradiction: on the one hand reality — on the other what’s written about it and they’re completely different? I was so blind … I didn’t know anything. Sometimes I would sit in my room in the school hostel and think of you and that you probably despise me for my cluelessness. But you … you were fortunate —’

‘Siegbert sometimes accused me of that.’

‘I’m not reproaching you for that, far from it. It’s just … upbringing. I was brought up to believe in the country, in the ideals, the system. Well, brought up …’ Reina laughed nervously. ‘… there were so many things my parents couldn’t care less about. Apart from: as long as you expect us to support you —’

‘Can Verena continue her studies?’

‘She’s been kicked out. Before that she was one of the best, people couldn’t do enough for her — then her application and she was dropped like a hot potato.’

‘This tender butterfly with dark brown eyes.’

‘You were in love with her.’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘She wasn’t worth it!’ Reina declared in a sudden outburst of hatred.

‘She was so. — How’s her sister?’

‘She and their mother both still have their jobs. Her father was dismissed immediately she made the application. Apart from me all her friends have turned their backs on her. Siegbert already had problems of his own and one of them told him that if he didn’t break off his relationship with Fräulein Winkler they couldn’t guarantee anything any more.’

‘Does he still want to go to sea?’

‘Yes. That’s why they’ve got him where they want him. He’s studying education now, sport and geography.’

‘Siegbert a teacher! And his enlistment for four years?’

‘He’s withdrawn it. — All her friends have turned their backs on her. As if she were a leper. And me? What should I do? They tell me straight out that I should break off the relationship.’

‘Then do that. Eventually she’ll be over there. And what use will it be to you if Verena’s gone and you’re not allowed to go to university?’

‘Do you really think that? You?’

‘I don’t know what I think. I just know the way things are.’

‘You can’t really think that. Siegbert yes. But not you. And you know that. It’s only for the sake of argument that you’re pretending to be so cynical. But you’re not like that.’

‘Why not? There’s something to what I said. Anyway, I don’t know myself what I’m like. But you claim you do know. We haven’t seen each other for ages and there was a time —’

‘What d’you mean by that — you don’t know yourself?’

‘There are situations, decisions you have to take … But things turn out differently and you’re surprised. Perhaps you were more of a coward than you thought. Perhaps you thought you were an honourable person who knew what was right and that there were certain things you wouldn’t do — and then you find yourself secretly reading somebody else’s diary. — What was it like at my parents’? Why did you go to see them?’

‘I’d done this work experience year, in a clinic. A small clinic. I saw things there … We had no syringes. Then we did have some: there were patients who’d gone to the West and brought back syringes and bandages from there. They go to the West and buy their insulin syringes, their cannulas, there so that we can give them to them. We did Socialist Aid in a care home. There were no nurses there, the old people were lying in their nappies that no one had changed. There was one male nurse, he went round the wards and said he’d wipe up the shit of anyone who had Western money. Said the oldsters can travel over there, I can’t. There are beds and whole wards you can only get in if you can pay with hard currency. Your father confirmed that. He explained: the health service doesn’t bring in foreign currency, it’s funded by the state, which urgently needs foreign currency and therefore has to sell what’s available —’

‘Yes, we weren’t told about that at school.’

‘Svetlana’s gone to the Soviet Union. There’s no fire here any more, she said, only ashes. She couldn’t bear it any longer, the weariness, the bureaucracy.’

‘And now she’s looking for the fire in our friends’ country. She might be lucky enough to find some. There was a splendid one in Chernobyl recently.’

‘You’ve become very cynical. That’s not like you. I know Svetlana … was special. I felt more sorry for her.’

‘I believe she would have thought nothing of reporting Jens or Falk if they’d been careless enough to say what they really thought when she was listening.’

‘Do you know Svetlana?’

‘Go on, tell me she wouldn’t have done that.’

‘She was in love with you.’

Christian said nothing.

‘You often used to study in the school library.’ Reina smiled. ‘You were as arrogant as a turkey-cock. And condescending. Svetlana wrote a love letter to you on the blackboard on the easel, I was to check it for spelling mistakes. I thought the letter was somehow … unsuitable. Unsuitable for her. So self-abasing and at the same time schoolmarmish … She wiped it all off shortly before you came.’

‘And now she’s in the Soviet Union hoping for less bureaucracy. Oh yes.’

‘Schnürchel got her a university place in Leningrad, for Russian teachers. She must have met a man there. I respect her despite everything, for her it wasn’t just an empty word, socialism. And that everyone should have a decent life. Did you never wonder why she was a boarder — when her family lived in the next village? Her mother was an alcoholic, her father the same — and he used to beat them. She had six brothers and sisters, and Svetlana was a mother to them.’

‘And why are you telling me all this, what am I supposed to do with that sentimental story? What are you trying to prove? That I’m an arsehole? Funnily enough, Verena tried that. That I’m too quick to judge people? My uncle’s hinted at that already. Are you trying to teach me how to behave? — That’s what they’re trying to do all the time — teach people how to behave!’ Christian cried. ‘Teach yourselves!’ A fit of rage was coming on, a crust was bursting open, heat fizzed through his veins, a generator seemed to be pumping dark electricity into his fingertips, loading them with manic power, sharpening his eye for some target he could demolish with one slash of the knife or punch of the fist or blow of the axe — Christian had raised the tank axe at his company commander. He could feel the fit coming on, that too part of his Hoffmann heredity, Richard was liable to frighteningly violent outbursts of fury, Christian had seen his grandfather Arthur, half-crazed with rage, smash the living-room window with a meat-grinder, raving, roaring, he’d bombarded Emmy with clothes pegs. Christian dragged Reina into an entrance hall, bit her hand, then kissed the place he’d bitten. Her armpit! he thought. You wanted to kiss her armpit first. Now that had come to nothing. There was rubble in the hallway, plaster had trickled down to form bright cones of dust on the floor. He had to laugh when he heard Reina protest. How soft she was, her arms, her cheeks — so soft. Splinters of sunshine came in from the back yard, where the dustbins were, but only as far as a rusted bicycle. He was in a blind rage of desire. Go out with her. Talk to her. Reina was crying. He noticed that he was pressing the bag with the cyclamen against her. A door shut somewhere on a higher floor. He pushed Reina away, she let herself slide slowly down the wall, crouched there, face turned away though not crying any more. He could see himself the way he’d looked at himself, naked, in the mirror, his nauseating skin, covered in pimples, that longed for a touch and feared it. He flattened a little pile of plaster under his shoe, waiting, uncertain as to what was going to happen. He’d have to say, Sorry, please, again, and then go, but he really didn’t feel like that at all.

59. The crystal apartment

When Richard was on night duty, the telephone rang and he set off with an orderly and a driver, he recalled the apartment in which his retired boss had given a farewell meal for the doctors and a few nurses — the long-serving workhorses, as Müller used to say; the apartment that seemed to consist entirely of crystal, even the front door greeted the visitor with palm trees and a bird of paradise engraved on the frosted glass, followed by glass hall-stands, crystal-clear mirrors, display cases with glass flowers by Blaschka & Blaschka of Dresden, who had supplied their fragile, handblown works of art to zoological and botanical collections from Harvard to Vienna, the dandelion-clock weightlessness of Eucalyptus globulus,

the telephone rang, the nurse in Casualty held out the phone to him.

‘Frau Müller, for you, Herr Doktor’,

or volvox algae, enlarged until they were clearly visible, fragile radial sketches, Richard was reminded of the microscopy courses when he was a student, ‘Eucalyptus globulus, habitat Australia and Tasmania’, Müller, shaking a glass of water with ice cubes, had explained,

‘Yes? Hoffmann’,

‘Yes,’ said Edeltraut Müller,

and while Richard was looking for a formulation that sounded less off-hand than What’s wrong, What can I do for you? she said, ‘Come. Now’,

after taking a sip of water Müller had patted his lip with his signet ring and Richard had been confused by the opulent clarity, the single-minded transparency of the apartment, confused that Müller was something like a representative of the Blaschkas, he spoke for them, and for Richard the two things didn’t fit together: Müller’s choleric rule in the clinic, the contemptuously violent cut with which he opened up his patients’ abdominal walls, his silent, vigorous advance into the depths, passing by, uninterested, anything that wasn’t relevant — and these glass anemones, freshwater polyps, cacti with cat’s-tongue flowers, irises in ballet poses; preparations of hardened, unhearing delicacy in the flexible, aerosol-light fluid that came spurting out of the lead crystal chandeliers and wall candelabras as if out of atomizers, and Müller, Richard recalled, turned away in embarrassment, perhaps also fearful, at compliments, raised-eyebrow assessments of the cost of this crystal druse, as if his self-confidence in the clinic had only been outward show, as if a man’s ability to assert his will, his decisiveness, were called into question if the one who possessed, or claimed to possess, those qualities lived in an apartment filled with watery light, burgeoning silence and glass flowers, and perhaps Müller was sorry he’d invited his colleagues, had quietly regretted not having satisfied the custom of giving a leaving party by holding it in the clinic — or did vanity and the need to show off outweigh caution; this Now-I-can-be-myself, ladies and gentlemen, this So this is me the way I never wanted you to see me while I was still in employment, but now everything’s different, now I’m retired, now I’ve escaped from you and can do as I like, can even brag unpunished, and out of relief at that I request the pleasure of your company to enjoy your little, agreeable defeat?

when Richard set off and they were speeding along in the Rapid Medical Assistance van to Schlehenleite on the Elbe slope above the Blue Miracle, he could still hear the words of Grefe, the junior doctor, who had come out of one of the patients’ rooms in Casualty in the fluttering, already somewhat tatty white habit of the duty doctor, still traces of plaster on his forearms and the backs of his hands: ‘The surgeon’s illness, Dr Hoffmann, pensioned off — and that’s it?’,

‘Come. Now’,

but her voice had sounded calm, controlled, not strained, not trying to maintain her composure for the emergency response physician, as often happened when they were on call,

Richard recalled the long table with the, now emeritus, professor at the head, his relaxed, inviting gestures, and the way Trautson had tapped a glass with his fork to request silence for a speech, below the one painting in the apartment, the picture of a loaf of bread,

‘I don’t know, Dr Grefe, your aunt just said, “Come. Now”, is there someone here who can replace you?’ But Dr Grefe was already being called for the next urgent case,

amid the sound of the engine’s rpm angina, its whooping-cough chug-chug when the driver changed gear on a climb and double-declutched, Richard recalled that loaf painted in oils on the wall over the top end of the table, creaking (so immediate it seemed) like a carriage wheel, with a casual dusting from the lavish excesses of flour piled up beside it, partly in absolutist pointed cones, partly in churned-up heaps, as if the painter (strangely enough one didn’t think of the baker) had dug his fists into it; a loaf with its crust burst open in the form of a starfish with, coming out of the cracks, the soft, nutritiously steaming dough, giving the brown (chitin-brown, acorn-brown, double-bass-brown, tree-trunk-brown, rock-brown) crust stuttering outlines, jagging out ridges, here raising a plate that would splinter when you bit on it, there a tumour of crust swelling in a thin network of pores surrounded by the crumb that recalled the growths on gnarled beeches,

‘Bread, Herr Hoffmann. The man painted nothing but bread, bread all the time. It was his speciality, so to speak, and even if there’s something odd about obstinately sticking to one single subject, at least he achieved genuine mastery in that, as you will admit. The King of the Loaf’,

‘But a king at least,’ Dreyssiger broke in mockingly,

‘A king who is truly powerful, you never experienced the war, young man’,

Richard recalled before Niklas Tietze opened the door to the Müllers’ apartment or, rather, dragged it open across broken glass that crunched and crackled under his feet,

Richard saw Niklas’s stethoscope through the gaps between the splinters still left in the front door, then his face, serrated by fragments of the bird of paradise and palm leaves hanging down like icicles, saw, silently observed by neighbours, Niklas’s hands, his bow tie, his Sunday suit that he wore when going to Däne’s Friends of Music,

‘Yes,’ Niklas said, ‘she came to fetch us, we’d been listening to Mozart and … it’s not far for her, we were still chatting’,

‘What happened?’ Richard saw the ruins, the smashed mirrors, the clothes stands in pieces, the thousands of glints shooting up from fragments of glass in the light of the few remaining bulbs,

‘He was sent a letter demanding he declare everything,’ Niklas said, waving the orderly and driver, who’d pushed their way with the stretcher through the rapidly growing crowd of onlookers, through to the back,

Joffe, the lawyer, came out of one of the rooms, hesitantly and with much shaking of the head — he was wearing checked slippers — seeking gaps in the piles of broken glass,

‘The police and forensic have been informed, everything will have to be cordoned off here, I couldn’t do more than that, Herr Hoffmann, this kind of thing isn’t my field’,

‘Thirty-nine ampoules of regular insulin, Dr Tietze immediately injected some glucose intravenously but I fear we were too late,’ Edeltraut Müller said, tapping a needle then pumping up a blood-pressure sleeve round Müller’s right arm, feeling in the crook of his arm with the stethoscope and slowly releasing the column of mercury with the knurled screw while Richard checked the pupil reaction with a torch: both pupils fixed; checked breathing, pulse, circulation and examined the two kidney dishes, in the one on the left the broken ampoules and two ampoule saws, a compress; in the one on the right the glass syringe with the injection cannula still attached,

‘He knew I was going to the Friends of Music, Dr Hoffmann, and that I’d be away for several hours; the neighbours above us were also away and the noise wouldn’t have been very audible on the floor above them,’ she said, pumping up the blood-pressure sleeve again

‘the letter,’ she said,

‘Dear Dr Hoffmann, The ampoules of regular insulin come from the stock of the Surgical Clinics, please sort that out with Administration and with Senior Nurse Henrike.

Dearest Edeltraut, I thought they shouldn’t have the apartment. Please don’t go to any unnecessary trouble as far as the funeral’s concerned. I’ve made the necessary arrangements with Herr Pliehwe of Earthly Journey, the undertaker’s in the Service Combine. For your widow’s pension apply to Administration, Herr Scheffler will help you. I have done forty-one years of good work. As a communist and as a doctor. This isn’t the socialism we dreamt of.’

turned the membrane of the stethoscope, pulled out the earpieces with one hand, making them collide, pumped up the sleeve, made the column of mercury in the pressure gauge contract, but had forgotten to put the earpieces back in, pumped again, the hooks holding the sleeve had loosened so that it swelled asymmetrically,

‘And,’ Niklas said, his eyes fixed on the broken display cases, the smashed glass flowers, the hammer with which Müller had reduced the crystal pendants on the chandeliers to fragments,

‘Thirty-nine ampoules,’ Edeltraut Müller said, ‘he drew them up into a urology syringe, look’,

certainly with a raspberry-coloured pout of his lips, certainly his eyes concentrating as he scored the ampoules, broke off the necks with the compress between glass and fingers, certainly with his owl-like eyebrows knitted, his fingers lifting, cool, professional actions, regular insulin worked quickly,

‘They waited until he retired,’ Edeltraut Müller said,

Police stomped over broken glass, the duty forensic doctor nodded to Richard, who caught Edeltraut Müller before she fell onto the splinters of glass beside her husband’s corpse.

60. Journey to Samarkand

Should I ever / break this my solemn oath of allegiance / may I suffer the harsh punishment of the laws / of our Republic and the contempt / of the working people

Oath of Allegiance of the National People’s Army

‘At the double!’ Nip gave a sharp nod; Christian and Pancake followed him along the empty, polished company corridor. Their footsteps echoed. Musca was on duty, saluted, his blue eyes wide. Far away, Christian thought, for him we’re already untouchable. He hummed quietly to himself. ‘Shut it, Hoffmann,’ Nip ordered. The battalion building was deserted, the companies were out on a training exercise. Outside the light was so bright it made Christian sneeze.

‘At the double!’ Nip pushed him forward like something at which he felt revulsion, which filled him with unutterable disgust. He didn’t need to tell Pancake. He had gone quiet, his lopsided grin had vanished. He too had said something. He had taken the axe out of Christian’s hand and said, ‘But he’s right.’ Among other things. There were grinning faces at the windows of the medical centre. There was a smell of spring; the fresh green on the trees did his eyes good. On the parade ground it was ‘Left about turn! Right about turn! Right wheel — march!’ with the new recruits, the sound of engines came from the technical depot, containers of food were being loaded outside the kitchens.

Inquiry. Handed over to a duty officer in headquarters. On the first floor they waited at a barred door. Christian and Pancake were interrogated separately by a man in civilian clothes.

‘You have not yet found your place in society, Hoffmann. You’re still young.’

‘The problem is not what you did, but what you said. You have betrayed the trust put in you. It is not the death of Comrade Lance Corporal Burre that we are dealing with here. That is regrettable. We will investigate it, of course. But that is not at issue here. That is a completely different case. We will investigate that separately. No, Hoffmann, you and your crony Kretzschmar, with whom we are already acquainted, very well acquainted, made remarks. You defamed us. Openly attacked our state! But we know all about that … harmful pests. Both of you. You have betrayed our trust, made subversive comments. To defame our state! That is the worst.’

‘You made disparaging remarks about us in public, Hoffmann. That will have serious consequences.’

‘We know you as well, oh yes, you and your fine family. — Oh, you don’t know? Well, you have a sister. Your fine father cheats on his wife in his free time. You don’t know that. But we do. He’s screwing your girlfriend, Fräulein Kossmann. But your sister isn’t hers. Half-sister, to be precise. Thunderstruck, eh? Have a look here.’

‘You think we don’t know you? Came to our notice through a particular incident at the pre-military training camp. Got out of it through the legal tricks of your lawyer. Already called attention to yourself at high school. Said the following at senior high school … But that’s clear. Morally degenerate. And we allow something like you to go to university, something like you that betrays our trust! I can’t even bring myself to repeat what you said. There, read it out yourself. Come on, don’t be shy. Coming the prissy little middle-class mummy’s boy, are we? And then one incident after another … We’ve got it all down in writing, confirmed by witnesses. Go on, read it out.’

‘Something like that’s only possible in this shitty state,’ Christian read out falteringly.

‘So, found our tongue again, have we? — But you’re still young. There’s still hope. At the senior high school you and a certain Heike Fieber made a great portrait of Karl Marx, in the Karl Marx Year. That shows that there is some good in you, deep down inside. That’s the influence of your mother, who comes from an illustrious family. That’s the legacy of your revolutionary grandmother, who fought and suffered for the just cause. There’s goodwill there, your blood has not yet been entirely corrupted.’

Penal Code, section 220

PUBLIC DISPARAGEMENT

1. Anyone who in public disparages the state’s system of government or state bodies, institutions or social organizations or their activities and measures taken is liable to a sentence of up to three years’ imprisonment or a suspended sentence, a prison sentence, a fine or a public reprimand.

The guard led Christian towards a checkpoint. He didn’t go out of the barracks, he was taken to the guardroom. One of the detention cells was unlocked. Christian saw: a rectangle, the rear left corner of which was cut off by sunlight, a tightly made up bunk bed, a stool. Christian turned round to the guard but he shook his head: Don’t speak. The guard locked the door behind Christian, taking care not to make too much noise. Christian sat down. The walls had been painted with mud-grey gloss paint. UNDER CONSTRUCTION, he thought. What will they do? What will happen? They’re not saying anything. He could hear the voices of the instructors coming from outside: ‘Right turn! — Left turn! At the double — march!’ The thud of boots, now and then a bellowed command: ‘Regiment atten-shun!’ The regimental commander had come and the duty officer made his report. The rumble of engines. From outside, from the guardhouse, the usual rhubarb, rhubarb before and after the changing of the guard, the clunk of metal as they took off their machine pistols, belts and mess kit. In the evening drunken soldiers bawled at him from the neighbouring cells, ‘Hey, pal, why’d they lock you up?’

‘UA.’ Unauthorized absence, Christian thought. Unauthorized. Absence. Morally degenerate. You have a sister. ‘And you?’ That was to Pancake.

‘Hey — can’t you open your mouth?’

‘Shut your trap.’

‘And you, mate?’ That was to Christian. He was sitting on the stool and heard it as if it came from far away. He didn’t reply. The soldiers swore. Pancake and Christian stayed in the detention cell for three days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. They were given their food in the guardroom, in their mess tins. A piece of cake on Sunday. If they needed the toilet, they had to shout. The sun moved across the cell in thin stripes from left to right, towards evening the stripes became longer, thinned out, leaving one stripe that disappeared over the edge of the folding table. Christian spent most of the time sitting on the stool, by the evening he couldn’t bear the precise awareness of the slight dips, lumps, cracks in the wood, the places smoothed by the clutches of his predecessors (hands under their thighs). Despite that it was important for him to get to know this small square on which he sat, on which after a few hours sitting he felt sore — look closely, Meno and Richard had taught him that.

He couldn’t lie on the bunk during the day. The bells rang from the tower of Grün church at 6 p.m.; Christian had never registered the peal before. Then he would lie down on the floor, as close as possible to the radiator and its lukewarm fins. Five fins: ivory on the colour of the silicon stove-enamelling (silver). It had flaked off in 117 places, none of them triangular. The window was accessible.

Transport. ‘Hoffmann, Kretzschmar, I warn you that I must use my gun if you resist.’ Nip tapped the pistol on his belt. ‘Get in.’ A converted, military-green Barkas van, folding seats, bars between the driver and loading space.

Examining judge. ‘The examining judge is waiting for you.’ They didn’t go across the bridge, across the courtyard with the monument and the guard in front of it; they approached Coal Island from the restricted area. A civilian official waved the van through with a friendly gesture after she had taken down their personal details and passed them on over a black telephone.

‘Prisoners’ escort.’ A first lieutenant took over. The barrier opened at the checkpoint. Coal dust from the pithead frames drifted through the mild spring air. A large yard, concrete slabs, pansies in tractor tyres painted white, pansies had come into bloom, as the lieutenant pointed out to Nip, whom he addressed by his first name. ‘So what have you brought for us today?’

‘Two two-twenties.’

‘Problems?’ The lieutenant tapped the handcuffs he had on his belt.

‘Nah. Kretzschmar here’ — he prodded Pancake, who was trotting along apathetically, head bowed, in front of Christian, in the ribs — ‘has already got quite a record. A big mouth but nothing behind it. A good driver, though, pity to lose him.’

‘Aha,’ the lieutenant said as the shrill whistle of Black Mathilda was heard. The yard was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. There was a blossom on one of the concrete slabs. Christian bent down and picked it up: from the apple trees on the slope across the Elbe, from the Italian-looking gardens. He was punched and doubled up, gasping for air. ‘Do that again and there’ll be trouble,’ the lieutenant said. Corridors like catacombs. Christian smelt the stale air — not a window anywhere. The echoing tramp of boots. The clink of metal, harsh orders, sticks hitting bars rhythmically, challenges shouted out across distances — signals? — regularly, as if separate transports were trying to avoid each other. The corridors had been painted black on the lower half, yellow above. There were buttons on the walls at regular intervals. The ceiling was cross-vaulted, bare bulbs hung down from the intersections of the ribs.

‘Halt!’ A steel door with a number.

‘The comrade major has gone for lunch,’ the secretary said.

‘Then you two will take your nourishment as well,’ the lieutenant told Christian and Pancake. ‘Open ration bags!’ They had been given the ration bags before setting off on the transport, the guard had whispered to them, ‘Eat the lot, the examining magistrate can take a long time.’

While they were still eating (standing up) a major came out of the door. The army judge, not the examining magistrate.

‘Atten-shun!’ the lieutenant roared. Christian and Pancake didn’t know what to do with their food as they tried to stand to attention. The judge took it good-humouredly. He read out their names. After that they were called the accused. ‘The accused are suspected of having committed offences according to section two hundred and twenty of the Criminal Code.’ He read out the relevant section. ‘After detailed examination of the facts in the case the investigating officers recommended the accused be taken into custody on the grounds that they might attempt to abscond.’

That made Christian laugh: attempting to abscond. He was wearing the uniform of the National People’s Army. Well, yes, if he could fly. Then he found he was flying, saw a rubber truncheon raised.

‘Comrade First Lieutenant, I must ask you to treat the prisoners according to regulations.’

The examining magistrate strolled back from lunch chatting with two colleagues about gardening, the problems of growing pumpkins. Not looking at anyone, he indicated with a nod that they should go into the room. Christian had to stand behind a wooden barrier with a view of greying curtains, a standard government-issue desk, filing cabinets. Instead of the smiling portrait of the Comrade First Secretary the grim one of the Chairman of the Ministerial Council was hanging on the wall above the examining magistrate’s chair with, beside it, a certificate for an ‘Exemplary Combat Collective in Socialist Competition’. There was a seedling rubber tree on the window ledge with a little copper watering can beside it. The examining magistrate listened calmly to Christian’s stammering Sorry, won’t happen again, I didn’t say it like that, I didn’t mean it like that.

‘You have the right of appeal. You will be remanded in custody while further investigations are carried out.’

Trial judge advocate. Stairs, corridors, bare light bulbs. This part of Coal Island seemed not to be linked to the administrative offices unless by secret tunnels. Christian had already been in Central Registration with the counters with the letters of the alphabet above them, and then in the rotunda with the statues before, on the day he’d handed in his identity card and received his military service identity card in return, that grey document with the pease-pudding-yellow pages — these corridors, however, along which the lieutenant had led them unerringly, seemed to be from a previous age. On the surface, in the daylight, the blocks made of prefabricated slabs hadn’t suggested this labyrinth, it must branch off deep into the mine and sometimes, when the lieutenant ordered them to stop after a challenge from a guard, Christian thought he could hear the clunk of hammers and the sound of distant explosions. And then something was ticking, regularly, it sounded like a metronome set at slow, the walls of the basement corridors seemed to bring it from afar. Or were they cellars? He’d lost his sense of direction some time ago. The corridors had no windows. Then they went even deeper, down a spiral staircase that made Christian dizzy; now and then there was a barred door at which the lieutenant ordered them to halt and shortly afterwards a guard would appear. The guards wore dark-blue uniforms that Christian had never seen before. He thought, the Navy? what’s the Navy doing here? They reached a vault that must have been very extensive, the light from the bulbs didn’t illuminate the whole of it. There was another major sitting at a desk not far from the entrance, he seemed to have the same seniority as the other two majors: promotion-according-to-years-of-service, sitting-your-way-up-the-ladder, as per regulations. As per regulations, Christian thought. Things are clearly as-per-regulations here. The lieutenant reported to him. The major nodded, put a sheet of paper in the black Erika typewriter. Nodding to Christian, he pointed to a spring folder in front of him on the desk. ‘I have studied the documents. I disapprove of your behaviour. I have to institute preliminary hearings against you.’ He nodded to the lieutenant and Nip, who took Pancake into a room by the bottom of the stairs. The major read out a statement. ‘You are supposed to have said that. Now we all know what witnesses are sometimes like, so my lad, what was it really like. After all, we want to get at the truth.’

The major typed out Christian’s answers as he spoke, slowly, with two fingers. To correct mistakes he used some white paste he smeared over the mistyped letters with a little brush. ‘Right then, to begin at the beginning, my lad, we have this sentence: “You bastard, you damn’ bastard!” Is that what you said?’

‘I said, “You bastard, you lousy bastard”, Comrade Major.’

‘— l o u s y bastard,’ the major typed. ‘It has to be correct. Right, then, that was point one. Point two: “You’ve killed him. It’s your fault, there were five seconds too few.” ’

‘I can’t remember exactly, Comrade Major.’

‘Come on, try. It’s important.’

‘I didn’t really mean it … It just slipped out, the situation, Comrade Major …’

‘Now you don’t need to start crying. I can understand. We were all young once. And we’re not without our feelings, are we? But — the class standpoint, young man, we’ve always been right about that. That’s the difference. We’ve occasionally had one too many, we’ve liberated eggs from a farmer, we’ve chased women. That’s being young! Did you say that in those words, Hoffmann? Come on, calm down. I want to get home today and you’re not the only one I’ve got to deal with.’

‘I think … I think … I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘I’m not interested in what you think or don’t think, I want to get at the truth, the correct wording of your statements.’

‘I said it in those words.’

‘There, you see. You can do it. We’ll get this done, we’ll go through it step by step, I’ll read each sentence out to you and you’ll think about it carefully. At least you’re cooperating. Right. That was point two. Point three: “Something like that’s only possible in this shitty state.” ’

Remanded in custody. The major had one of the doors unlocked. Christian was handcuffed and taken down long corridors. Aluminium doors at regular intervals at which the lieutenant reported: press the button, a buzz, little loudspeakers out of which voices sounding like angry cranes croaked. Christian felt nothing, not even afraid. Of course this couldn’t be a dream, for that the lieutenant was too grumpy. Sometimes they encountered other delinquents. Always one officer to one prisoner — the prisoners in handcuffs. The lieutenant ordered him to wait outside a door with the state symbol painted on it. Once more report arrival. Wait. A buzz as the door was unlocked. This was the prison. To the rhythm of their steps Christian thought: prison, prison, it’s a mistake. He was led down a wide corridor. Dark-blue uniforms, men in grey-green clothes. Civilian clothes, for many the trouser legs were too short; the clothes had been mended, fluorescent strips had been sewn onto the trouser legs and sleeves in the form of large question marks. He had to stand against the wall, hands raised, to be searched.

‘Trousers down. Legs wide apart.’ The man in uniform shone a light up his arse. Christian saw Pancake further ahead, a tied-up blanket on the floor in front of him.

‘Turn round. Pull back foreskin. — Shut your trap!’ The rage flaring up in the face of the man in the blue uniform, his raised hand: We don’t hang about here, sonny. The echoing voices. A windowless vault, Christian could make out: steel staircases in the middle, either side of them gratings in the ceiling, on them, on top of each other, the outlines of boots walking slowly.

‘To Effects!’ That was a boxroom with clothes. A woman behind a wooden barrier said, ‘Possessions here.’ Yes, he actually had possessions. Someone had carved their initials in the wood of the barrier, which was worn smooth and round like a tiller. Possessions: watch, handkerchief, comb, military identity card, purse, the photo of the hoopoe on the Danube delta, Reina’s letter, washing things, his uniform. The woman checked them, indicated what Christian was allowed to keep, recorded the rest in a list that she countersigned with initials. Christian was given a bundle of blankets and an often-repaired uniform with fluorescent stripes, the trousers were too short. Then he was taken to a cell. Behind him the key rattled in the lock, three times, four times, very loudly, a special lock, a special key. Christian stood in the cell and realized he wasn’t alone. First he had to adjust to the dim light. He said, ‘Hello.’

The Tram. Christian saw: two benches opposite each other along the walls, on them around twenty men scrutinizing him, some with calm, some with hostile looks.

‘Informer,’ one said.

‘Nah. It’s the first time he’s been sent up, you can see that right away. Let’s see your mitts.’

Christian held out his hands.

‘Nah. He’s never worked. A student.’

‘University entrance,’ Christian muttered.

‘No use to you here. D’you know where you are now? In the tram and it’s heading for the slammer. The slammer’s better. In your case I’d put my money on shit in the forces.’ The detainee pointed to Christian’s uniform. ‘Number?’ Christian didn’t understand.

‘What section?’

‘Two hundred and twenty.’

‘Oh yes, public disparagement. A tip: when you’re in the glasshouse, read the laws. You’re allowed to.’

‘Pretty boy,’ one said.

‘Yeh. Almost like a girl.’

‘On the nail.’

‘Mm?’

‘I get a cigarette for that tip,’ the man who’d asked him what he was accused of said.

‘Haven’t got any.’

‘Y’ll have to buy some. You owe me one cigarette. We’ll see each other again, don’t you worry.’

‘Someone let some air in.’

A metre-long rod raised the window. Bars outside cut the light into seven strips. The door was flung open, the door was slammed shut. New detainees arrived, others were called out. Always the same words: At the double. Or: Move your arse! Or: Get your finger out! The key was like a hammer being driven into the lock. At the sound the inhabitants of the cells started, even the older detainees with brutality written all over their faces. Then the key pushed some soft metal resistance aside, three or four times, each time sounding like the bolt of a machine gun being engaged. Christian, squeezed into the farthest corner of the room, observed the others without moving, not even daring to give way to the itch that was tormenting him all over his body, like the precursor to an allergic attack. He stood motionless and when he breathed out he did it when there was movement in the room, also switching the leg he was standing on at the same time. After a long time (his watch had remained at Effects) he was taken out of the cell. Up the stairs in the middle of the vault.

At Registry. ‘At the double, at the double!’ Four floors up; he was told to wait at a wooden barrier worn smooth. Other detainees arrived. Out in the middle of the neighbouring room was a piano stool with a red-leather seat that could be screwed higher or lower.

‘Sit down.’ The photographer busied himself, adjusted floodlights, took photos of Christian from the right, left and in front.

‘Hold out your hands.’ The guard took Christian’s fingerprints, he gave his thumb a light tap with his fist. There was hardly any ink left on the pad.

Christian didn’t go back to the tram. The guard unlocked one of the grey iron doors on the fifth floor. The cell number had been sprayed on with black paint using a stencil.

‘Detainee Hoffmann, you’re to stand one metre away from the guard when the door is being opened and shut!’ the man in the blue uniform bawled. He pushed Christian into the room. Two others were in there already, they shot to their feet, thumbs on trouser seams; the older one said, ‘Custody Room five-zero-eight, two detainees present, nothing to report.’

Christian was given his bundle of blankets, a sheet of paper and a pencil. He was to write his CV. Mother, father, when did I join the Young Pioneers, the Thälmann Pioneers, when did I become a member of the Free German Youth. Hobbies, school career, job preferences.

The Custody Room. In the cell there were three bunks, two hanging cupboards, a washbasin, a mirror, a table folded down, beside it a lavatory bowl with a pipe and a chain made of white plastic links, a black plastic handle at the bottom.

‘The bed at the back’s yours, lad. I’m Kurt and this is — oh, tell him your name yourself.’

‘Korbinian Krause,’ the younger man said.

‘Christian Hoffmann.’

‘Your number? By the way, you can call me Kurtchen.’

‘Two-twenty.’

‘Him over there’ — the older man nodded at the younger one — ‘is in here for two-thirteen. IE — illegal emigration. And me — well, this and that.’

‘Kurtchen’s a murderer,’ the younger man with the odd name of Korbinian muttered.

‘Now let’s not exaggerate. I did kill someone, true. But that was in anger, that’s something different. When you’re angry, you don’t know what you’re doing. First everything goes red, then black, y’know.’

‘Because you haven’t found the way to God, because you shut your ear to Him, brother.’

The older man grinned, jerked his thumb at Korbinian, who didn’t look as if he’d been joking. ‘That’s his thing, y’know. He’s a preacher, y’see.’

‘I studied theology but I’m not a preacher. Preacher’s what the Methodists and Baptists call it; with us it’s pastor or minister. You haven’t made confession yet, Kurtchen.’

Kurtchen nodded, grinned. ‘I do it as a favour to him, y’know. Keeps him quiet. And sometimes — yeh, it really does help. Get everything off your chest.’

‘The one he killed was his own brother. Kurtchen was a cabinetmaker, Arnochen was a cabinetmaker. Their workshops were opposite each other, they lived a cat-and-dog life. And one day they went for each other with axes. Arnochen’s axe went in Kurtchen’s sideboard, Kurtchen’s in Arnochen’s noddle.’

‘Nah. It went in his neck. Thou shalt not bear false witness, or whatever they say. — But you’ — he turned to Christian — ‘where’re you from? What did you do?’

‘Dresden … senior high,’ Christian stammered.

‘Senior high … that’s good. You’ll be educated, imagination …’

‘Kurtchen needs someone to help him masturbate,’ Korbinian said.

‘Don’t condemn me!’ Kurtchen wagged his finger. ‘I’ve not had a woman for ages and I’m a man with strong physical urges. An’ if you think up something good, it’s a relief for me an’ y’get three tubes for it. But it has to be really horny, with lots of diff’rent bits, know what I mean? Best of all with film stars, then I know who you’re talking about.’

Waiting. The words had vanished, they only came back slowly, like fish letting themselves sink back down lethargically after a net had lifted them up into deadly brightness and a hand found them too light. Kurtchen, whom Christian now also called by that name, found the waiting difficult. He was impatient for his trial so that he would finally get to the proper jail, where things were better (he confirmed the opinion of the man in the tram whom Christian owed a cigarette) than on remand. Better because clearer. A clearer situation. The POs (that was what the guards were called, it was the abbreviation of Prison Officer) had no doubts or scruples. They didn’t have any here, either, as Kurtchen said, but there, in the proper jail, everything was clear — and since everything was clear and you had proper time as well, it wasn’t just waiting for something else any more, the POs could behave as regulations required. Even the trusty, who brought their meals and the book cart once a week, did so. The detainees were allowed to read. Christian borrowed the autobiography of the Comrade General Secretary. The familiar face looked up at him from the photos, familiar from the sky-blue pictures in classrooms, government offices, placards at the First of May processions and celebrations for the anniversary of the Republic. The familiar face had once been that of a child, in a house in the Saarland, oppressive conditions, large families, child mortality, hunger, having to earn money when young, father old before his time, mother a woman who seemed caring but had a frozen smile. Conditions in the factories. The Communist Youth Organization. Fanfares, shawms. The war, post-war inflation. Little Man, What Now? ’33. Underground, arrested, Gestapo, interrogations, prison. Christian had always hated these stories (they were repeated, with minor variations, in the biographies of the Leading Representatives of the Republic); he didn’t want to know about them. Had always switched off the war films on Thursdays, GDR TV Channel 2; Katyusha rocket launchers with subtitles, heroes on the quietly flowing Don, overblown emotionalism hardly different from that of the Nazis. He thought of Anne. ‘Good night,’ she’d said when he was a child far down, it seemed to him, in the abyss of time. He recalled things said, he tried to make Anne say those things — then the words, then Anne would disappear. Exhortations, touches, surreptitious. When she’d touched him and Robert it had always been surreptitiously, as if the tenderness didn’t become her. Now and then a present put out unobtrusively, something ‘they needed’, clothes from Exquisit, a can of pineapples from Delikat. A book he’d mentioned in passing that she’d managed to get hold of.

The trusty brought their food. It was the same every day: indefinable jam that sometimes had little spots of mould growing on it: then Kurtchen would point it out and Korbinian speak the words ‘detention complaint’. Then a PO would appear and, with a look of contempt, place a new pot of jam before the detainees. Everything had to be in order. It had to be as per regulations. They had to do everything at the double. The spyhole in the door, a little window with a steel shutter on the outside, was opened once every hour, but at a different minute of each hour. The shutter squeaked as it was opened and shut with a click. What Kurtchen had called tubes were papirossi, cheap tobacco rolled in newspaper. After a week Christian overcame his revulsion and, lo and behold, they didn’t taste bad. Glue and printer’s ink, often statements from the Comrade General Secretary or one of the Leading Representatives, gave the tobacco an additional slightly burnt taste. As children Christian and Robert had tried to smoke ivy stalks from the garden wall of Caravel, they’d had a similar taste to these papirossi. Christian borrowed the tobacco from Kurtchen. He had no money, here that was called having purchase. Kurtchen gave him generous amounts, he thought he would soon have purchase; the people who’d graduated from senior high that he’d got to know on Coal Island had always been afraid and worked hard; you were paid, though not much.

The exercise yard. For their free hour in the mornings they go out at the double (keeping one metre away from the guard) and run at the double. There was a square asphalt yard bounded by a cobbled path and high concrete walls with barbed wire sloping inwards. The sky above the yard was patterned by a grid of bars. In the middle of the grid was a gap through which the trunk of a lime tree towered up. The lime gave off an overpowering scent, but there were no flowers on the ground; there was a net under the top of the tree that collected the leaves and flowers that fell; there were also birds’ nests in it from which came contented twittering. There was a bench round the tree trunk, but no one ever sat on it. The detainees ran round in a circle, always to the left, at the double, without talking. Tobacco changed hands and one day Christian managed to pay his debt of one cigarette when the man from the tram suddenly but unobtrusively appeared behind him. Sometimes the guards would bellow. They were bored.

The knives they were given to eat with were blunt. The stapler Christian had to use to keep documents together was so made that the slot where the staples were inserted could only be opened by a little key the guard kept. When all the staples were used up Christian had to wait until the spyhole was opened and he could make a sign. The waiting time did not count towards the time allowed.

Visits. Christian received a letter. Sperber, the lawyer, wrote that, at his parents’ request, he would take over his defence.

Visits. A visitor for Kurtchen. Kurtchen had a girlfriend. His girlfriend was making difficulties. She wanted to be screwed, Kurtchen explained, and he wasn’t there, of course. Kurtchen had had an idea and asked Christian’s advice, for he had been to senior high and had imagination. Christian didn’t want to advise him, he was sick of the evenings when Kurtchen used the word ‘imagination’. At that Kurtchen frowned and explained that he didn’t want to get angry.

‘Should I let her get laid by my best friend, what d’you think?

Christian avoided a direct answer. ‘Perhaps … but there must be other possibilities to consider first.’

‘Nah, not any more. She has a dildo, from over there. But now she wants a guy on the end of it, an’ there aren’t any batteries for it either. An’ just using her imagination’s not enough any more, she says.’

‘Well, if it’s your best friend —’

‘Keeps it in the family, yeh. ’s what I thought too. Then I’ll tell her that, since you say so. You get a tube for that. Should I give her your best wishes?’

Lawyer’s visit. Sperber was well dressed, shiny suit, lilac-coloured shirt, slim gold wristwatch that he wore with the face on the inside of his wrist and now and then shook round to the outside. The ‘sweet’ was in the buttonhole of his left lapel. Limp handshake, it felt to Christian as if he’d squeezed a raw chop instead of a hand. Sperber gave Christian some cigarettes. He’d been told by his father, he said, that he didn’t smoke, but they were the common currency in there. Christian wasn’t paying close attention. He was fascinated by the lawyer’s smell. It came from outside. He hadn’t realized that the world outside had a smell that was clearly different from the one inside the jail. After all, it was the same air that came in through the window and at night sometimes even the scent of the lime tree. But that belonged in there — its smell was so strong it mocked them.

Sperber had examined Christian’s files but at the moment, he said, apart from the cigarettes there was nothing he could do for him.

‘We must wait for the indictment. You will be indicted, young man. And until then you will continue to be remanded in custody. — Your parents are very worried.’ His tone changed to one of fatherly concern, then of mild reproach. ‘They know where you are. How could you get carried away like that? Your father taught you how to avoid that. Remember Herr Orré’s lessons. Are they to have been so much wasted effort?’ So the lawyer knew about that. Now he was smiling, anticipating Christian’s question. ‘Word gets round, Herr Hoffmann. But you’ve done something very stupid. In fact you quite often, so it seems to me, do stupid things.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘How you meant it is neither here nor there. What matters is what is in the files and you signed the transcript.’

‘But the situation —’

‘Courts don’t concern themselves with situations,’ Sperber broke in, giving his arm a friendly pat, ‘but with verifiable facts. I feel sympathy for you, certainly, but sympathy gets us nowhere.’

‘Herr Doktor Sperber.’ Christian found he suddenly had to fight back the tears, which seemed to embarrass the lawyer, his expression cooled. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’

‘We’ll have to wait and see. It doesn’t look that bad. Don’t worry about that for now. — Have you always wanted to study medicine?’

‘N-no,’ Christian said, surprised.

‘Good. So you do have alternatives. It’s better not to get too set on one thing. Well, chin up, young man. Things will sort themselves out, I’m doing my best.’

Waiting. Christian was getting fatter, his skin was pale and puffy.

‘That’s the food and the lack of exercise,’ Kurtchen said. At some point Christian stopped being bothered at using the toilet in the cell. It did bother him if the door was flung open at the moment when he was squatting down on the seat and the PO ordered a room count. In the evening Christian sometimes recited poems, Once more the valley quietly fills / with your misty glow … Twilight spreads its wings once more. Korbinian leant against the window and recited psalms. Kurtchen would stay silent then. If Korbinian became too loud the key would crash in the lock and the guard take Korbinian out of the cell: ‘At the double!’

The trial was set for 6 June 1986. It was a sunny day. After breakfast Christian was given a food bag.

‘We’ll see each other again,’ Kurtchen said.

‘You think so?’

‘You’re not going to get out of here,’ Korbinian said cheerfully. ‘The Lord be with you. Farewell and forgive us.’

‘Farewell and forgive us,’ Kurtchen cried as Christian went out of the cell door. He was taken to Transport, but first to Effects. Christian was shown his possessions, had to check them, sign that they were all there.

Handcuffs. The long corridors lit by bare bulbs and smelling of floor polish. The light outside hit Christian like a blow in the face. He lifted up his hands, the movement alarmed the accompanying officer, who immediately drew his pistol. The Black Maria drew up.

The Black Maria was grey. The door was opened, Christian pushed in. A guard took over. There were little cells inside the Black Maria, each with room for one delinquent. Tip-up seats, no windows. The Black Maria set off, cell bolts clanking; Christian listened to the slow resolution of the clink-clank of the bolts that were outside the basic rhythm, after a while all the bolts were in time with each other, a vigorous metallic ringing, comforting and oddly full of the joy of living; then it dissolved again, in a mirror image of the synchronization, into individual rhythms.

‘Get out.’

Remanded in custody. Once more he was taken down long subterranean passages. The walls were sweating, damp had left patches on the ceilings, some looked like the clouds of smoke at the mouths of cannons that had just been fired. Christian and the other detainees from the Black Maria went ‘yoked’, their handcuffs had been chained together.

‘Halt!’ They waited by the wall in a corridor, hands raised. Christian was put in a custody room in the basement. There were six bunks, four already taken. The door slammed shut. The toilet was under a barred window.

‘Welcome to Ascania,’ one of the detainees muttered. ‘What are you in for, then?’ By now the answer came automatically to Christian’s lips.

‘Food for the national economy,’ the detainee replied with a grin. His front teeth were missing. No questions, that was something Christian had learnt by this time. It wasn’t his place to ask questions, the others, the older ones did that, not him.

During the night he heard shouts. At first he thought he’d been dreaming but the man on the bunk next to his was restless, grunting, perhaps in his sleep. The air was cold, the cell bathed in the bluish glow of the nightlight. Christian lay there, motionless, arms along his body, under the blanket. He suddenly sensed that no one else was asleep. The light sleep of prisoners … That wasn’t true. In the tram in the first detention centre, on Coal Island, most had slept a deep, snoring sleep. Even Kurtchen had slept well and wasn’t so easily disturbed. Not even by the shouts, which had always woken Christian, or so he thought.

‘Quasimodo,’ one of them in a more distant corner of the room said.

‘Yes, on his rounds again.’

‘Could be on the fourth, above us, from the echo.’

‘He’s got a dimpled cosh.’

‘How d’you know that?’

‘My arse tells me.’

‘Pull the other one! You’re just having us on.’

‘Italian job, he showed it me, very proud of it he was, before using it. ’s got little bobbles on it — doesn’t leave any blue marks.’

‘A rubber truncheon that doesn’t leave any weals, did you ever hear the like of it?’

‘Just arrived.’

‘And they pay hard currency for that …’

‘Have you ever seen his daughter?’

‘They say she’s in a wheelchair. Our PO told me he’s supposed to be a good father. Looks after her, that kind of thing.’

‘He gives his wife flowers on her birthday and International Women’s Day.’

‘Hey, sonny!’ That was Christian. ‘If he gives you flowers as well — keep your back to the wall.’

‘Otherwise those cyclamen — might turn into a lily wreath, haha.’

‘And your mother gets a telegram …’

‘Exactly!’

‘But you can bribe him.’

‘Nah, y’can’t. I’ve tried it. Thought, even a PO needs winter tyres. Was against his honour … He refused to go along with it.’

‘And?’

‘Well, cyclamen.’

‘We ought to do him in. Just a little bit.’

‘What with? All you’ve got here’s the toilet chain and the plastic stuff would break. And blunt knives.’

‘If I ever meet him outside …’

‘Then you’ve got a long wait.’

Shut it! Saw some logs.’

Lance Corporal Christian Hoffmann

8051 Dresden, Heinrichstrasse 11

SUMMONS

In the criminal proceedings against you, you are required to attend the

Dresden Military Court on

Friday, 6 June 1986, 8.00 a.m.

Also invited to the proceedings are:

Dr Sperber, Lawyer, Dresden and Berlin.

Representative of the Collective … Witnesses …

Ascanian Island. Handcuffed, Christian and Pancake were taken into a round domed room. It bore some resemblance to a lecture hall, there was even a blackboard. Christian saw his parents and Meno; his parents were pale; he avoided looking at them. The guard pushed him and Pancake into the front row of the benches that had been set up facing the table with a red cloth over it. On either side of a grooved column, from which the ormolu was flaking off, there were windows with pot plants on the window ledges. Hung high up on the column was the coat of arms of the German Democratic Republic. Sperber gave Christian’s parents an encouraging smile.

The court entered. Christian and Pancake were jabbed in the back: Up! They got up, Christian stood there even though he couldn’t put his weight on his right leg and, clearly visible to the court (a colonel, an assessor with the rank of captain, a clerk), was wobbling to and fro. The colonel nodded to those present. The representative of the Collective — it was the taciturn goldsmith, who, Christian now realized, was a member of the Socialist Unity Party — read out an assessment of the two accused: Lance Corporal Hoffmann was a suspiciously taciturn member of the army who, despite that, could argue eloquently once he had been drawn out; he liked reading in his free time, once poems by Wolf Biermann. Several times he had described the practice of sealing up the cassette compartment on the radios as ‘daft’; several times he had swept the copies of Junge Welt put out in the day-room off the table in a manner suggesting contempt. As far as performance of his duties was concerned, he had done nothing to draw attention to himself apart from the two incidents during the last military exercise. The judge waved this away impatiently: these were not a matter for the court, would the Comrade Lance Corporal please stick to the matter in hand! Nip was called and took Ina’s letter from Cuba out of his briefcase. Hoffmann had been stubborn, they had frequently had to take corrective measures. Next the evidence was heard. The witnesses stepped forward: Musca, Wanda, the driving instructor who had passed on the company commander’s order to Christian. They were asked about the precise wording of the things Christian and Pancake were supposed to have said. Every one remembered something different. The judge became annoyed. He ordered the interrogation transcripts that the witnesses were to confirm to be read out.

Then the accused were called up to state their case. First Christian, then Pancake. Christian apologized, he’d been confused, in an exceptional situation. Most of all he would have liked to scream, to mow down the whole lousy lot of them (he had to be careful not to let that expression slip out) with a machine gun, if he’d had one with him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Sperber was unhappy with this. Pancake spoke, head bowed, in a low, halting voice. Just like his comrade, he too had not meant it like that. He bitterly regretted his misdemeanour and wanted to make up for it. There was no one there for Pancake, it looked as if he had no relations or, if he did, they didn’t care. The court ordered a recess.

They were taken, handcuffed, to a room where there were two cells in the form of barred cages. Each was given a cage and they had to wait. Christian’s handcuffs were too tight, he pointed it out to the guard. The guard informed the officer in charge, who loosened them a little. Then he asked if they were all right like that. Sperber arrived. ‘You almost did something stupid, Herr Hoffmann, when you pointed out the special situation you were in, I thought we’d discussed that? I told you that that’s my business. Control yourself, otherwise you’ll just make things worse.

‘Herr Doktor Sperber …’

‘I know what you want to know. Are you always so impatient? Have a smoke first, calm down.’

‘Will I be acquitted?’

The lawyer looked at Christian in disbelief, then at Pancake, who couldn’t repress a grin.

‘It seems you still don’t really understand what you’ve done, Herr Hoffmann. You said something very bad. I would just advise you not to panic, panic’s always an inappropriate response. From my experience I would say that things aren’t desperate. It’s the breakfast recess now; at lunch I’ll have another word with the judge advocate, we know each other from our student days.’

‘Then I’ll be convicted? Prison?’

‘Don’t keep trying to anticipate decisions. It’s not a question of detention but of the terms.’

‘And … my place at university?’

‘Herr Hoffmann’ — Sperber seemed seriously exasperated — ‘you can’t really be that obtuse.’ Shaking his head, he lit himself a cigarette. ‘There’s one thing I have to tell you. As I’ve already explained to your father, appeals’ — he blew his cigarette smoke out of the window, it wasn’t barred — ‘are as good as never successful. They’re just a waste of paper and can cause you trouble. Accept the verdict as it is. From the outset the courts make their decisions on the principle that the punishment must fit the crime. In your case, in both your cases’ — Sperber nodded across at Pancake, who was immediately roused from his apathetic state — ‘the plain facts constitute an infringement of the laws cited and you, Herr Kretzschmar, must be very careful as to how you act; you will know why.’

In his summation Sperber described the mental state of the accused at the time of the offence as ‘diminished’. He disapproved of what had happened, but at least in the case of Herr Hoffmann it could not be a question of a consistently hostile and negative attitude to ‘our state’. After all, he had been the agitator in the group council of the senior high school and had received the certificate ‘For good study in a socialist school’ several times. He was socially active, had, for example, been editor of several wall newspapers at the high school and the senior high school. And he begged the court to remember his mother’s maiden name.

The judge advocate expressed his disapproval of the behaviour of the accused. Everything was a question of attitude. In this case ingratitude was to the fore — after all Hoffmann owed his place at university to the generosity of the Workers’ and Peasants’ State. He had betrayed the trust put in him. He was guilty of a gross violation of his duty as leader of a military combat collective. Had disappointed the trust placed in him. He demanded twelve months’ confinement. Sperber frowned, tried to get it reduced to ten months.

The next morning the judgment was pronounced:

In the Name of the People

In the case against

Lance Corporal Christian Hoffmann

b. 28/10/1965 in Dresden,

single, no previous convictions,

at present remanded in custody for crimes against

Section 220, sub-section 1, Public Disparagement,

on the basis of the hearing of 6/6/1986

the 1st Division of the Dresden Military Court,

represented by …

has delivered the following judgment:

The accused is found guilty of Public Disparagement of the State according to Section 220, sub-section 1 and sentenced to a punishment of

twelve months’ detention in the military prison.

The period spent in custody will be taken into account. The period spent in prison will not count towards his period of military service. His place to study medicine at Karl-Marx University Leipzig, planned entry 05/10/1987, is cancelled. Lance Corporal Hoffmann has to bear the cost of the proceedings.

By law

signed

Then Pancake: also twelve months’ detention. The assessor read out the grounds for the judgment. The court left the room. Christian and Pancake had to sign the judgment and the grounds for judgment. The clerk kept her hand firmly on the paper while they signed.

Transfer. Again a lorry arrived with VEB Service Combine written on it. From Dresden they went to Frankfurt an der Oder. ‘Right along the wall,’ Pancake joked, as he came back from Effects with Christian; both had their kitbags with their possessions over their shoulder. Pancake was annoyed that he couldn’t take his accordion. ‘No amusement,’ the guard snapped, pushing them into the lorry. They travelled in handcuffs. At some point during the hours on the road there was thumping on one of the cell doors. ‘I need to go.’

‘Sniff it up and spit it out,’ the guard told him. Then he asked, ‘Anyone else?’ A few put up their hands. The lorry stopped, a short discussion with the officer in charge. Go one at a time. Christian was chained to the guard. The toilet was at a provincial station that remained nameless for Christian; they went along subterranean passages and through back doors. In the toilet he urinated against the blue-tiled wall they had instead of a urinal; there were cigarette butts in the drain, metal ashtrays at chest height on the wall, the man next to him put his cigarette down on one. He asked no questions and finished as quickly as he could. The guard stood, half turned away, smoking, glanced at his watch. ‘Get a move on, man, can’t you pee quicker?’

The remand detention centre in Frankfurt an der Oder was small and dilapidated. The men who had been sentenced were taken to a custody room, where Pancake and Christian couldn’t stand up straight. It was damp, in places the paint was flaking off the walls, the legs of the stools had mould on them. The bunks had been let down, the cell was overfull, they had to take it in turns to sleep. Christian lay on a bunk watching a drop of water growing like a bright pupil in the middle of a damp patch. Cockroaches rustled along the floor, ran across the walls. The other half of the night, when Pancake demanded his place, Christian sat at the table staring into the darkness with the shimmer of floodlights outside.

The next morning they were sent to the barber. The doors were low, you had to be careful not gash your forehead. The staircases were narrow, steps were missing, you had to make sure you didn’t fall, that might have looked like deliberate disobedience. Men in handcuffs were waiting to have their hair cut. The barber was a little old man with gaps in his teeth and his hair combed straight back, giving him the look of an arctic loon. Christian remembered a book from his childhood: Germany’s Birds it had been called, a green cigarette-card album that his clock-grandfather had given him. He’d seen a picture of the arctic loon in it. Christian’s hair was shorn off with electric clippers, it didn’t take a minute; the arctic loon knew what he was doing.

Transfer. Now the military detainees were separated from the other prisoners. The military detainees boarded the Schweden, as the vehicle was known, which took Christian and four others. At first they went northwards, through the Oder marshes, where the birds screeched and the flapping of their wings sometimes drowned out the clatter of the bolts on the cages, there was a smell of rushes and fish and kerosene. Then they turned off to the east, towards the Polish border.

Schwedt. A name of terror, murmured in the army with your hand over your mouth, familiar to every soldier, to hardly any civilians; Schwedt an der Oder: a new town established in the countryside, like Eisenhüttenstadt in the south, the place where the Friendship oil pipeline from the depths of the Soviet Union terminates, high-rise buildings made of prefabricated concrete slabs, a windswept plain, the gigantic petrochemical combine. They got out. Christian saw: a barred gate with sentries, a road coming out of a forest, industrial pipelines along one side of the road, beyond them a field, in the distance the colourful rectangles of a mobile bee-house. Schwedt an der Oder Military Prison. From all the rumours about it Christian had imagined it would be more grandiose. But that? It looked small, unassuming, cramped. They were taken into a low concrete building, into a room that was bare apart from a portrait of the Minister of National Defence, a table and a few chairs.

‘Put out your things,’ the guard ordered. Christian and Pancake emptied their kitbags while the other prisoners waited outside in the corridor. The guard made a list of their possessions.

‘Pick up your things. Fall in. Follow me.’ With their kitbags over their shoulders Christian and Pancake followed the guard. In a flat-roofed shed, still outside the actual camp, they had to take everything out again. A guard threw them each a set of fatigues, they had to take off their detention clothes and put on the uniforms, which had no epaulettes. The guard read out the prison regulations.

‘To the governor.’

That was a colonel. He was in the farthest shed. On the way there Christian was instructed as to how he was to report.

‘Military prisoner Lance Corporal Hoffmann reporting for instruction, Comrade Colonel.’

The colonel, a stocky, fatherly-looking man, remained seated, leafing through Christian’s file, and didn’t look at him as he spoke. He talked of remorse, of necessary punishment, of trust and re-education. That word was the most frequent one in his speech. Re-education: for two-twenty meant that he, Hoffmann, was a very bad case. He’d soon lose the taste for that here, he, the governor, could promise him that. He, the governor, would turn him, Hoffmann, into a contrite member of the army and a well-educated citizen of our Republic. He could promise him that too.

The reception block, where the new arrivals were, was separated from the actual camp by a wall with barbed wire on top. There was a barred gate in the wall through which the guard led the new arrivals. There were watchtowers at the corners of the wall on which visibly bored guards were pointing light machine guns into the camp. The concrete wall was only the outer boundary, between the reception block and the camp, inside it there was a barbed-wire fence. Between the wall and the fence was a strip of gravel where dogs were sleeping.

Christian was taken into a shed. The air in the room and the corridor smelt musty. There were eighteen beds in the room, six bunks with three beds each. The guard showed Christian his locker and ordered him to stand there. The guard went out, Christian stared out of the window through which dusty light came. The window was barred, you could see one of the watchtowers and a strip of gravel with the dogs, of which two had now woken up. Only now did Christian understand what had happened to him and that this was his foreseeable future: Schwedt an der Oder Military Prison, one year, one irreplaceable year of his life. And that Here, Here you stand was burrowing itself deep into him, like a screw, he needed to distract himself and started to count: with the years of service that he still had to complete he would be discharged in the autumn of 1989, five years in the National People’s Army and he’d no idea what would happen after that, perhaps Meno would help him. He couldn’t stay standing but already the guard was back ordering him to do just that.

‘We’ll see to it that you’re re-educated.’

The daily routine began with being woken at four in the morning. The prisoners jumped out of their beds, where they’d been sleeping in cotton vests, the genital area naked. Morning exercises and washing. In Christian’s company there were forty-seven military prisoners sharing one washroom with ten water pipes. The water points had no taps, the taps were kept by Staff Sergeant Gottschlich and had to be screwed onto the pipes. They were usually issued.

After breakfast there was either training in the facility (drill training, putting on and taking off protective clothing, instruction in fire protection, march with extra-full pack, assault course) or work. For the disciplinary units — soldiers who had not been through a military court — work was mostly in the cellars of the sheds. Christian and Pancake were serving a sentence handed down by the court and were driven out to the Combine every day. There they sandpapered doors, repaired or made pallets, smoothed the edges of plastic furniture or screwed screws into screw-holes. Work lasted eight hours, after that they were taken back to the facility for training. After cleaning the room and their section, 8 p.m. lights out. There were no doors on the toilets, everyone could watch you doing your business.

‘So you don’t do something stupid like committing suicide,’ Staff Sergeant Gottschlich said. Hanging from the ceiling of the company corridor was a grotesquely bizarre object: a toy train made by earlier prisoners out of scraps of plastic from the Petrochemical Combine for the company commander’s fortieth birthday. The train had thirty-six goods wagons in different colours. Because the wagons were so brightly coloured it was called the ‘Orient Express’. There were coloured cards in the wagons and names on the coloured cards. The position of the name indicated the level of fulfilment of targets. It was an advantage to have your name in one of the first ten wagons. If you were in the middle, there were drills. One of these was to be woken at midnight and spend two hours standing in full rig. If your name was in the last or next-to-last wagon (Staff Sergeant Gottschlich wasn’t entirely consistent in that) for more than a week, you were sent for a spell in the U-boat, where you also ended up for recalcitrance, insubordination, failure to accept one’s errors, uncooperative attitude, doing something stupid. Doing something stupid could be not to sit absolutely motionless, but ready to learn during political education or on Thursdays during the communal viewing of Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler’s Black Channel on TV2.

The official name for the U-boat was Detention. Detentions were announced at roll call. Before Christian went to the U-boat he had to go and see the doctor ‘to determine suitability for detention’. The doctor was a young but weary man in a white coat but with no stethoscope. He asked Christian whether he was taking any medicine or had any illnesses.

‘Acne vulgaris,’ Christian said.

‘That blooms even in the dark.’ The doctor put a weary scribble on the detention-suitability-assessment form.

The U-boat was dark, since there were no windows, and Christian spent a long time there, a week, he guessed. During that time he had felt his way round every nook and cranny of the cell. The bucket beside the table for him to relieve himself had an enamel lid with two wire guide brackets; Christian learnt to use his sense of touch like a blind man, the writing on the lid was slightly raised and said ‘Servus’. The blankets smelt of Spee washing powder and — it took him a while to work this out — of the lamas in Dresden Zoo, of lamas in the rain to be more precise. For a long time in the even longer darkness of the cell Christian could not get rid of the idea that he had reached the innermost point of the system. He was in the GDR, the country had fortified frontiers and a wall. He was in the National People’s Army, which had barracks walls and guarded entrances. And in Schwedt Military Prison he was stuck in the U-boat, behind walls with no windows. So now he was entirely there, now he must have arrived. But more than that he must, Christian thought, be himself. He must be naked, his self laid bare, and he thought that he must now have the great thoughts and insights he’d dreamt of at home and at school. He sat naked on the floor but the only thought he had was that if you sat naked on stones for a while you got cold. That you were hungry and thirsty, that you can count your pulse, that in darkness you also get tired, that for a while you can hear nothing but dead silence and that then your ear starts to produce its own sounds, that your eye is constantly trying to light little cigarette-lighter flames, here and there and there, and that you go mad in the darkness, however many poems you know, novels you’ve read, films you’ve seen and memories you have.

Now, Christian thought, I really am Nemo. No one.

On a hot day in July, Christian, Pancake and twenty-eight other prisoners were sent to Effects. They were being transferred, they were told, to the Orient, as the chemical area round Leuna, Schkopau and Bitterfeld was known because of the colourful effusions from the factories. The chemical industry brought bread, prosperity and beauty and for it they needed workers. Handcuffed, they followed the Friendship oil pipeline that went from the town on the Oder, whose high-rise buildings were bright in the distance, to the Orient of the chemical industry in its main area, Samarkand, in the south-west of the Republic.

61. Carbide Island

Apart from crows, there were no birds there. As the summer twilight began to fall in the garden of Caravel the yearning, melodious lament of the blackbird could be heard; here, on Carbide Island there were no bird calls apart from the ugly, coarse croaking of huge flocks of crows that seemed to feel at home on the foam-washed banks of the Saale, the bend of which could be seen from the window, and gathered every evening in the pale skeletons of trees for sleep and for the stories of the day, the poet’s ‘day that has been today’ … They chattered and cawed and fished around in the scum for edible matter, which was presumably washed up in sufficient quantities, and sometimes, when the lights went out in the cells on Carbide Island, they seemed to be laughing, giving voice to their gratingly repulsive mockery. Like a cloak of invisibility, the colour of their plumage, that shining coal-black, blended with that of the river, which flowed sluggishly and, almost every evening now, in August, illuminated by an iron-red sun, through the landscape of the chemical industry over which, fixed to the platforms at the top of the furnaces, the flag of Samarkand fluttered: a yellow flag, the yellow of the quarantine flag for ships, with a black retort on it. Christian and the others had been sent from Schwedt to Camp II, which took up a separate corridor on the fifth floor of the prison. On the corridor wall, beside the table for the guard on duty, was a ‘daily schedule of work’, abbreviated to DSW. It was similar to the one in Camp I: the early shift was woken at four (though here it was by the rising and falling wail of a siren, as if an alert for an impending air raid), followed by morning exercises and washing. Here the taps over the basins were fixed, but there wasn’t always water — when Samarkand was ‘on a lift’, as they put it, when all the machines, filtering installations, cooling systems, works conduits were demanding water, it was a dribble that came out of the washroom taps. Also it wasn’t drinking water that came out of the pipes but a liquid that was sometimes rusty, more often as yellow as soup, and smelt of floorcloths and rotten eggs. People said the smell came from carbide, from ‘the other side’, from across the Saale on the bank of which, connected to the prison by a bridge that looked as if it were coral-encrusted, there was a carbide factory. From the bridge, which the company approached at an easy march, it looked like an old steam locomotive that was bending down for a drink from the Saale. Pouring out of a cyclopean chimney were clouds of light-grey smoke that, below the clouds, mingled with the discharges from the coking plant, the chlorine works, the power stations lower down the Saale, creating a dark, unmoving swirl that widened out at the top like a flower head.

Christian and his companions went in with the early shift along a passageway barely lit by fluorescent tubes, past a porter’s lodge with flowery wallpaper, through a barrier with a ‘No smoking’ sign over it. Conversations ceased, silent and hunched up, driven on by Staff Sergeant Gottschlich’s ‘At the double’, the prisoners hurried into the factory. It was already light, the air already oppressive, it was going to be a hot day. The company waited in a yard that the tall grey-dusted buildings on either side turned into a well-shaft. Cylinder drums, running diagonally across the yard, turned slowly, workers in blue-grey clothes and hard hats were running to and fro on gratings above the drums. Water was pouring over the drums, it seemed to come directly from the Saale. The drums boomed and rumbled as if boulders were turning round inside them. Strange noises came from the buildings — a shrill, dangerous-sounding hum, as if a special kind of stinging insect were being held captive; as if there were a new breed of long-extinct Meganeura dragonflies or carboniferous hornets behind the closed doors. The buildings were grey: mud-grey, the colour of lead dust, carbide dust that had settled in thick layers on pipes, walls, stairs, even on the windows, simple openings with flapping rags made in the walls. What Christian saw was a coral reef of muck and in every second during which the rust-brown cylinder drums turned and smoke from the chimneys crept up under the clouds, darkening the sky, dust was trickling, falling, crackling in fresh layers on the old ones hardened by wind and weather. Christian looked across at a woman parking her red Simson moped by a furnace and heading off towards a square brick tower at the back — he saw the outline of her shoes in the dust, at first cut sharply into the yielding layer but soon powdered over with the dust drifting down, the sharp edges blurred, gradually the footmark filled in, became invisible. After a ten-minute wait there were epaulettes of grey powder on Pancake’s shoulders, their caps, boots were snowed up; Staff Sergeant Gottschlich wiped his wristwatch clean. The dust got between their teeth, in their eyes, making them inflamed, rubbed against their groin until it was raw. And then there was the wind. The wind, ferreting round, bringing unrest, the blind marshal of the weather. Like a dark-grey djinn rising out of an unsealed bottle, a spiral of dust swelled up over the carbide factory; at ground level, where clumps of grass stuck up like the mops of hair of people buried in the carbide powder, the spiral was as slender as a boa, rising up, against the wagons on the goods line behind the factory, like a trombone that twisted and turned, spreading out its bell above the furnaces lining the top of the locomotive.

Pancake accepted it with a shrug of the shoulders. He’d heard that work in the carbide factory was well paid and when a foreman came to instruct them in their work he brightened up and started to haggle. Gottschlich was occupied elsewhere and the prisoners were left to themselves and the carbide people. Christian saw the bars on the windows of the furnace shed where the foreman took them. Here, not far above the ground, the windows were of glass, wiping them had left bright smears, like bull’s-eye glass, slim triangles of dust had built up in the corners.

‘But you can pay me extra.’ Pancake smiled. Aha, so he’d only kept his self-assurance hidden. He was a smart lad, knew when it was better to keep your head down and say nothing. To play the repentant: Christian hadn’t believed his ‘reformed character’ act. In the evening he would often talk about prisons he’d been in. There were people, even ones as young as Pancake, who saw the country from the prison perspective, with ‘bars before their eyes’. They’d been round the prisons of the Republic, knew the guards, their preferences and weaknesses, knew whether you could bribe them and what with. Pancake didn’t know Schwedt and Carbide Island, but they knew him, as Christian discovered. Pancake had immediately come to an understanding with Gottschlich, each sensed a ‘brother’ in the other. Chance, sometimes just the accident of birth, could decide what dress you wore: dark blue or striped. The only difference in expression was whether you hit people as per the law or not. That was something Christian had had to learn: that you didn’t waste words. A punch was quicker than a word and who was right was not sorted out by discussion, at least not by oral discussion. Do you want it in writing? To get something in writing. That meant something different in there from outside, that had to be learnt as well.

‘We’ll see,’ the foreman said. Pancake raised his head, had a quick look round.

‘You can look after it for me. I’ll collect it when I’m out again. You won’t lose out on it.’

‘For the moment you get your seventeen per cent.’ The prisoners were entitled to 17 per cent of the normal wage, if they reached their targets. If the foreman was open to discussion like that, the situation regarding the workforce must be bad and with that their prospects of reaching the planned targets. Christian was put in the Gustav furnace shop.

Carbide. He had heard of the substance, seen the film Carbide and Sorrel, knew that Grandfather Arthur’s Wanderer bike had a carbide lamp; but he had no idea exactly how it worked. That was now explained to him by Asza Burmeister, the tapper of furnace 8 in Gustav furnace shop, an oldish worker who had been ‘in carbide’ for twenty-two years, had trained as a carpenter and had also been to sea. He took a piece of carbide and poured some water over it. ‘Y’see, Krishan,’ (he called him the same as Libussa, which pleased him) ‘now that makes acetylene. It’s welding gas, that is, welding gas. An’ now when I hold my cigar against it,’ (he smoked Jägerstolz cigars) ‘there’s a bang an’ it lights up. That’s the way a carbide lamp works. Only no bang, it shouldn’t go bang.’ Asza spoke very quickly, it was difficult to follow him, he often repeated individual words, rolled his ‘r’s in a dialect Christian had never heard before. ‘I’m a Sudeten lousewort,’ Asza said, avoiding a direct answer. Asza: an unusual name, but Christian didn’t ask. He couldn’t ask many questions. Questions were forbidden. Conversations were forbidden, fraternization. The workers and the prisoners should have as little as possible to do with each other, but the prisoners had to be trained, that was where the problems started. Gottschlich was supposed to keep a check but, as Christian soon realized, appeared only rarely. That had two reasons and they were: heat and dust. What is heat? Asza, if he hadn’t been so taciturn while working (during the breaks he would sit, left leg over a chair, with his Jägerstolz and a bottle of rhubarb juice, which was available to the carbide workers at a reduced price, muttering ‘Piraeus, Faroes, Bordoh’ — the harbours he’d seen), Asza could have said, heat, brother, you can’t explain it. The furnace has a white heart and each heartbeat comes flying like a red-hot iron. The shift lasted twelve hours. That had its good side for afterwards the prisoners didn’t have to go to the ploughland as they called the training ground: drill, assault course, tactics, instruction in protection. On the other hand it was twelve hours in an atmosphere Christian would not have thought imaginable. When Ron Siewert, the Free German Youth secretary of the Thälmann work team, came over from the furnace next to theirs Christian would only see him when he was two or three metres away. Along with Asza, King Siewert, as he was known, was the best furnace tapper: no absences, no dawdling, no boozing at work, no negligence. Negligence was bringing carbide into contact with water; negligence was not wearing a hard hat; negligence was working without wearing welder’s goggles. Siewert would appear out of the greenish haze of dust (hanging lamps on completely encrusted wires that looked as if they were inside the wreck of the Titanic), open his beard and shout to ask Asza how the furnace was to be run.

Carbide. The word pursued Christian into his sleep, for here he didn’t dream. When he got back from his shift, he was all in. He flopped onto his bunk and fell asleep. Pancake had to shake him awake when Gottschlich did his rounds.

Carbide. What was it? Trees (there were meadows along the banks of the Saale that were reduced to ash) were living beings, they felt heat and cold, growth and decline, they blossomed and withered. But this, this grey stuff, this carbide? Time consists of water, the future of carbide, they said in Samarkand. The furnace was several storeys high and it produced carbide, carbide, always the dazzling white melt when Asza burnt a hole in the skin of the viscous carbide with the flame cutter, directed along caterpillar tracks, so that it would run along the ‘fox’, as Asza called the tapping spout, into the ‘walrus’ (the water-cooled cylinder drum). Christian thought, I can’t stick this out. Christian thought, Meno would say, There, you see, that’s completely unironic. Christian thought, if only you were like Pancake. Keep your head down. Always fall on your feet. Take things as they come with a shrug of the shoulders. He doesn’t get worked up about being locked up here but about the fact that he earns so little money. What sticks in his craw is the 17 per cent wages, not the hundred per cent Carbide Island. Still, Christian had become smarter. To be smarter meant keeping your trap shut. A few of the others in the cells still hadn’t become smarter, still talked about error and misfortune, wanted consultations with their lawyer, and appeals and visits. But no visits were allowed on Carbide Island. They moaned instead of sleeping. They were damaged. They ended up in the U-boat. There everything was as per regulations.

Carbide. When the wind turned to the south, it blew the dust onto the island. Roses grew against the southern wall. Christian would have liked to know what colour they were. They had no scent. The flowers looked as if they were made of plaster. Even the leaves and shoots had a light-grey dusting, a stucco-like beauty heavy with sleep.

Asza said, ‘Anyone who sticks it out for a whole summer in the carbide will stay.’ Carbide. What was it, what did they need it for? Christian learnt: it needed coke and quicklime, the mixture was called Möller. A round furnace was charged with it. Christian had assumed the furnaces here would work in the same way as the stove at home with coal on a grating through which the ash fell into the ash pan underneath. But he had never seen — never mind heard — a stove anything like this furnace. Three Soderberg electrodes, several metres high and arranged in an equilateral triangle, jutted down into the furnace, were electrically charged and, since the material from which they were made formed resistance, became hot, creating an arc with a temperature of up to 3,000 °C. In it the Möller reacted to produce calcium carbide. The arc was dazzling white and hummed in the furnace opening that Asza called the nostril of hell. The hum was accompanied by the thump of the coke-crusher, since, before they were put in the mixing tower to be made into Möller, the coke and limestone had to be of a certain particle size. It sounded as if a herd of bison were stampeding across the shed, a knocking and rattling, sometimes a deafening clatter, as if goods wagons full of sheet metal were being tipped out. The furnaces used an immense amount of electricity — so much that on some days in Halle-Neustadt the lights went out when the early shift started and high-rise blocks stood there in the semi-dark like angry mountain trolls. Furnace 8 was a vicious dragon. Asza knew it well and respected it. When Asza burnt open the carbide crust, it sounded like a record arm being pulled right across the record, potent and dangerous, and it wasn’t always carbide that shot out into the ‘fox’, there were impurities, residues of quicklime and coke that ought not to be there. The shift supervisors knew that and kept quiet about it; they were under pressure from the targets and twenty-two tappings per shift were the norm, twenty-two times the white-hot snot had to pour out of the dragon’s nostrils. But the god of industrial processes had blocked them with lumps. Even at 2,200 °C the molten mass of the Möller tended to form lumps and the chemical reaction threatened to come to a halt. Preventing this was Christian’s job. With iron poles several metres long that they called rods he poked around in the glowing mass. What did such an iron pole weigh? Enough for it to be too heavy after half an hour. There was a steel thermometer beside the steps up to the top of the furnace, over the years it had been covered by more and more layers of flue dust and now looked more like a stalactite than a thermometer. When he was standing at the furnace using the rod, Christian had the feeling he was being smelted into a new kind of creature, a cross between an otter (sweat, the side away from the furnace) and a broiling fowl (facing the opening). The heat made you tired, despite that you had to be alert. Sometimes hot oil would spurt out of a leaky pipe, land on your tough cotton clothing and sparks would spray out from the burner, setting the cloth alight. Once Asza was in flames but Ruscha, the second tapper (they worked in fours per furnace and shift), calmly threw a blanket over him and smothered the blaze. Pancake, working the rods with Christian, had leapt aside in alarm. The dust made your throat scratchy and this was soon followed by the cough, a never-ending retching and barking to clear out the dust; it was worse over in the chlorine works, Asza said, over in the chlorine works they exceeded the officially permitted level of air contamination by 100 per cent. The heat made you thirsty.

‘Some time ago,’ said King Siewert, ‘they used to give us vitamins, fresh fruit, oranges — but now? Rhubarb juice! Rhubarb juice all the time! Nothing but rhubarb juice every day!’

‘But you’re in the Party,’ Ruscha said, ‘you tell those up there what it’s like here. Where’s Monkeydad?’ Monkeydad was what they called the departmental Party Secretary. ‘Sitting at his desk but never gets his arse off it. Polishing up his speeches … You tell him, King.’

‘I do, I do! But they never tell you anything. I’m none the wiser when I come out than when I went in.’

‘They’re driving the furnaces to rack and ruin. If one of them should blow up, then Yuri Gagarin here’ll be in the landing capsule; some red-hot communists at last.’

For their thirst there was rhubarb juice, pressed by VEB Lockwitzgrund. The juice was brought on a cart by a woman, ‘Rhubarb-juice Liese’. Of indefinite age, though already a pensioner, she sold the juice throughout Samarkand in order to supplement her pension. She was thin and bent as she walked, probably from the advanced stages of osteoporosis, and Christian never saw her other than in the same old-fashioned black dress, to which the yellow hard hat with the retort emblem of Samarkand formed a jarring contrast. People said that Rhubarb-juice Liese was not quite right in the head, she had lost her husband and her son in the war and had been raped, not by the Russians but by a Canadian unit. She had worked in ‘the chlorine’, which had left her with a rusty laugh that could be heard during the breaks, when the furnaces (contrary to regulations) were shut down and the noise fell to a bearable level. With a trembling, claw-like hand she gave out the bottles of rhubarb juice and took the money, which she kept in a leather conductor’s bag, giving it a long and thoughtful look. She stopped in front of Pancake, who was resting next to King Siewert, and felt his face, which confused him; he frowned in irritation.

‘She fancies you,’ Ruscha joked.

‘Oh, shut your gob.’ Pancake stood up, walked away from Rhubarb-juice Liese.

‘You just be careful, she’s got the evil eye,’ Asza said. ‘I once went to see a fortune-teller in Piraeus, she had just the same look.’

‘So that’s why you’re still here! Twenty-two years!’ Ruscha tapped his forehead. ‘Only a nutcase would stay in carbide for so long.’

‘And you?’ Pancake had come back and looked Ruscha up and down contemptuously.

‘I’m not here to improve my mind, chum, but to make money. I do my twelve hours —’

‘And all the rest can go to blazes, eh?’ King laughed.

‘There’s fire everywhere,’ Ruscha replied, shugging his shoulders.

Christian sat on one side in silence, listening to their stories, mostly about carbide and women, and trying to get some rest. He sensed that he wasn’t taken seriously. Pancake, the former blacksmith with the strength of an ox, they did take seriously. Not him. He was one of the ‘white collars’ as the workers contemptuously called the management. He worked like them, they didn’t make things easy for him, they didn’t help him. Despite that, he wasn’t one of them, there remained an insurmountable barrier. He hardly took part in the conversations at all, perhaps it was his silence that made the others so reticent. One day, however, Ruscha stood up and strolled over to Christian, who was drinking his rhubarb juice. ‘What I wanted to ask, mate — you don’t happen to belong to the firm, do you?’

‘Sit down, Ruscha,’ Pancake said.

‘Wouldn’t be the first time they’d dumped a stoolie on us,’ he said threateningly.

‘Not everyone likes shootin’ his mouth off like you,’ Asza said. ‘Just be happy we’ve got the lad, or do you want to do extra shifts again?’

‘If the dough’s right …’

‘The class standpoint can go to hell …’

‘Rhubarb juice, rhubarb juice, I’ve got the very best rhubarb juice,’ said Liese, praising her wares.

Once Christian had settled in, he began to observe Asza, Ruscha and the other workers and spent a lot of time thinking about them. Ron Siewert lived in a high-rise block in Halle-Neustadt, which was cut through by a four-lane motorway connecting Samarkand with the rest of the Orient. He got up at four for the early shift, went to bed at eight in the evening. His apartment was tiny, he and his wife had one child; his grandparents lived in a little room. Dumper trucks were going round and round the building day and night, the paths consisted of wooden planks. The children played on the piles of rubble or in the rubbish containers by the huge central shopping mall. White and decked out with flags, it was stuck in a sea of mud. Asza dreamt of going to sea again, as he had done when he was young. He wanted to go round all the harbours he’d been to again, in an ocean-going yacht with a four-man crew. He lived in Halle-Neustadt as well, Housing Complex 2, Block 380, House 5, apartment 17.

‘And if you come to visit me, Krishan,’ Asza said, ‘and can’t find my apartment, ’cause it’s a bit difficult, difficult — it’s the one with the red flowers on the balcony, all the others just have white ones.’

When they sat on their chairs during the breaks, silently smoking, silently sitting with their heads leaning forward:

(because there’d been an explosion: because there was a fault in the water-cooling system, water had come out of the cracked rubber hoses and combined with carbide to produce acetylene, which was spreading,

because acetylene was inflammable and exploded in the temperatures in the furnace,

because the carbide in the air, the dust fairies, also combined with the moist air to produce acetylene so that sometimes ball lightning seemed to be zooming round the furnace shop,

because molten carbide could suddenly shoot out of the furnace and hit the tappers and rod-men,

because impurities could be deposited on the furnace shell and gradually eat their way through the fireproof masonry of the furnace wall then be hurled out of the furnace like lava surrounded by tongues of flame,

because the dust-removal vent hadn’t been built,

because the effluent from the process was spewing out of open pipes as a toxic slick into the Saale,

because carbide was an indispensable component of plastic, artificial fibres, synthetic rubber,

because Samarkand urgently needed the long-overdue investment for other parts of their operations so therefore nothing would change,

because the hum of the furnace transformers, the interconnected single-phase transformers with an output of 53 MVA, and the rotary current transformer that, in order to increase output, was in parallel with the neighbouring carbide furnace, caused headaches, unbearable throbbing headaches,

because these transformers had a tendency to short-circuit and in the shower of sparks Asza would start to pray that the Lord would let them all get home safely, because there were planned targets and therefore ‘blanking’: at the times of peak demand, during the day, when there was often less power available, the furnaces were cut back, working like pumped storage power plants as buffers for the public network — but operated at full power during the night and on Sundays, when there was power available, to make up for the loss of production,

because there was not only carbide in Samarkand, there was the vinyl chloride department, electrolysis, where the workers inhaled toxic gases and died at fifty, the lime works where the carbide factory got its quicklime from, the fibre-spinning mill, the ball crushers, a conveyor belt with capsules the size of spaceships revolving on rollers, which ground the brown lumps of carbide to dust,

because retirement at sixty had once more been cancelled,

because the cars on the four-lane urban motorway drove and drove on and drove past)

they sat in silence, seeming to Christian like damned souls.

He observed Pancake. He’d driven Burre so far, he and others.

‘Why did you do it? Support me?’

‘Because it wasn’t right, Mummy’s Boy.’

‘And Burre?’

‘He was weak, that’s all.’

‘You think that’s right?’

‘The weak have to serve the strong, that’s the way things are.’

‘No, it’s the other way round. The strong have to support the weak.’

‘Well, yes, if it’s a matter of your own turf. Everyone has their own turf and anyone who belongs to your own turf has to be protected. Even if he’s weak. That’s what it’s always been like.’

‘But that’s why I still don’t understand why you supported me.’

‘You have a home, you have someone who comes to visit you, you have a place where you belong.’

‘You haven’t?’

Something strange happened: the resistance Christian had long felt inside himself — to society, to socialism as he experienced it and saw it — disappeared, gave way to a feeling of being in agreement with everything. It was right that he was there. He was an opponent of the army and of the system and that was why he was being punished. No country in the world handled its opponents with kid gloves. Christian sensed that here, in the chemical empire eaten away by brown-coal open-cast mines and poisoned rivers, he was in the right place for him. He had found his place in society, he was needed here (he could see the despair, the quiet pleas behind all the severe masks). He did what he was told to do and if he wasn’t told to do anything, he did nothing. And when he was doing nothing, he took pleasure in little things: a dandelion in postbox yellow, the clarity of a line of migrating birds (as autumn began, the greylag geese passed over the Orient). It was so much simpler to let go and not resist. If you did exactly what was demanded, the punishments passed you by, you were left in peace. Why struggle? What use was it knocking your head against a brick wall until it was bleeding? A wise man, he remembered, walks with his head bowed, humble like the dust.

In the evening he sometimes looked out of the cell window. By that time the swirling wind had mostly died down; across the black Saale and beside the coke-drying plant, which let off its soot now, sending housewives dashing out in their aprons to save their washing, you could see the housing estate where Asza, King Siewert, Ruscha and many of the other carbide workers lived. New blocks surrounded a square, in the middle was a windmill, its sails turning against the chemically inflamed sky of Samarkand.

62. Nu zayats — pogodi

If you wanted to know what was new in the district, the place to go to was Veronica, a building in Querleite where a communal bathhouse was run for those who didn’t have a bathroom of their own or, as in the House with a Thousand Eyes, where there was only one used by too many tenant families. At the beginning of the winter of 1986 three events caused a stir: the return of Muriel Hoffmann from the reformatory, the strange operation of the Minister of National Defence and the story of the exchanged child. Meno went to the bathhouse once a week, as the water allocation and usage plan allowed, showered, observed, listened. Herr Unthan, who was in charge of the bathhouse, was blind. He made his way round the cellar of 12 Querleite, where the baths were housed, with its atmosphere of steam and spray, dimly lit by Schuckert bulbs, from its time as a popular sanatorium, whose contacts could still withstand the damp, with the sureness of a sleepwalker. The cubicles were approached along duckboards with pimpled rubber mats; two still had the good zinc baths with the wind vane symbol of the Erzgebirge firm of Krauss that had originally been installed there; two others were wooden tubs and the last two injection-moulded plastic baths with original enamel signs above them on which was written, in black Gothic letters: ‘O Krauss, O name of fearful chime — I never bathe, I love my grime’ (the sarcastic advert was by Joachim Ringelnatz), as well as, presumably, to deny the boys of the district any excuse: ‘This rule holds true for ev’ry house: you need a bath — you need a Krauss.’ The cubicles were secured with brass padlocks that hung in the gloom like greeny-gold jewel beetles; since, however, the wood of the doors had become so rotten with the damp and mould you could easily put your hand through them, this security measure was like trying to keep jewels in cardboard boxes with strong metal locks. Beyond the baths, farther back in the cellar, there were shower cubicles with brown plastic swing doors that reached from the knees to the shoulders of an average adult and sounded like a Jew’s harp when opened or closed. Herr Unthan had a grandfather who had played the violin and since Herr Unthan senior lacked both arms, he’d done it in a circus, with just his toes; Herr Unthan junior had a shellac record, ‘incontrovertible proof’, that he never played to anyone, even though when the Tietzes came to have a bath Ezzo would, by his expressions of disbelief as far as his grandfather’s skills were concerned, provoke Herr Unthan to statements such as ‘He died poor, but with rich eyes.’

Niklas too would have liked to have had the record for the Friends of Music but Herr Unthan junior’s response to all offers was silence, as he lugged bucket after bucket of hot water to the baths and showers using a yoke decorated in folk-art style. The communal baths had only two cold-water connections, which were linked by pipes to a tank over a stove, for which there was a significant pile of briquettes in the backyard of Veronica, tipped out there in the summer by Plisch and Plum from their boss’s Framo pickup truck and, if the winter was long, Herr Unthan very busy and the deluge ‘after us’ cool, people stole without compunction.

‘Well, Meno, too much ink on your fingers again?’

‘And you, Niklas? Washing off the rosin?’

‘Oh well, you know how it is.’

‘Frau Knabe, I’ve forgotten my bath salts, could you pour me some over?’

‘But it’s from over there, Frau Fiebig.’

‘But that’s what I meant, Frau Knabe. Could you pour me some from your cubicle over there into my bathtub. If you would be so kind.’

Laughter, the hum of voices. Curses and jokes. Gossip and scandal from the district and the town. Sometimes someone would start singing and mostly others would join in. Herr Unthan slaved away with the water (it never occurred to anyone to help him) and Meno listened:

‘You still haven’t told us the story of the minister, Herr Tietze.’

‘Ah, this is how it was, Herr Kühnast.’

The Minister of Defence, who naturally took a military approach to matters, was, as happens to men of a more advanced age, visited by a problem in a place where orders are no use. The Minister of Defence thought about it and called his adjutant.

‘Find me the best specialist in the Republic!’

‘The best specialist for the task in question, Comrade Minister, is in Dresden, St Joseph’s Hospital.’

Surely he wasn’t trying to tell him, the Minister growled, that in the whole of the capital of the German Democratic Republic there was no specialist for that manoeuvre of the same rank!

‘The specialists were unanimous in naming that name, Comrade Minister.’

‘All right, then. Make the necessary preparations and have the comrade brought here.’

Dr Focke, the Chief Urologist at St Joseph’s was, like many urologists, a man with a tendency to fly into a rage and express himself very directly.

‘Then I’ll just have to fly to Dresden,’ the Minister told his adjutant. ‘I have to check out things at the Military Academy there anyway. See to it that everything’s prepared in that hospital and have the helicopter on stand-by. I want this Dr Focke to operate on me the day after tomorrow.’

Dr Focke said he was willing to do that. He asked for all the documents to be sent to him immediately. He had reserved a single room for the Herr Minister, but he refused to have the crucifix over the bed removed.

The Minister, who had led many companies, battalions and regiments, been in command of many attacks on the Eastern front as a young officer and spent time in the Nazis’ prisons, was a man with a tendency to fly into a rage and express himself very directly.

‘And so,’ Niklas Tietze explained, as he knocked the long-handled wooden back-brush against the cellar ceiling, making the brush head, which could be hired from a whole collection for twenty pfennigs, come off and drop into the next shower cubicle, ‘and so a compromise was agreed.’

It did not, as every sensible person would have imagined, consist of moving the operation to another Dresden hospital. Dr Focke wanted his tried-and-tested team around him, wanted to be able to concentrate fully on the task in hand and not be ‘stuck in an alien atmosphere’, as he explained to the adjutant on the telephone. But it was the Minister they were talking about! The latter, listening in on the second receiver, was, Niklas told his amazed audience in their bathwater or under dripping showers, in the picture; first he had gone bright red then, with a grim smile and crushing the receiver in his hand, stomped up and down muttering ‘Nu zayats — pogodi.’ Just you wait, hare.

‘Then he had a look at a map of Dresden and tapped a large patch of green with his finger. The large green patch close to which, on the other side of the busy Stübelallee, St Joseph’s lay, was the Great Garden. Just there, on the meadow that had been hurriedly reconnoitred and declared suitable, even though already attacked by hostile, negative hoarfrost, a tented camp was erected by the 7th Armoured Division, which was stationed in Dresden and had been put on unscheduled alert, and the officer cadets of the Friedrich Engels Military Academy. The Dresdeners were probably wondering why on that day there were diversions in operation on the busy Stübelallee, the equally busy Dr-Richard-Sorge-Strasse and the Brücke der Einheit, why the open-air Junge Garde stage, the exhibition centre on Fučikplatz, even the Zoo on the other side of the large patch of green, remained closed. Only the little narrow-gauge railway carrying cheerful schoolchildren through the fresh morning air had been forgotten, at which the Minister’s adjutant flew into a rage. The whistling might disturb the doctor, it was to be stopped at once! The adjutant, a far-sighted man, had even taken into consideration the fact that the operating area, since it was situated in an open meadow, might be liable to instability, which was confirmed by a call to the department responsible: there was a plague of voles that had long been out of control. Several companies of soldiers with torches had therefore spent the night emptying standard cartridges of carbide down holes in the ground; on the morning of the operation they had managed to blow away the oppressive stench by means of an aeroplane propeller mounted on a lorry.’

‘And Focke?’ Herr Kühnast asked.

‘It took him four hours. He told me he enjoyed it.’

‘Poor Gudrun,’ Meno murmured.

But Gudrun started to sing, first of all a folk song, then ‘A shower bath, a shower bath, to wash those blues away, Annie’s got a new sweetheart, the handsome Johnny Grey.’ She sang alone, for they were lines she made up while scrubbing the children, Niklas and herself in the shower. Then something of the merriment would return that she must have bubbled over with as a girl and that reappeared at rare moments, sometimes for no reason at all. Then it could happen that Gudrun would put a washbasin on her head, shout something to Herr Orré, if he was in the neighbouring cubicle, at which the actor would leap out into the corridor, naked apart from a washbasin on his head and holding an elderly umbrella, which was used to keep the spray from the first shower out of the bathtubs, and perform a flip-flop-slapping tap dance with Gudrun Tietze to the accompaniment, bawled out rather than sung, of the other bathers: ‘We were often stony broke, / bein’ broke it ain’t no joke. / But now I’ve got a new hat / an’ I feel much better for that. / Life has its ebb an’ its flow, / you get tossed about to an’ fro, / sometimes you’re here, sometimes there / but now I’m a millionaire!’

Herr Unthan had difficulty getting past the two dancers. The buckets had to be emptied — into the zinc storage tanks that, like lavatory cisterns only higher, were hung from the cellar ceiling to provide the necessary water pressure. In order to get the water out of the buckets and into the containers, there were rails fixed to the sides of the shower cubicles up which rope hoists ran; they had tipping handles, to which the buckets were attached, and when Herr Unthan pulled a lever that worked via the rope hoist the bucket, just three metres above the floor, tipped forward and emptied the water into the storage container that could take enough water to shower a family of four. Since there were only two buckets, it didn’t make sense to accelerate one’s shower, as some intelligent observers had wanted to do, by simply pouring the contents of a bucket over one’s head. In the first place that wasn’t a proper shower and would have hurt Herr Unthan’s professional pride; in the second a safety regulation indicated that such a procedure was not permitted.

‘Good day, Herr Rohde. I hope you don’t mind but Herr Unthan’s put me in the banja with you.’

‘Hello, Herr Adeling. No water for you at home either?’

‘Oh, water, yes, but the stories, Herr Rohde, the stories. May I put my soap beside yours. There’s a cat winking on yours, quite unmistakable.’

Frau Knabe, the dentist, was telling the story of the exchanged child. And while she was talking, in his mind’s eye Meno could see the Roecklers, the couple who ran the dance school of the same name on Lindwurmring, to whose daughter the unbelievable event, which had been a topic of conversation in the town for months, had happened.

‘One day Silke Roeckler, their youngest daughter, went to the shop of the military hospital. You can go in, the guards let you through and sometimes they have things you can’t get from Frau Zschunke’s or in Sweet Corner or Konsum.’

Meno heard the click of the abacus that Frau Knabe was imitating, making her majestic bosom press against the plastic door, to the delight of the men in the shower cubicle opposite. Frau Roeckler was small with a pale, waxy complexion in the white pleated dress she wore with the gold lamé shoes for the dancing lessons partnering her husband in his black tails. In perfect posture, with doll-like make-up, as graceful as one of Kändler’s Meissen figures, she would float, her still-black hair swept up in a shiny 1950s style, across the chessboard floor of the dance school on the first floor, accompanied by the drizzle of the grand piano beside the pale-leaved Monstera, on which, when the central paste chandelier was lit, the shadow of a stuffed hobby from the Bassaraba pet shop, which was hanging from the stucco ceiling, would fall.

‘I think she went to the shop because, unusually for August, they had oranges there, and when she came out, she found a different child from her own in her pram.’

— Pliés, pirouettes, complicated tango steps: Eduard Roeckler seemed born to do them, even though dancing had not always been his profession; it was his passion, as was art in general; he was deeply moved by the passion and beauty it can convey. He wanted to be a painter and did a course in microscopic drawing at art college and that saved his life during the war, in which he ended up in Königsberg and Riga; he met a woman, that same floating Magdalene Roeckler, who came from a dynasty of dance teachers; after that war he too wanted to do nothing but dance. Hundreds of pictures on the walls of the dance school bore witness to his continuing passion for painting and microscopic drawing; he thought the large mirrors, such as they had in other dance schools, pointless. ‘If you have to have a mirror, let it be a face close to you,’ he used to say.

‘The guard called for a doctor; on that day the microbiologist of the military hospital, a Romanian called Doctor Varga, was there. He gave her an injection and she came round. They established that the child had had many operations. Silke Roeckler screamed, she was completely hysterical.’

‘How can you say that, Frau Knabe?’ Herr Kühnast objected. ‘You have no children of your own. Put yourself in the poor woman’s situation, simply terrible. — What happened next?’

‘There was an immediate investigation, of course. The whole complex of the military hospital, all the Russians’ houses on Lindwurmring and Grünleite were cordoned off.’

And Meno remembered how he had been called upon as an interpreter, for he too had heard that there were oranges in the shop there, and had gone home early on that day, a hot Friday in August, to get a little present for Anne; he’d called Barbara, and she had come from the furrier’s; a woman had looked at him and said, ‘You’re another of these stooges of the Russians’, in a quiet but clearly audible voice. The commander of the military hospital was in despair, he promised to do everything in his power to clear the matter up and get the stolen child back.

‘But to no avail, they still haven’t found the child.’

‘How old was the boy?’ Herr Kühnast asked.

‘Eight months. The other child was about the same age.’

‘But they ought to be able to find out about it. The child must have been operated on by a specialist, surely he can be found, Frau Knabe. And he would know who the mother was.’

‘I heard that the trail goes cold somewhere on the Russian border.’

‘A cover-up. And the Roeckler lad’s growing up as a Russian, with no memory of his real parents, unable to speak their language. But you can’t leave an eight-month-old child by itself like that. I don’t understand it.’

‘Yes, and then there was that solidarity bazaar, on Lindwurmring. The commander of the military hospital was devastated; although it’s not certain it was someone from the hospital, or a Russian at all, there were visitors there as well, it still happened on his patch. You can’t imagine what went on … they turned everything upside down and the guard who was nearby’s been arrested.’

‘Oh, God, yes, that solidarity bazaar with the matryoshka dolls, chai from the samovar and accordions … the stuff they happen to have.’

‘That’s rather condescending, don’t you think, Herr Kühnast? It’s not their fault,’ Meno said.

‘All right, Herr Rohde. We all know where you come from. And you don’t have any children either.’

Meno remembered: the Russian women had cooked some food, a whole cauldron full, and stood there waiting, anxious and embarrassed. A lot of local people had come to the solidarity bazaar. They had walked up in silence and spat into the cauldron one after the other.

‘Yes, and then Magda Roeckler went over to the Russians and said just the same as you, Herr Rohde. “It’s not your fault.” And then she said to the others, “Please, please don’t do that.” ’

While the story was being told the blind Herr Unthan wound bucket after bucket of warm water up into the storage tanks.

63. Castalia

Meno wrote,

rooms, one above the other, linked by thin bridges and the cables for clunky, black Bakelite telephones. Father said, ‘Beware of countries where poems are popular. Places where people recite lines in the trams, others join in until eventually whole compartments are echoing with rhymes, office-workers with tears running down their cheeks, holding on to the strap with their right hand, in their left their ticket for the conductor, who keeps reciting to the end of the poem before he clips the tickets’, he doesn’t miss either a line or a ticket and manages to issue penalty notices while weeping at the beauty of Pushkin’s lines, ‘places where, before the teams line up in the ice-hockey stadiums, Mayakowski is recited’, the stadium announcer reads it out and the crowd chants it after him, ‘everywhere in that country there is cruelty and fear, falsehood rules. Beware of the country where the poets fill stadiums … Beware of the country where verses are a substitute.’ Truth, truth … the choruses echoed across the Elbian river, Scholars’ Island came in sight. The major educational project … The enlightenment had been brought in, the structure grew, layer upon layer. Many years had passed since the building of the wall that enclosed the country and divided the capital, the Copper Island of the government. For many years the roses had grown, slowing down time, and when I stepped onto Scholars’ Island, the paper republic, where Hermes-Verlag was going to one of the weekly editorial and committee meetings, the speed with which the water was dripping from the leaking pipes, the undiminished effect of gravity, which made the contents of the ashtrays from the smoke-ridden rooms of Editorial Office II float down into the oily puddles covering the inner courtyard, seemed unreal to me, as unreal as the figures moving with measured tread in the oddly dry, sepia light, my colleagues, my superiors; specialists who wrote a report; staff of the institutes that give us backing against the demands of the censors, against the ideological stomach ache of strict comrades, the narrow-mindedness, the pitfalls, the unpredictable twists and turns of the Book Ministry. It was in the depths of Scholars’ Island, only accessible with a special card, an escort who knew his way around and nimble surfing of the paternosters. Creatures I found interesting from an anthropological point of view, categories of cave-dwellers, pale as plants grown out of the light, pawing at the world above ground with knuckles that were the jangle of telephones, muffled voices that seem to be creeping up out of sealed rusted catacombs and reprimanding us for hiding pieces by Musil, Joyce, Proust in an anthology in the hope that they wouldn’t notice this trial balloon, no bigger than a lemon, so that we could say, when we applied for permission to publish À la Recherche, Ulysses, The Man without Qualities, that these were authors who had long been in our list … They were, we were informed, the spearhead of Western decadence, inappropriate for ‘our people’ (they mostly said ‘our people’) … We devised afterwords that were like waybills declaring the harmless nature of the goods on 100 pages; we wrote blurbs like lead palisades to ward off the arrows of the unfathomable attackers; we sent one well-loved caravel floating along in a phalanx of battleships, staring apprehensively at the telephone that would announce the discovery of our ploy, order the destruction of the caravel and an increase in the number of battleships … Creatures like hermit crabs in rooms with the acoustics of screw tubes, twitching feelers at every deviation, seismically sensitive antennae running over the lines of text; clown fish in sea anemones, darting through their tentacles, afraid they’re no longer able to produce the semiochemical that camouflages them and keeps them safe from the voracious appetites of their host plant; hammerhead sharks furiously after blood, tearing to pieces everything the food-providing hand tipped in front of their mouths; sea cucumbers that never come to a decision, slithery and glassy, like conserved fruit; electric eels and moray eels in the reefs, lying in wait for their prey; remoras holding on tight with their suckers to the great whale shark called Socialist Realism … Hermes-Verlag wasn’t a publisher, it was a literary institute. In the silence of smoke-filled lamps, of cigarettes flaring up and dying down, in the galvanic crackle of the aquarium of reading eyes in which pieces of paper catch the light like the white bellies of fish drifting past, the geographers of horizontal and vertical planes pursued their researches, let down plumb lines into the voices of the past, plucked at meridians and waited for a response. We gave the people bread for the spirit; we were a window on the world … The wall wrapped itself round Scholars’ Island, this socialist Castalia, triply secured: inwardly, outwardly and against smiles; the barbed-wire roses sprouted up the building, only the birds didn’t get caught; searchlights scanned the wall, dogs on long chains prowled the no-man’s-land between the circular walls. Everywhere relics of lost cultures, signs waiting to be deciphered, seamarks on mouldering maps, but the old captains were dead, the astrolabes or sextants, with which the signs could have been read, sold or lying forgotten in the storerooms of the museums beneath the city. At the Hermes offices there was a sign in the vestibule, a left-over, like so much else in the houses of Atlantis, that read: ‘ “The bourgeoisie has squandered the literary heritage and we must bring it together again carefully, study it and then, having critically assimilated it, move forward.” A. A. Zhdanov at the 1st conference of the Writers’ Union, 1934’; ‘Education, education,’ was the whisper in the corridors, the crackle from the telephones, the repeated message from long-abandoned archives of discs that seemed to be fed by electric leakage from sources above ground level, so that they were able to continue revolving endlessly and, perhaps illuminated by the gleam of ‘on air’ lamps, keep on sending the sound pickup into the scratch from which the old principles came like the same workpieces filling box after box as they dropped down from a punch that couldn’t be switched off. But we enjoyed making discoveries; knowledge was our food and we couldn’t get enough of it; books were sacred and there was nothing we feared more than the heat smouldering in the cellar, the sparks that could suddenly, without advance warning, without anyone being able to foresee them, fly out from the heating appliances that were still under control, from the steaming valves, the butterfly nuts screwed down tight on tow sealant and plain washers, the cracked welds and mangy fireclay, the worn-out threads and filthy chimneys, their bricks eaten away by the acid smoke; we were afraid of fire, some of us had already seen books burning. In the editorial offices there were people playing the glass-bead game, they had set up telescopes that looked out through mildewed portholes, through well-disguised hatches in the barbed wire, at the culture of foreign countries; periscopes that saw manuscripts when they were still drying on the writers’ desks; with extreme love and care we selected what seemed important, right and valuable … A drifting head, a Jupiter head, floated across the paper republic on a tour of inspection. We anchored in Weimar, our umbilical cord attached in the house on the Frauenplan, where our sun, a disc of placenta, was rising, Goethe our fixed star … People imbued with the love of literature, of language, of the well-made book (endless discussions over tea and Juwel filter cigarettes about the disadvantages of staple binding and the advantages of sewn binding, print space, ligatures, the colour of cases and endpapers, the quality of linen for bindings), sat in the cabins of Scholars’ Island and spent years bent over Romanian and Azerbaijani poetry, translations from Persian, Georgian, Serbo-Croat, the quality of which (only that of the translations) had been checked by editors, wondered with specially appointed style editors whether someone could enter literature on ‘Jesus flip-flops’ or rather on ‘Christ sandals’, while behind them, in the walls, in the radiators with steam being let off in their wrinkled, rumbling pipes that brought up strange digestive noises from the depths, in the antique typewriters, the busy manufactory of glue pots, scissors, bone folders and pots with Barock iron-gall ink (sometimes I thought I could hear the scratch of goose-quills on their paper from the VEB Weissenborn paper factory, but it was only the standard ATO nibs with which the glass-bead-game players scribbled notes or the draft of a report), the clocks scraped away in the grinding and, depending on the season, slurping noises of the river, measurable time, terrible and submarine, fermented, while the pendulum of the other time, which gives things development and change, slowly swayed to and fro, like a metronome rod with the weight at its highest point … Whom did we reach? Sometimes we had the feeling we bounced off people or, worse still, threw things that went right through them; saw not them but ourselves, when we tried to look out of the windows of the island into the apartments of Atlantis. Who were the others? How much of the things that we considered important reached them? Philosophers in scholar’s studies high above the wall pursued research on utopian socialists, I thought of Jochen Londoner, who spent his exile in England, to whose daughter Hanna I had been married, now he was brooding in his institute, which resembled a baroque wooden screw, over the history of the working class, reflecting on the problems of a planned socialist economy, specialist workhorses were producing commentaries on the canonic works, were connected up to the system of blood vessels — The Complete Works of Marx and Engels — helping to make the sun of the Only Ideology rise. The working party of professors meets. The working party of verbal erotomanes meets. They talk themselves up into a state about a decisive, indispensable, life-saving aspect of existence in Atlantis: the colour of house walls — was it floorcloth-grey or dishwater-grey? Which dishwater? That of the Interhotels or of works canteens? Of nationally owned or private ones? Were the charred caryatids on palaces in Leningrad the colour of window putty? Fauns’ ears, stone plants, the plaster pockmarked by bullet lumps (lymph nodes, cancerous growths from the last war) — what shade of grey was it that they had taken on over decades of decay? We thought of grisaille painting. Of worry-grey. Grisette-grey. Argus-eyes-grey. Prison-inmate-grey. Of men’s-fashion-grey, snail-grey, groschen-grey, oyster-grey, tree bast, wolf-grey, pencil-grey, elephant-grey. This colour, wasn’t it a brown? Ash-coloured. Powdery-clayey, flat, wooden, produced by time, exhaust fumes, acid rain; the plaster looked flea-bitten like a camel’s rusky fleece. We were getting into the zone of justification. What was the Great Project? The reconstruction of reality so that we would be able to shape it according to our dreams …

64. Optional: needlework

Herr Pfeffer took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and, eyes narrowed to slits, scrutinized Christian. His glasses had left a dark-red impression on the bridge of his nose. ‘Let’s see what your boss has sent me. You graduated from senior high school?’

Christian said yes. Pfeffer wiped the lenses of his glasses with a crisply ironed white silk handkerchief.

‘You wanted to study medicine?’

Again Christian said yes. Pfeffer checked the lenses of his glasses, rolled up one corner of his handkerchief into a cone the length of his finger and used it to clean the fine streaks along where the bevelled edge of the lens ran under the gold frame. ‘I’m not all that fond of medics. Arrogant, in general artistically inclined and therefore in general of the mistaken opinion that artistic ability comes from, or is the same as, laissez-faire. Though admittedly there are different specimens of the species. Perhaps you’re one of those different specimens. We will have the opportunity to establish that. I’ve had really good experiences with philosophers and modelmakers, with many artists of the Saxon school. What does precision mean to you?’

In the middle of the harsh winter of ’86/87, during which he was to be transferred to a different job, Christian had no answer to that question.

‘Precision, young man, is love. I will give you a chance, even though it’s likely that the carbide will have completely ruined you for the kind of work that is done at my place.’ He breathed on his spectacles, checked and polished them until they were gleaming and spotless.

Traugott Pfeffer, formerly in a managerial position in the Republic’s Mint, now a foreman in VEB Phalera, which some quirk of fate had made part of the consumer goods production department of the Chemical Combine, had his own methods of convincing himself of the ‘outstanding quality of work’ that was done in his company — the certificate was hung over his desk in the foreman’s office, a bird’s nest of corrugated iron that allowed an all-round view of the shed. Below him, sitting at a circle of workbenches that allowed a view of the barred windows of the shed, were the ten men of A shift, all in the faded but spotlessly clean prisoners’ dress supplied by VEB Phalera — the state coat of arms the size of a saucer sewn on over the heart — busy making decorations, medals and badges from unfinished metal or polyester workpieces. In order to keep a close eye, both clockwise and initial-wise, on his men, one of whom Christian now was, Traugott Pfeffer, former master craftsman in the Mint, used a swivelling telescope suspended on gimbals, like a ship’s chronometer; it was made by the nationally owned ‘Enterprise with outstanding quality of work’ Carl Zeiss Jena, and belonged to him personally, which fact was lovingly engraved on it. A second method of control, the unspectacular one, as Traugott Pfeffer, for whom the unspectacular was as much a part of art as bread is of our daily diet, lay in the examination of the workpieces. For that he took a special gauge out of the right hip pocket of his grey overalls, which were always neatly ironed, placed the scale, which measured in hundredths of a millimetre, along the diameter of the Medal for Exemplary Service on the Border, the Clara Zetkin and Hans Beimler medals, checked the distance between the awns of the three ears of grain on the medal for Distinguished Inventors, counted the rays of the rising sun of the pin for Outstanding Service to the Union, on which, right in the middle, there was a very bushy ear of wheat, checked the number of radiating needles of the ten-pointed star of the Patriotic Order of Merit.

Christian’s tasks included the following operations:

Mondays: take unfinished Grand Star of the Friendship between Nations, version for wearing on the chest, from palette of materials on right, check quickly, take bronze pin from VEB Solidor from palette of materials on left, check briefly, pick up soldering iron, solder pin to Grand Star of the Friendship between Nations, check, polish five-cornered star, polish coloured enamel coat of arms of the Republic in the middle, shine and deburr curved oak leaves between the points of the star using polishing awl, clean dove of peace stamped on top point of star.

Tuesdays: take unfinished Faithful Service medal of the German Post from palette of materials on left, briefly check. Take Solidor steel pin from palette of materials on right, briefly check, pick up soldering iron, solder pin to clasp-bar of Faithful Service medal, polish front, especially post-horn and two jagged electric flashes sticking out either side of the horn’s cord. This medal was one of Traugott Pfeffer’s favourites and he urged Christian to work carefully, for: ‘Always remember, young man, it’s mostly older people who get medals and decorations, their whole life is symbolized by the piece of metal, so you ought to get yourself to solder the pin on really straight, not everyone likes to see their life engraved crookedly or hanging askew.’

Wednesdays: Christian was standing at the cutting and embossing presses where the unfinished medals and decorations were produced from little sheets of tombac, brass and aluminium.

Thursdays: Christian washed the grease and oil left over from embossing and deburring off the medals with a solution, used a brush to apply enamel to the indentations — pulverized glass that was mixed with distilled water and adhesive and then fired. After the lunch break Christian moved either to the mordant bath, where the scale left over from firing was removed with acid, or to electroplating, where the medals and decorations were lowered into baths of electrolytic gold beside Traugott Pfeffer’s Solingen oak leaf control spoon that, at the end of the procedure, had to be covered up to the handle with a clear layer of gold; only then did Traugott Pfeffer go for lunch.

Fridays: Christian was back at the workbench, mostly occupied with making Sailor of Outstanding Merit decorations, in bronze, gilt, edge smooth; Sailor of Outstanding Merit, in bronze, edge milled; the Decoration for Outstanding Achievements in Fire Protection; the Golden One children’s decoration; membership badges for the Association for Sport and Technology, Pigeon-Racing Section; the Drop of Blood badge of the German Red Cross for giving blood; the Free German Youth Harvest Pin; the Pin of Merit for Workers in the Administration of Justice, bronze, enamel and gold versions, coated with polyester.

Every day pins of the attachment systems from VEB Solidor had to be filed sharp with a triangular file. Using a doll in uniform which, for the purposes of demonstration, had decorations in the correct position, Traugott Pfeffer explained, ‘The uniform, which is the clothing with which phaleristics in this country is mostly concerned, is made of coarse material and the pins of our decorations must penetrate it easily despite that. Just imagine if the Comrade General Secretary could not attach the Karl-Marx Medal to the chest of the man or woman receiving it, or not in the time allowed, because the pins, which are unfortunately often blunt when supplied by our partners at Solidor, bent out of shape.’

The A shift had to complete 150 per cent of the planned target every day; Herr Pfeffer only put 100 per cent in the account book. Christian learnt the reason three months later.

Traugott Pfeffer did not like fog; he liked knots and Marcel Proust. Christian had worked ‘satisfactorily’, he could — having practised with the ship’s doctor — tie knots and he had at least heard the name of Proust.

‘Good,’ Traugott Pfeffer said, ‘I can see that you’re ready for the B shift.’

On the B shift, which worked at night, neither medals nor decorations were produced, instead the seven volumes of the Rütten & Loening edition of Proust’s Recherche were read. ‘Sometimes you have to force people to do what’s good for them,’ Traugott Pfeffer said. ‘This is my realm and all those who, one after the other, go through my night shift, read the Search — page by page, volume by volume. Sleeping is not allowed. I will test you, to see if you are worthy because you are thorough. With this.’ Out of the left hip pocket of his overalls he took a case, from which he extracted a tiepin, gilded in the electrolyte bath and filed sharp till it shone. Traugott Pfeffer, Christian learnt from a philosopher on the B shift who had been sent on probation to work in industry, would stick this pin into Lost Time, open it at that page, read and start to ask questions. ‘It’s best if you make notes,’ the philosopher said. ‘Anyone he finds worthy of reading Proust doesn’t come off the night shift until he’s read the whole book.’

There were five of them; the other four on B shift were all philosophers, though from different schools, and would spend the whole night in silent but bitter arguments, hastily scribbled in pencil on rough paper, about alienation in a Developed Socialist Society.

65. In our hand

‘Richard.’

‘Anne.’

‘Can I have a word with you?’

Richard stepped back from the vice, in which there was a part for the gas water-heater, improvised and filed to size from a constructional drawing Stahl, the engineer, had made for him. ‘Shall we go out?’

‘Not necessary. The people who’re listening to us know just as much as we do. Or would you like a breath of fresh air? I couldn’t last ten minutes in the stuff you breathe in this cellar.’

Upstairs, in the living room, she said, ‘I can’t take any more, Richard. For a long time I’ve watched and said nothing. But this Reina, this student … it’s too much. We’ — Anne suddenly laughed — ‘ought to have an argument now but, you know, I don’t want to, I … I just don’t have the strength.’

‘Yes, Anne,’ Richard murmured. He touched a few things, sofa cushions, the edge of a cupboard. ‘Is Reglinde in?’

‘She’s gone out. The letter on the table’s from Robert.’

‘I know, I … I’ve read it. He seems to be doing quite well.’

‘Better than Christian. But you always say that Christian tends to exaggerate a bit, with his, what d’you call it … bragger, braggerdosho, I can’t get the word right.’ Again she laughed.

‘Robert, yes, he’s never had that many problems. And yet — perhaps he doesn’t say anything simply because Christian’s already, in a way … that’s Christian’s style and perhaps Robert doesn’t want to be the same.’

‘The grandfather clock, Richard, can’t you stop it? I can’t stand the tick-tock, it hurts. Shall I get you something to drink?’

‘I can do that.’

‘You won’t be able to find anything. What were you going to say?’

‘It meant nothing to me, Anne.’

She nodded and went out. Richard heard her busying herself about the kitchen, there was a chink of ice cubes in glasses, he stopped the pendulum of the grandfather clock. It resisted, started to get back into rhythm with micro-oscillations, Richard had to take off one of the lead weights, he put it down carefully inside the clock case. He heard a clatter in the hall, the dull thud of a fall. Anne’s right hand was full of splinters of glass.

‘We’ll have to go to the clinic.’ He thought for a moment, then rang Friedrich Wolf Hospital.

‘Barsano. Yes, you can use the room. I’ll have everything made ready.’

‘You gave yourself away back at the wedding, you know,’ Anne said. Richard was driving the Lada, wasn’t concentrating, thought it would have been better to take a taxi — No, taxis were rare, they might have had to wait hours for one. Oddly enough, it had never occurred to him to call an ambulance. Anne was staring at her bandaged hand. ‘When I asked you whether you knew the boy, you said: No, perhaps the son of a patient. How did you know he wasn’t the son of Wernstein’s friend?’

‘She’s our senior secretary,’ Richard replied wearily. The red needle flickered restlessly over the the elongated numbers on the speedometer. He was driving on automatic pilot, as if another being inside him were doing it, a matchstick man made of a few nerves and linked muscles. How alien and yet important all this was: the dashboard, the trees along the street, the key in the ignition.

‘Then you shouldn’t have said perhaps. By the way, I’ve seen Lucie. Pretty girl, there’s a lot of you about her.’

Everything was ready at the hospital. Frau Barsano offered to assist Richard.

Anne’s hand. My wife’s hand, he thought. White and bloodless (a nurse had taken the bandage off), it lay in the dazzling, mocking light of the operating lamp.

A hand — what it does is one thing. A piece of body, a body itself, an assistant at performances; eloquent, undisguised truth. What it prevents, perhaps simply by not moving, is another. He found both interesting. He loved hands. Hands were stimulants, gave him pleasure. He had studied hands: the sea-lily femininity of Botticelli’s women’s fingers (they were fingers, but weren’t they what made hands?); hands that were obstinately convinced of something; hands as if in despair at their size and at their incessant, steady moving away from childhood; creamed and uncreamed hands, alluring and mossily unfathomable hands; the hands of women gardeners, tanned by sap, and of stokers in which coal dust has lodged and can’t be washed off; he had seen the hands of a butterfly expert (who had called them feeble fools); his father’s hands examining a clock: all these (now ghostly-seeming) hands with the trace element of tenderness. Hands that had gone numb, fingers as fragile as a quail’s bones, and had transformed cities. Hands of peasant women, gnarled, a weave of harshness and cold and a life of hard work, Querner had painted them: they seemed to be made more of wood than of flesh, the fingers were crooked with gout and arthritis and blows: blows warded off and blows handed out. At the same time Richard thought hands were sometimes curious, the fact that there were two of them seemed to take away something of their value, of their gleaming precision. Why do Cyclops have only one eye? So that its look is more threatening, so that there’s less distraction. One hand, two hands: around another person’s body — or neck — to clasp from both sides, to caress in stereo; to murder. Lines of bitterness. Some looked restless from unchangeableness. There, that scar — do you remember? On our honeymoon, it was the way the travels of our youth were: no great distance, Rheinsberg and Havel, reachable on our Berliner motor scooter: apples lit from behind, grainy with the nocturnal dew, pumpkins in the windows, the size of grapefruit, striped like the trousers of Turks in operas, some beige with green growths, some like fluffed-up turbans, others pear-shaped, yellow and dark green, a sharply drawn boundary between the colours. The breakdown on the way, Anne letting the second screwdriver slip.

‘You’ve made yourself unsterile, Herr Hoffmann. The edge of your hand was on the tap.’

He’d found reading hands satisfying even when he was a junior doctor; others might see it as a challenge, tormenting, abrasive, for him it was taking something that was packed, carefully and willingly encircling it, peeling off its coverings, full of inhibitions, fear of nakedness — but it was there, softly throbbing, demanding to be known. And no one had explained what cutting into a hand meant (oh, that word: ‘to grasp’). To cut into one’s own wife’s hand; five fingers, the constriction where the wedding ring had been (the nurse had had to use soap and a silk thread to take it off); the ball of the thumb; the pulse of the two main arteries, that couldn’t be felt now; the palm of the hand with lines and grooves and a cloud of superstition; pale, brittle-looking nails; so that the hand on the green sheets looked like an anaesthetized stoat with its winter fur, ready for dissection. No one told you how to deal with the irrevocability, the absence of irony at the moment of the cut: Here I am, the hand seemed to say, there’s no turning back, I have to trust you. So make me well again. What you are capable of will have to be enough. Of course there was experience, but there was always something lurking in the background, always the suspicion that with this patient it didn’t necessarily have to work the way it had in a ‘similar case’ the previous day; always the fear that the ‘knowledge’ would vanish at an abracadabra. As in any task without an escape hatch.

If you looked at it long enough a hand seemed to be sending out watchwords from the hidden depths — they remained motionless, still beneath the surface that presented an unambiguous exterior but their outlines could be made out, could be filled in by interpretation. Hands mostly did quite sensible things. Tied shoelaces in the morning, spooned up soup at lunchtime, cracked open a bottle of beer in the evening and rested. The life of a hand consisted of clenching and stretching for sensible gestures. Richard remembered a patient he’d had many years ago, at the time she’d been fifteen, both her forearms had been torn off in an accident. One night, he’d been on duty in A&E, the neighbours had rung up. She’d gassed herself.

‘I think your wife will be able to be treated as an outpatient. Save us a lot of paperwork. Would you like to operate yourself?’

He nodded. Hands trained you to be economical, at least the operating surgeon. There was no surplus skin. You couldn’t, as was otherwise usual and possible, cut out a generous area round the wound. Microscope. Magnifying spectacles. The hospital was excellently equipped. Frau Barsano was aware of that, which, Richard thought, was why she said nothing. The silence during an operation, thirsting, sucking you in. Absolute concentration; consciousness focused and sharpened to the point of attention, picking out tiny indentations of interest like a diamond drill. In between: slumps, demands on energy, rallying, a spatter of distractions. You could give way for a while, for a while you could leave the burning glass to your cooperator as it crawled maddeningly slowly over the situation, mercilessly revealing, followed by the blade exploring the wound. Hands had their own kind of slumber, but also of ecstasy. That was mostly connected, Richard thought, with the word ‘to attain’: food and light, skin and control-panel knobs, silence, apprehensiveness and prophecies, things made tangible by a child’s drawing.

‘Glass,’ Frau Barsano said, picking up a splinter.

Anne’s hand. If I cut this here, she’ll have no feeling any more there, in this lobular area on the short muscle that bends the thumb. Responsibility. Power. Sometimes he enjoyed, sometimes he feared that power, the thoughts that it seemed to suggest to him and that he found unworthy of a doctor. But they were there, whispered by thin, venomous lips and he had to employ a valuable part of his forces to repress them. Did that happen to other surgeons as well? They didn’t talk about it. Perhaps out of fear of being seen as a bad doctor, without a vocation. One who didn’t correspond to the cliché most patients had of a noble person in a white coat. It depended on what one did. He recalled his conversation with Weniger: to be free. They were free to do what helped people. He looked at Anne’s hand, it was injured, slender and thus, in a discreet way, pleading; a hand that insisted: That’s the way it is, a commitment, startled at its irrevocable nature and yet in the secret of dignity: This is it, my hand (and to hold back the shadows with it); Anne’s hand: small from grief and time, unique …

He felt incapable of continuing the operation. Emotion, sentimentality, despair: overpowered by a mixture that repelled him, he asked Frau Barsano to continue on her own.

It was still light when they stopped outside Sperber’s house on Wolfsleite. With astonishment Richard heard the intoxicatingly sweet, hallucinatory calls of the blackbirds, free of tribulation, somehow selfish in their calm, their self-assurance, he thought, also … merciful. As Anne raised her hand to the bell without any explanation — Richard now felt that sense of shame that disputes one’s right to explanations — raised it, the hand with its dressing that she hardly felt the need to protect any longer, there was something about the white of the plaster, from which Anne stuck out a comical-looking finger (a hard shaft piercing its way through the air, silent and saucy) to press the bell for an absurdly long time, something indocile that didn’t belong in the evening even though it passed through it amazingly close — now, as Anne let her arm drop in front of the trunk of an elm tree, conscientiously slowly yet casually — a white that rendered down its dryness and took on another quality: the indocile, shrewd white an electric socket would have had in the black bark of the tree. Richard walked up and down. When Frau Sperber opened the door, Anne asked him to wait. ‘And please don’t behave badly in such a … theatrical manner. It’ll take half an hour, perhaps an hour, depending.’ The lawyer waved to them from the front door, came towards Anne, arms outstretched, a serious smile on his face (it didn’t even seem disagreeable, Richard thought), looked at her hand, appeared to be considering, took the silk handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his suit (it seethed a lemon yellow and breathed a sigh of relief), dipped it in a barrel of rainwater and washed Anne’s fingers clean with obscene care. Then all three went in without paying any attention to Richard. After a few minutes he rang the bell.

‘It’s nice you’re still here,’ Frau Sperber said. ‘Won’t you come in?’

‘Where are they?’ Richard forced the woman up against the row of coat hooks where Anne’s coat was hanging.

‘In the cellar. Please don’t disturb them. It’s locked anyway. My husband doesn’t like being disturbed when he’s doing it.’

‘In the cellar?’

‘It’s dry, it’s been converted, with a bar and a fire. My husband loves that cellar.’

‘Will you tell my wife at once that I’m waiting for her and want her to come up.’

‘Would you help me?’ Frau Sperber waved Richard into the kitchen. On the worktop was a large bunch of carrots. ‘There’s going to be carrot salad, my husband really likes that. And I can’t manage with these peelers. If I have to cut up more than two carrots, my hands go numb.’

‘Spare me all this nonsense and tell my wife. At once.’

‘I can’t do that. He’s the only one who has a key to that door.’

‘Then I will call the police.’

‘I don’t think you should do that, Herr Hoffmann. In the first place you wouldn’t have a chance against him. Secondly, your wife, as it appears, went with him of her own free will.’

‘And you?’

‘We have a modern marriage, Herr Hoffmann. Enlightened and tolerant. We have our arrangements, I don’t want you to think me the injured wife. And I must add that I prefer it if I know the women; it means I can more easily work out whether they’ll do him good. Your wife’s very nice, a really pleasant, likeable person.’

‘You don’t say.’ Richard tried in vain to sit down on one of the bar stools round the centrally placed worktop. ‘Where did you get that huge extractor hood?’

‘No problem for my husband. He actually wanted to buy a new one and give this one to your wife, who also admired it, but your kitchen’s too small. — And I’d like to say I’m delighted to see you, Herr Hoffmann. My husband has great respect for you. Shouldn’t we call each other “du”?’ She wiped her hands on a tea towel with windmills on it. ‘Evelyn.’

‘Oh, don’t try that on me.’ Richard went out of the house. He wandered round the streets, happened to end up in Ulmenleite. The church was still open. Pastor Magenstock was skipping. Richard watched for a while. Magenstock, eyes closed and seeming not to notice him, was turning slowly, with quick, low hops to and fro, the rope swinging fluently and making a whistling sound. Meditating, Richard thought. And even though the sound of the skipping behind him didn’t suggest it, he found the offertory box by the door and felt the need to make a donation but, when he searched through his pockets, could only find the twenty-pfennig piece he kept for emergencies. He put it in.

‘Ah, Herr Hoffmann.’ Sperber, seeing Anne out, bowed to her. ‘I have some good news for you. My efforts to get your son’s place at medical school reinstated will very probably be successful.’

‘Well, then, brother mine?’

‘Robert.’

‘Is there anywhere we can go in this hole? For an ice cream?’

‘There’s a bar here. If you’d like a beer.’ Robert drinking beer, little Robert — that’s the way it had always been, but not any more. Robert flicking his windproof lighter open with a resonant click and letting the flame that shot up play over the tip of a Cabinet.

‘Later perhaps.’

‘It’s … great that you’ve come.’

‘Hey, you’d never have said that before. Being conscripted must have done that to you. Not bad at all.’

‘Shut it, earhole.’

‘If you insist.’ Robert joked about the army. He’d been sent to join the medical orderlies in a barracks outside Riesa. ‘A real cushy number. My God, that really is a ridiculous outfit. Right turn, left turn, loaf about, wait, end up as a fat cabbage. You can’t take it seriously.’

‘Depends where you are.’

‘You must be doing something wrong to get caught like this all the time.’

‘How about passes?’

‘As many as you like,’ Robert boasted. ‘And my physical needs are well supplied too. I’ve got a nice little girl in Riesa. What about you?’

‘What d’you say to the old folks?’

‘Well parried, brother mine. They’re OK, there are others who’re much worse. It’s great that they’ve gone away on holiday. At last I can do as I like there. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted a place to myself and when I get one it’s at the same time as a sister, and I’ve been called up. You don’t smoke, right?’

‘Half-sister.’

‘Don’t take it to heart like that, brother mine. It happens. She’s called Lucie. Have you seen her?’

‘No.’

‘How would you, shut up here like this? I’ve not seen her yet either. But I am keen to see her. Really. And to be honest, in a way I’m looking forward to it as well. I’ve always wanted to have a little sister.’

66. After this interruption the days … passed

781 years of Dresden: in 1987 one could see stickers with that number on the rear window of many cars; often next to the ‘L’ that officially stood for ‘Learner’, unofficially for ‘Leaver’. The number was a revolt against another number: 750 years of Berlin, an anniversary that was to be celebrated on a grand scale, a spasm of joie de vivre, pride that no one believed in any more; the tired, ailing body of the Republic was to be squeezed dry once more in order to extract from the putrid juices a cup of hemlock that, dribbled into the arteries of the capital, was supposed to transform sickness into life, exhaustion into hope and vigour …

Now Judith Schevola was no longer working at the cemetery in Tolkewitz, she had been sent to work at VEB Kosara, where she made hectograph copies of brochures in alcohol baths and by the Ormig process. Whenever he could, Meno, drawn in a way he couldn’t explain, would drive out to the factory and watch her. He recognized her from a distance by her bat cap as she came out of the factory gates with other workers. She swayed, kept close to fences along the paths and looked for something to hold on to in the streets, drunk from the alcohol fumes coning from the baths for the pieces that were being copied; passers-by frowned when they saw her, presumably thinking she was a drunk and once when she fell into the slush on a grey winter’s evening, no one went to help her until Meno, who had heard her muffled cries for help even from a distance, finally managed to pull her up out of the puddle. Judith didn’t recognize him, staggered as she resisted; no one took any notice of the two people despondently fighting with each other.

Meno took her home. She lived in Neustadt, in a one-and-a-half-room apartment giving onto a back yard; the corridor was created by the backs of cupboards, the half-room ended at a wall; she shared the plaster rosette for the chandelier. There was a screw across the larger room with cigarettes and cut-out poems and stockings hanging from it. The screw had a fine thread with (Judith had counted them) 5,518 turns, passed through the masonry and, braced with straps and pieces of wood outside, held the storey together.

‘What do you want from me?’ Judith muttered, dropping onto the bed.

‘Is there anything you need? Can I help you in any way?’

‘I’m beyond help. Oh, how self-pitying … Have you brought anything to drink? Thank you very much for accompanying me, Herr Editor, and now adieu.’

She was quickly getting clearer, Meno turned to leave.

‘If you could fill the jug, there’s a tap in the kitchen … Since you’re here, you can stay if you like. I’ve a record with Indian music, written for the living and the dead, just the right thing for you and me. Are you hungry?’

‘Yes.’

‘How stupid. I only asked out of politeness. So here’s my suggestion: first we eat nothing at all, then we go dancing.’

‘I can’t dance very well. — How are you? Are you working? Writing?’

‘We aimed so high and look at us now,’ Judith said after a while.

‘I find that too sentimental. You must write, times are changing and I don’t think your exclusion’s going to last long.’

‘I want something to drink.’

‘No.’

‘Are you trying to forbid me to get drunk?’

‘It won’t change anything and you not an immature kid any longer.’

‘Yes, Daddy.’ Judith Schevola felt under the bed, pulled out a half-full bottle of Kröver Nacktarsch and drank the wine in large swigs. She threw the bottle into a cardboard box beside the little stove where it broke on other glass things. Judith gave a hoarse laugh. Then she stretched out on the bed like a big cat. ‘Do you never feel you have to explode? To shake the stars down from the sky? Don’t you ever want to taste all the dishes at once, dance till you drop, drink till everything goes black, blow all your money at the casino, be stony broke, come back after a terrible hour and win everything and more back again? Do you never want to make a river flow upstream?’

‘I’m happy with a bath that works,’ Meno replied coldly.

‘To be able to fly, to be free, to be great, to be full of untamable power that can compel the elements … like the revolution.’

Meno remained silent.

‘But revolutionaries are always timid,’ Judith said bitterly.

The cocoons grew thicker and thicker, deeper and deeper the years. Whom were the clocks calling? In the evening the magic word ‘Mutabor’ was spoken, town and country set up dolls that looked outwards but the Tower-dwellers had long since gone down the stairs to their interests … A Urania evening had attracted a large audience for a talk on Mesopotamia; the lecturer, who had come specially from Berlin, from the Pergamon Museum, had used a slide projector to cast coloured shadows on a screen in the darkened lecture room of Arbogast House that had roused not only the widowed Frau Fiebig to enthusiastic astonishment. The lecturer signed a few square blue books and left, but his subject remained and ramified and, as if it were tinder, set off discussions and quiet studies in the evening drawing rooms. But the books left behind by the lecturer were also beautiful to look at: there was a reproduction of a relief of the Ishtar Gate on the cover. White lions strode over a frieze of daisies against a timeless azure background; Frau Fiebig said it gave you a shiver, ‘the eternities since then and what has remained’. Suddenly never-heard names appeared, forming little white clouds at the mouths of those waiting for rolls outside Wachendorf’s bakery; Ashurbanipal, Ashurnaspiral I, Ashurnaspiral II and Hammurabi buzzed to and fro, and anyone who did not want to be ‘behind the times’ had to know something about them. In Guenon House research into old Dresden was broken off and they turned to those ages full of mythical men clad in animal skins and with long, rectangular beards, bracelets, hairnets and war-smocks that left their calves and upper arms free and more than once caused Frau Fiebig to exclaim, ‘Those muscles, my God, what muscles those men had’, to which Herr Sandhaus retorted, ‘Yes, my dear, and with them they quite happily cut their enemies’ heads off.’ ‘Yes, but what de-cisive virility, what a proud, lusty culture, a culture with muscle,’ Frau Fiebig replied, ‘and don’t you think there’s something both delicate and muscular about this cuneiform script? When I imagine our newspapers written like that, I’d immerse myself in them more. I think even fibs would be diff’rent in cuneiform script, they’d be quite diff’rent, I think.’

After the talk all four copies of the blue book that had been peacefully sleeping their life away in Bruno Korra’s Paper Boat second-hand bookshop on Lindwurmring were sold, even though the sly bookseller, recognizing the signs of the times, had immediately upvalued them from ten to 100 marks, and were now being photocopied by all the inhabitants of the district who had not had the good fortune to get hold of a copy; some of the secretaries at the offices of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid typed the books word for word on their machines, with up to five layers of carbon and writing paper that Matthes’s stationery shop put at their disposal, as it did the coloured ribbons from their allocation of black ones. The eyes of the Tower-dwellers, accustomed to grey, to the finest gradations of everyday grey, thirsted after colours, were exhilarated by the strange reliefs, the sun and star signs, the sea-blue of the glazed tiles of the procession street, which bore the name ‘May the enemy not cross it’ and went from the Marduk Temple through the Ishtar Gate, one of the eight gates of the inner city of Babylon, to the Akitu Temple. They turned the pages of the book reverently, and if they had one of the carbon copies, stapled and bound in Arbogast’s own printing and binding shop, that had had to do without the illustrations, they didn’t take less care, on the contrary, these had demanded people’s work, people’s time, and that of people they knew and saw every day. There were phone calls at late hours, a network connecting telephone receivers grew up in the district; people pointed out especially beautiful features, discussed the location of the Hanging Gardens in the city of Babylon; the women asked what kind of clothes Semiramis might have worn, whether the Nofretete cosmetics salon could manage to discover and exploit the refined secrets of Babylonian beautification; the men wondered whether Herodotus’s claim that the outer wall was so wide that a four-horse carriage could turn on it was not perhaps just a legend. The lights in the rooms stayed on, outside the acid, black-grained snow of a winter heated with poor-quality coal was falling and brows, smooth, lined, enthusiastic and down to earth, were bent over the colours and shapes of that long-vanished age, buried beneath sand and flood.

It disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. Hardly had a trip to Berlin, to the Museum Island, been organized than the imposing ziggurats crumbled, the charioteers on starflower wheels, the sun-kings in gold and lapis lazuli vanished; Herr Sandhaus, who had gone to the trouble of making the arrangements, stood on the station platform, bewildered, but apart from Meno only Herr Adeling arrived. ‘Is it all over with Assyria now, Herr Sandhaus? But, you know, for me it’s only just beginning, here in our Niniveh.’

The Babylonian fantasies faded away after the visit to the Museum of Ethnology in the Japanese palace. The thirst for knowledge of the Tower-dwellers demanded new material … Quietly amused, Meno watched the fashions change. After Mesopotamia they discovered the Phoenicians and Carthage; the ship’s doctor was in demand because of his ability to transfer plans of the ships of that seafaring nation with the most delicate of pens onto sheets of Polylux film, filigree masterpieces of the art of drawing ships of which Arbogast, from his antiquated alderman’s chair in the semi-dark, expressed his approval with nods and smirks of satisfaction. If only one could do that! Sail across the wide Mediterranean from Cyprus to Gibraltar and out into the open sea that the ancients feared. Model ships were made out of pinewood chip and balsa wood; Stationery Matthes didn’t know what was happening to him and where he could find all the materials that were in demand. You could use cork for balsa, the handles of fishing rods were made of cork — so sharpen your knives and get out your razor blades. Certain television programmes now enjoyed widespread popularity; Meno could tell that from the synchronized switch-over in the windows as he went home … films about heroes of the sea and explorers, bold privateers and adventurers; programmes such as She & He & 1,000 Questions, By Educationalists — for Educationalists and, popular with the Harmony dressmakers, who met for a hen party at Barbara’s, the advice programme for home sewing: From Head to Toe. Joffe, the lawyer, invited people round to an evening with Sandokan, the Tiger of Malaysia, whose smouldering eyes set not only Frau Fiebig’s heart on fire, and the Schlemm Hotel showed a video of Paul and Virginia, set on Mauritius, a shallow colonial love story that the men couldn’t watch without a bottle of beer and sidelong glances at their wives and their watches; afterwards people talked about Joffe’s privileges.

Meno pursued his own researches. It was the cell that occupied him, the smallest unit of life, a highly complex piece of organic machinery that Arbogast put at his disposal in the form of model blocks the height of a man, examples of Herr Ritschel’s skill. It was even possible to simulate a few chemical reactions … He wanted to write poems about them, hoping that would save Romantic poetry, which seemed stuck between antiquated rhymes on the one hand and rapturous effusions about nature (‘Beauty is truth’) on the other … There had been impressive publications from Hermes, an admirable essay on Georg Trakl by the Old Man of the Mountain that had brought a venomous attack from Eschschloraque … The union of science and literature (an old, rather humanist idea), a line of tradition, thin and often almost completely submerged, indicated by the names of Empedocles, Strabo, Rabanus Maurus, Jakob Böhme, Novalis, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer and Carl Ritter down to Jean-Henri Fabre and Gottfried Benn, had become a quiet fixation with Meno that took up his whole desk, by now shielded from prying eyes by metre-high bookshelves. The guiding star of these endeavours was called Goethe, as so often …

In 1987 Meno didn’t spend his summer holiday in his father’s house in Schandau but in the Museum of Zoology, which, as he discovered to his astonishment, hardly anyone in Dresden knew. There, in dusty cupboards with trays of butterflies bequeathed by Saxon collectors, on microscope tables covered in petri dishes, piles of periodicals, stuffed birds looking out sadly at the Elbe, in the fauna library, extensive but suffering from damp and degradation due to acid, Meno found a profusion of material for his investigations. Since his student days he hadn’t felt the initial joy of the good researcher — to look at nature without questioning or examining it, only differing from the way children see it in that the response is not astonishment but perplexity — so strongly as in the flow of those August days that already had a touch of autumnal clarity. The town was empty, the children were on holiday, even the cinemas, yawning with the melancholy of hot days, didn’t seem to believe the magic that flickered across their screens, caught in the dusty light of grumpily creaking projectors. The Elbe was grey and lethargic, like an elephant taking a bath. The spider manuscript and his university card for the Biology Department in Leipzig had opened the door to the collections for Meno and thus he sat, undisturbed by the staff, in the brooding quiet of a place behind untidy shelves full of the researchers’ silent dreams, which at night, after he’d gone, might possibly start to whisper about him — he sometimes thought — for uncatalogued collections, cases full of butterflies, of which one is ‘wrong’ because it’s been wrongly placed or catalogued, are like restless revenants thirsting after the neck of a scientist so that they can be released. There Meno sat and studied the cell. Cella, he read, the smallest unit of organisms that retain the fundamental properties of life, metabolism (Meno recalled a saying of his tutor, Falkenstein: metabolism is an investigation of different forms of gratitude), response to stimuli, ability to move and reproduce; most human and animal cells have a size of about 20–30μ; the human egg cell, on the other hand, was a giant of 0.2 mm, even visible to the naked eye. This egg cell rose out of the corpus luteum, a sun in the lunar cycle, guided by a complicated interplay of hormones (the word means ‘to stir up’) and wiped free by the fimbrias of the tubes, sucked into the Fallopian tube, the ovum headed off in the direction of the uterus, from where the counter cells, the flagellated combat swimmers of the sperm, were to be expected. What did all these things mean, what was their significance, organelles within the membrane that formed the boundary of the cell, serving as vascular skin? There was the endoplasmic reticulum, it looked like a layer of potato fritters hastily stacked on top of each other with the biosynthesis of protein going on between them, a bewildering multistorey, thousand-track space launch centre with deliveries and dispatches, construction, customization, repairs and dismantling; then there was the Golgi apparatus, the so-called internal network consisting of several double-layer membranes, folded convex/concave and stored behind each other, some extended to form caverns and vacuoles whose purpose was to package the secretions that they welded, so to speak, into vesicles that were sent out of the cell along special canals; there were the mitochondria, the tiny power plants in the cell protoplasm, compact smoked sausages, some also resembling rugby balls; and there was the mystery of how the egg knew about the seed (for that seemed to be the case, the egg cell seemed to emit attractants and control agents, indeed even sought out the seed cell by which it wanted to be fertilized; Meno had read in Nature that the principle of ‘first come, first served’ was clearly not unreservedly valid; the egg cell seemed to have some say in who for her came ‘first’ — not always the robust woodcutter who, as a muscle man, immediately set his drill to work to penetrate the membrame, sometimes she even let him do the work, only to pull in the soft good-for-nothing, the Bohemian, the charming lady-killer at the last moment, slamming the door in the hulk’s face); there was the mystery of connections, of meaning, that was beyond language.

At times there was a coffee percolator snorkelling away somewhere in the depths of the Museum, at times there was a knocking in one of the painted, uncovered heating pipes running along the wall, at times a drop of water, falling from the damp patches that spread like parasitic flowers on the pale yellow ceiling with its root system of decades-old craquelure, went ‘plop’. When the snow was melting or there was heavy rain, Meno was told, the water didn’t just go ‘plop’, it poured and streamed, cheerfully babbling, through the damaged roof and down the walls of the building that had formerly housed the Saxon Parliament. At times he also fell asleep, for in the cubicle where he was working the midday temperature on a sunny day was 40 °C. And yet he was still as strangely moved by these living beings (even when they were dead they weren’t just things) as he had been as a child: musing on the ravages of time, he stood looking at Steller’s sea cow, which was just as extinct as the Tasmanian wolf, the Carolina parakeet, the passenger pigeon, the huge flocks of which Audubon had described so impressively and that once used to darken the sky over the fields of American farmers; he didn’t dare smooth the turquoise feathers of one of the European rollers he had seen as a boy on expeditions with Kurt and Anne in Saxon Switzerland. Now it had long been extinct in the country, as a card beside it said.

But it was the fate of a fish that moved him most of all, though he couldn’t say why: the Saxon sturgeon, the Latin name of which, Acipenser sturio, he murmured to himself like an incantation. Recorded on the Elbe as far up as Saxony and Bohemia, the sturgeon had long since vanished from the region’s rivers; the Zoological Museum possessed the only remaining specimen and even in the lodge of the Association of Elbe Boatmen, where Hoffmann’s barometer came from, they would have looked on it as a tall story, had there not still been an old document over the bar listing their privileges that included the right to fish for sturgeon. — So Meno sat there in the silence, surrounded by little colourful pharaohs stuck on pins, the remains of long-forgotten expeditions to nearby and distant tropics, read, his heart aching with a yen for faraway places, where the lantern flies and other beetles were found (the Museum had an important collection of weevils, Curculionidae, nailed up in stubborn sleep), studied the little maps for the birds lined up in drawers, murmured the names: Philippines, New Guinea, knowing he would never get there; he tried to decipher the regular characters, which looked as if they’d been drawn with a fine brush and seemed to speak of light and bright matters, of shells from Andaman, New Caledonia (or could it be a sound-scanning system, music?), as he searched for a language that expressed what he felt at the sight of these treasures washed up on the shore of time. Thus he lived in those days. Thus he dreamt.

Christian was back with his unit in Grün. He’d been in the army for over three years now; in normal circumstances he would have been discharged in the autumn and would have started to study medicine in Leipzig. Now he was a soldier, had his school-leaving certificate and nothing else, was doing the extra service that was part of his punishment and that would last until the spring of 1988, to be followed by another year and a half of regular service: discharge autumn 1989. Apart from Pancake there were none of his old comrades left; he saw unknown faces; Nip and the regular officers remained. Nip greeted them with ‘Hoffmann and Kretzschmar — one more incident and you’re back where you’ve just come from. Understood?’ Christian was now squad-room leader, the others looked on him with a mixture of shyness and respect; he had the feeling he was out of synch, a living anachronism, as Meno would have called it. No one asked about Schwedt or Samarkand; he’d had to sign a document that he would say nothing about them. Talking had become foreign to him, if it was unavoidable he restricted himself to what was absolutely necessary. He had signed. He didn’t want to go back. He liked the bread. His comrades were nice, especially the goldsmith. The tanks were good. The sun was lovely.

In the winter of 1988 the theatre evenings started again. It was freezing in the rooms, in the ramshackle buildings, and what better way to get warm than with a glass of grog or a cup of tea while watching a play put on by Erik Orré or Joffe in the Schlemm Hotel, the Tannhäuser Cinema or a private house? Christian was granted extended leave. Before he went, he had to show Nip his fingernails, his tunic collar bind and sewing kit. It was already dark when he arrived at Dresden Central and he stood waiting for an 11 at the tram stop in his walking-out uniform, his patched kitbag over his shoulder, freezing. The wind was playing in the lamps suspended over the rails, ruffling the edges of poorly stuck posters on the advertising pillars. Country buses went from Leninplatz out to Waldbrunn, Zinnwald, the Westergebirge; the 11 approached from the hill on Juri-Gagarin-Strasse outside the Russian Church and buildings of the Technical University, a bobbit worm with two chemical antennae. Christian sat in the single seat on the right in front of the middle door, it was his favourite seat in the tram: it was good for observation, no one could sit next to you, there was underseat heating that usually worked. The lights were flashing on Prager Strasse. People were rushing past the Lenin memorial in both directions. Robotron, the fluorescent writing on the multistorey factory building on Leningrader Strasse promised. The Round Cinema, left behind. ‘Drink Margon Water’ a neon sign on Dr-Külz-Ring recommended. Left behind. Left behind: the Ring Café, Otto-Nuschke-Strasse, Postplatz with its after-work bustle, Thälmannstrasse with the House of the Book. A white banner was hanging from the theatre on which it said, in red letters: ‘ANATOMIE TITUS FALL OF ROME’. ‘Socialism will triumph,’ neon writing on a high-rise building proclaimed. The Zwinger Crown Gate, the wing with the Porcelain Collection were mourning in the brash light of a few construction floodlights, there were gaps in the row of putti on the Long Gallery, there were schnapps bottles and disappointed-looking swans on the Zwinger moat. Rome, Christian thought. No, Troy. This here is Troy. The city seemed cold and alien as never before, the people going home sat there in the unpadded seats, heads bowed, worn out by worries and their days of work, the cardboard signs with the names of stops clattered, knocking against the scratched Plexiglass windows; get on, get off, a swill of lights, of human exudations, regularly interspersed with the expressionless voice of the driver announcing the stops.

Christian slept in the House with a Thousand Eyes. He had the apartment to himself, Meno was in Berlin for committee and editorial meetings, contentious points in Hermes’s annual programme and outline programme for the future had to be fought through, one of the books Meno had prepared for the acceptance procedure was threatened with being cancelled. The living room was cold, the ash pan hadn’t been emptied; Christian lit the stove, fed Chakamankabudibaba; he purred round his legs, he’d grown old and infirm. The television was on in Libussa’s apartment. Christian wondered whether to go up, but he wanted to be alone. The Stahls’ little girl was crying, the engineer’s powerful voice arguing with the Honichs could be heard on the stairs; the woman’s voice sounded shrill and outraged. When Christian had said hello, Stahl had responded with a curt and, as it seemed to Christian, indignant nod. ‘You’ll have to go to the Querleite bathhouse for a shower, Meno’s registered you with Herr Unthan. Our bathroom and toilet have a schedule of use.’ The last words he shouted upstairs, his hand beside his mouth. The ten-minute clock struck. How soothing the sound was, like something in a dream … In the pool of light from the lamp on Meno’s desk were periodicals (Sinn und Form, Neue Deutsche Literatur, Reichenbachia), the two Schelling books, two of Plato’s dialogues, the Timaeus and Critias, and, open in the middle of the literature wing of the desk, Judith Schevola’s The Depths of These Years. Christian carefully closed it after he’d read the handwritten dedication to Jochen Londoner on the title page. Perhaps the ship’s doctor is in the conservatory, Christian thought, leafing through books about sailing ships and puffing away at a pipeful of Copenhagen vanilla tobacco. Christian went up through the concealed door but found not Alois Lange but the Kaminski twins smoking and watching a colour television. ‘Aha, young Hoffmann. The conservatory’s no longer accessible to all. It’s now part of our apartment. But if you feel like watching a James Bond video we’ll make an exception this time,’ said Timo or René, casually taking his feet off a chair and offering him it with a gesture of invitation. Without a word Christian went back down the stairs. There was a ring at the door.

‘Evenin’,’ two furniture movers mumbled. ‘We’re supposed to be collecting Herr Rohde’s ten-minute clock.’

Surprised, Christian said nothing.

‘It’s all right. It’s for the play. It’s being put on tomorrow. Herr Rohde said you’d been informed.’

‘One moment, please.’ Christian went to Meno’s desk, found a sheet of paper in the typewriter. A few notes and comments such as Meno always wrote for his guests when he wasn’t there. A PS mentioned the furniture movers. The only strange thing was that, contrary to his habit, Meno had not left a telephone number where he could be contacted. The men waited.

‘Have you any papers?’

The driver handed down a folder. ‘Don’t make difficulties, young man, we have other things to collect. It’s been arranged with your uncle.’

‘I simply can’t imagine my uncle would leave his grandfather clock in the care of complete strangers,’ Christian said. ‘I’ll call him and check.’ He went back in and waited a while. When he came out, the men and the lorry had disappeared.

In the house the noise rose and subsided, there was the clatter of footsteps, a kettle whistled in the Langes’ kitchen, the scratching and scraping behind the walls moved up and down. Herr Honich seemed to be calling someone who was hard of hearing, in his powerful voice he kept bellowing, ‘What? How?’ into the receiver. Christian decided to go for a short walk. Light rain had started, making the black of the copper beech shine, whispering in the gutters. The Bhutan pines were giving off a tangy scent. From the depths of the park came the ‘too-wit’ of an owl. Christian set off for Caravel, went down Wolfsleite, crossed Turmstrasse, where, grunting and squealing, accompanied by regular chanting of individual syllables by a few of the staff from Arbogast’s institute, a procession of fluorescent fire salamanders the size of crocodiles was going down the street.

‘Well, well, Herr Hoffmann’ — startled, Christian turned round to see Sperber dressed as a weather-glass seller. ‘Have you been given leave? As you can see,’ he went on, nodding towards the salamanders that crunched past on wooden wheels and shouting ‘Good evening, Herr Ritschel’ to one of the figures accompanying them, ‘Joffe’s play’s made a big impression even before it’s started. We’re doing The Golden Pot. Your cousin Ezzo’s playing Anselm and Muriel the snake Serpentina — I’ve even seen her laugh again. But now you must excuse me, I have to go to the rehearsal. Ah, our Archivist. Good evening, Herr Lindhorst,’ he said to a man in a long black coat. ‘How was your flight in this weather?’

Falling in with the joke, Arbogast spread out his arms; the material of his sleeves was ribbed, like a bat’s wings. ‘Herr Marroquin had to dig deep in his props box and what he didn’t have the Institute ordered from Herr Lukas and Harmony Salon. The scenery comes from Rabe’s, the joiner’s. Worked out well, hasn’t it? In another place they call it sponsoring. I’m really looking forward to our little play.’ Arbogast waved his stick cheerfully. ‘Best wishes to your father,’ he called out to Christian before he and Sperber, the clink-clank of whose weather glasses was quickly swallowed up by the rain, disappeared in the gloom of Turmstrasse; the yellow patches of the salamanders still glowed in the dark.

Christian turned back. Caravel would be dark and deserted, perhaps there’d be a light on in the Griesels’ living room, on the garden side, or at André Tischler’s; the Stenzel Sisters went to bed early. Anne and Richard were away, Robert in the army, Reglinde at the Tannhäuser Cinema, where the play was to be put on.

Summer 1988 began with red spots. Shaking his head, Herr Trüpel wiped them off the record sleeves. In Binneberg’s café they crawled over the Black Forest gateau, custard pies, marzipan slices and cream puffs, ruining the old ladies’ coffee morning, and formed a crust on the bottles of syrup in the greengrocer’s. They squatted on the picture postcards in the window of Malthakus’s philately shop, lay, weary unto death, between the covers of Postmaster Gutzsch’s books of stamps, crept across his pre-war Pelikan inkpads and sent his St Bernard into itchy spasms. They buzzed in through the open windows of the Roeckler School of Dancing, found Korra’s Paper Boat and Priebsch’s stock of spare parts, hid under Lamprecht’s gentlemen’s hats, sprinkled spots over the cloth at Lukas’s, the tailor’s, were squashed under the characters of the secretaries’ typewriters, ruined Lajos Wiener’s wigs (Meno had never seen the Hungarian in a frenzy of rage: red as a beetroot, hairnet askew, he was holding the fair and dark toupees in both hands and smashing them down again and again on a fire hydrant). They made Pastor Magenstock’s cassock look as if it had scarlet fever. Gave choirmaster Kannegiesser’s organ pipes sore throats. The Rose Gorge below Arbogast House vibrated with dry rustlings and cracklings, like short-wave interruptions to hair electricity, became an infected system of blood vessels; fat bunches of red were stuck to the rose buds and stems: Frau von Stern had never, she said, not even with the Tsar in the summer of ’17, seen so many ladybirds. ‘Where you have ladybirds, you also get greenfly,’ said the pest controllers as they fanned out but could not get the plague under control.

Christian’s unit was to contribute to the national economy, was put on work detail. It was Samarkand again, but this time the open-cast brown-coal mines and he wasn’t there as a convict. The company was allocated a shed in the treeless lunar landscape churned up by excavators and lorries. The beds were made with fresh lemon-yellow linen. Christian’s job was as an assistant on a power shovel. The soldiers were collected from the shed by a lorry and, when the shift was over, brought back from the shovels and slag-transporters. Christian had been put on night shift, that was where they were most short of workers.

The summer drew on, the ladybirds disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived. The City Cleansing Department swept up the remains of the seven-spot beetles, whole tons of red wings and black bodies. The eating and cooking apples ripened, there promised to be a good crop of Gute Louise, even though that year the pear trees on the slopes of the Elbe from Loschwitz to Pillnitz had been attacked by rust. Herr Krausewitz stood in the garden of Wolfstone, chin in hand, a look of concern on his face, unable to agree with Libussa what could be done about it: water mixed with crushed walnuts and poured round the trunks of the affected trees did nothing to get rid of it, nor did any of the pesticides from the chemist’s. Clouds of Wofatox enveloped the trees, leaving a grey deposit on the leaves.

The message in Meno’s typewriter had been a forgery.

In September Ulrich was fifty, Niklas in October. The parties were held at home, with just family and friends.

And on one of the sunny, almost windless days in the late autumn, filled with calm warmth, like an Anker glass with cider, Richard took the postbox-yellow oilcan off the black shelf, went over to the Hispano-Suiza, poured a drop here, smeared some over a running part there, while Stahl, his hands in the pockets of his work overalls, stood staring up at the sky spread out over Lohmen quarry like a silk parasol, said, ‘Finished. Really, it’s finished, Gerhart. Can’t wait to see how it works.’

Sputnik magazine, a digest of the Soviet press, was banned.

And on another late-autumn day, which would turn into a sunny, almost windless late-autumn day, there was loud knocking on the door of the House with a Thousand Eyes at four in the morning. Still half asleep, Meno groped his way into the hall, where he was pushed aside by a squad of men in uniform demanding to see Herr and Frau Stahl. Stahl came out of their bedroom, bleary, his sparse remaining hair tousled, Sabine behind him.

‘Herr Gerhart and Frau Sabine Stahl?’ He was arresting them, in the name of the Republic, for the intention of leaving the Republic illegally.

‘You,’ another of the men in uniform said, turning to Meno, the Honichs and the Langes, who, wakened by the noise, had appeared in the landing, ‘will also be questioned and are to report for questioning at Grauleite at nine this morning. Your employers will be informed.’

‘Well, all this you’ve been telling us is a bit mysterious, Herr Doktor. Just think: a man builds an aeroplane in the same shed as you. A real, live aeroplane, not one of those radio-controlled things like I’ve made for my boy that can go whizzing round the pond, no — a real flying machine, our experts have said it’s actually capable of flight. And you say you didn’t notice anything. Come on now, I don’t believe even you believe that yourself. So you just tell me about it, one step at a time. — My God, Herr Doktor, you do have a talent for getting into difficulties. So this Stahl was working on the plane without your knowledge? And he must’ve tried it out too, mustn’t he?’

67. Brown coal

If you say open-cast mining, you say wind. The wind was always there. It came from all directions, bringing the smells of Samarkand, the yellow fog, the carbide dust and the quicklime from the lime works. When the cloud was low, the slim-waisted funnels of smog would swing like umbilical cords between rust-red placenta zones on the ground and lazy, genie-in-a-bottle cloud-foetuses; it would start at the edge of the mine, where even the weeds didn’t thrive, jump down, elegant and self-assured as a paratrooper, onto the lower, churned-up terrace, turn into a child splashing contentedly in the bathtub, push and shove the W50 and Ural lorries, making the tarpaulins billow out and, where they’d been attached too casually, tear off the hooks and flap up and down like the wings of trapped prehistoric birds; or it would blow buffers of dry soil at the lorries that were so fierce the drivers had to step on it even when going downhill. And they couldn’t see any farther than the inside of their windscreens, in front of them the brown grit, already containing coal, swirled, easily swallowing up the light of the headlamps so that vehicles coming towards them, now pushed by the wind and grabbed by their tarpaulin collars, emerged abruptly, immense, out of the booming darkness. To the roofs of their cabs the drivers had fitted special horns that reminded Christian of ships’ foghorns (he didn’t ask, perhaps that was what they actually were), but even the bellow from these throats, which could normally be heard kilometres away, broke off when the wind decided to swing round uphill. The wind would hop down exuberantly from terrace to terrace, but patiently spend time on each one of them, chewing and biting into lumps and bumps, smoothing out the track, a spiral going down in tighter and tighter hairpins, that the lorries, with the shifts on the lurching, bone-shakingly shuddering wooden benches on either side of the open back, slithered up and down. At the bottom, on the circular floor of the crater of the open-cast mine, the wind would sometimes pause for minutes on end. An almost arrogant pause, Christian thought, raising his head and listening in the gaseous darkness with its wash of white from the lights on the machines. The wind was waiting. Was it gathering its strength for an attack on the excavators as they moved with stolid finality? They pushed the wind up onto their shoulders, unconcerned. But the wind seemed at last to have found a challenge to clear the fun out of its rage (it reduced its strength), to hand out and receive the blows of a worthy opponent that make victory triumphant, radiant (like the cut through a valuable, incredibly irreplaceable early-Victorian sideboard that has been handed over to the circular saw); the wind returned, keeping, since for the moment it couldn’t get the better of the excavators, close to the ground, over which, if they wanted to shift their position, they had to move and needed to be as flat as a tabletop. Brutal as they were in the way they ripped into the layers of gley and seams of coal (the bucket chains ate into them as if they were Trinkfix cocoa powder), they were powerless to resist an incline: however ungainly it looked, an excavator, Christian had learnt, was a finely balanced system, even the slightest slope of the underlying surface could cause it to tip over. The wind dropped, ceremonially (somehow the idea of spats came to Christian in his seat high up on the excavator), and opened out like a Swiss army knife, only the tools the wind exposed were cudgels or, to be more precise … flails. On the one hand the furious and, in some respects admirable, choreography (only human beings were capable of the ruthlessness and obsessiveness with which the wind declared certain areas of the ground, and not always the most suitable ones, a threshing floor) made Christian feel like laughing (he suppressed it, he was afraid of this wind), on the other it stimulated, surprisingly for him, his boldness in a fit of vitality that was rare, but for that all the more violent and, because it was not free of cruelty, frightening: he jumped down from the excavator as quickly as he could and stood in the middle of the fight between the wind and the ground surface, lifted up his head to the bolts of air falling down from the night sky, as heavy and quiet as chandeliers, and screamed. That relaxed him. He thought of Burre, of Reina. And couldn’t resist singing out his own modest happiness against the deafening vehemence of calamity.

He was the third man on the excavator. His job was to clean the bucket wheel. The soil above the coal was systematically removed, starting with the top edge of the overburden in which a channel a good metre deep, the length of the extended bucket-wheel arm, was cut out from right to left and, on the next level down, from left to right. Did one cut last twenty minutes, half an hour? Christian couldn’t say, he wasn’t allowed to wear his watch on the excavator. The bucket wheel stopped at the highest point and Christian, as nimble as an orang-utan once he had become accustomed to the work, would clamber up the struts, gratings and railed walkways to the front of the boom at the end of which, about fifteen metres from the body of the excavator, his work began: knocking off the clumps of soil stuck to the wheel. For that he used a pickaxe that the driver, at the beginning of the shift, sharpened in the crow’s nest of a workshop in the top storey of the excavator, as well as a butcher’s cleaver that was not a piece of standard equipment, brought for him by the second ‘man’ (a giant of a woman of indeterminate age in men’s work clothes, who kept her mittens on all the time, even while eating during breaks, and didn’t say a word), who demanded it back with a sullen grunt at the end of the shift. Christian hacked away like a murderer, on his back he could sense the eyes of the driver, who, from the lower cab, was examining the darkness above the calm glow of his cigarette; as a joke, the driver would switch on the wheel after precisely ten minutes, sometimes sooner, just for a try-out and ‘to wake him up’, as he said. Christian tried to stick to the interval between the chimes of the ten-minute clock but he couldn’t summon up the period of time that he thought had become part of him. When it wasn’t freezing, the soil that had been rolled flat against the bucket-wheel cover had the consistency of cork; the pick and cleaver bounced back off it and more than once the implement had slipped out of Christian’s hand and landed below, beside the crawler tracks, like a pathetically thin toy. When it was freezing the soil, in the minute it took him to get from the recreation room to the bucket wheel, became as hard as a tree trunk, and then Christian could only hack and split and cut the dark brown mass off in shavings and splinters, working as hard as he could, driven on by the fear of being caught by the wheel as it suddenly started to turn. Up there the wind went to work roughly, without the cajoling and, when they paused, hypocritical blandishments of its ground troops, without the boxing gloves of its dust-welterweights, which gave a muted sigh as a punch was landed, without the air cushions beneath their flat-footed leaps onto the conveyor belts for the overburden, above which tin lamps swayed like drinkers who had tried to slip out without paying being shaken by a strapping landlord. The ship’s doctor had told Christian about sailing ships in a storm, how the sailors were hanging on the yards, the raging sea twenty or thirty metres below them, balancing on footropes, clinging on to a recalcitrant sail that was furiously trying to burst its bonds and they were trying to reef, ‘one hand for the ship, one hand for your life’. That’s overdoing it, Christian thought, you’re not on a ship. But the idea helped, forced a breach in the reality, made it in an uncomplicated way more bearable. Water … and rats. The water gathered at the bottom of the open-cast mine, clearing it away was a task that was almost beyond the pumps, whose groans the wind occasionally released, a sound that seemed to Christian like the death throes of creatures that were active in the machines (enslaved and imprisoned by some modern curse) and for which Christian felt sorry because they had to drink just water all the time — which he took as further proof that there was also a gradual side to the tortures. The rats were fat and uninhibited and had the slippery suppleness of animals you had to hold tight between your two hands (feral cats, polecats, old toads); when the bucket wheel swung into the hillside and started its work as a mechanical mole, the driver, whose name Christian never learnt, only his nickname (‘Schecki’ or ‘Scheggi’ depending on the degree of alcoholic merriness), liked to shoot at them from his cab with an air rifle, his ambition being to hit them with a ‘clean’ shot — in the eyes or, which counted for more, in their slimy, pink, bare tails that would then ‘come to life’ as a whip with St Vitus’s dance — Schecki said in one of the few conversations he had with Christian; it had started with a vague wave of the hand in the direction of the top of the slope and a grunted ‘There used to be graveyards up there’, after Christian had found a half-decomposed foot in one of the buckets. Schecki grinned, took a sip of the rosehip tea the management distributed free to the workers, pressed the switch on the excavator radio and shouted ‘Food’ at the diaphragm; the reply was an irritated croak from Schanett’s (that was the name of the woman unloader) cab. Schanett left the wagon she’d just filled, slammed the cab door, bent over the boom and gave a shout confirmed by a panting whistle from the locomotive in front of the spoil wagons. She stomped into the recreation room, where it was Christian’s task to lay the table with four of the scratched plastic plates, with ‘Property of the Brown-Coal Combine’ on the back, and three sets of aluminium cutlery (Schanett ate with a butcher’s knife of her own) and to switch on the frying plate that stuck out from the wall next to the locker with Schecki’s change of clothes. When the plate was red-hot Schanett stood up, skewered a cube of margarine on the end of her butcher’s knife, slapped it down on the plate, which was bent up at the sides, where the margarine fizzed round (the surplus dribbled into a rusty Wehrmacht helmet Schecki had found in the spoil and fixed under the plate), took (without removing her mittens) four gammon steaks wrapped in newspaper out of her rucksack, let the blood drip off, chucked them angrily onto the plate, turned them, scattered pepper, salt and garlic over the sizzling meat out of a tin containing all three spices together and, when the steaks were ready, nodded Schecki and the engine driver, who were exchanging dirty jokes that were going round the mine, over with a contemptuous gesture. She would serve Christian herself, hesitating for a moment before giving the plate a push in his direction, sending it slithering across the table with sauce and blood splashing over onto the oilcloth fixed to it with steel clamps. They mostly ate at two in the morning and the plate cooled down as they did so. They all lived in the coal; the open-cast mine was only one of many that belonged together and formed a conglomerate of churned-up ground, mud, spoil heaps, coal seams stretching to the horizon with the excavators squatting on them like grasping treasure-seekers and the bloodsucking insects of the dumper trucks buzzing round. In the coal: somewhere in the darkness, which came either from above (the quickly turning sky) or from below (clay, gley, the oily shimmering puddles it was best to avoid), were the remains of a small town: fire walls, rotten fences, houses torn apart at an oblique angle, scraps of wallpaper with the shapes of furniture still visible, a Konsum branch, no longer open (Schecki, Schanett and the engine driver were self-sufficient, had a few cows and pigs, grew what they needed). Schanett lived on a farmstead, left over from a village, alone with her bedridden father, the former village butcher, with no electricity, no running water, not even one of the mine railways went out there. For the last hour of the night shift Christian took over the unloader. Schanett went, guided by her sense of smell and precise knowledge of the constantly changing tracks in the working area, past the palely lit wagons and the kilometres of conveyor belts, in order to be able to feed her stock at daybreak. Beside the window in the unloading cabin there was a poster, green islands in a green sea.

Finale: Maelstrom

Time fell out of time and aged. Time remained time on a clock with no hands. Time above was its passage, the sun shone on dials, indicated morning, noon, evening, indicated the days on calendars: past days, the present day, days to come. It leapt, it circled, it hurried off, a marble rolling down a narrow spiral track. But time below pointed to the laws and didn’t concern itself with human clocks. A country with a strange disease, young people old, young people not wanting to be adults, citizens living in niches, retreating into the body politic that, ruled over by old men, lay in deathlike sleep. Time of the fossils; fish were stranded when the waters receded, flapped mutely for a while, submitted, died motionless and fossilized: in the house walls, on the mouldering landings, they fused with documents, became watermarks. The strange disease marked faces; it was infectious, there was no adult who didn’t have it, no child who remained innocent. Truths choked back, thoughts unspoken filled the body with bitterness, burrowed it into a mine of fear and hatred. Hardening and softening were the main symptoms of the strange disease. In the air there was a veil through which one breathed and spoke. Contours became blurred, a spade was not called a spade. Painters painted evasively, newspapers printed lines of black letters; however, they weren’t what promoted understanding but the space between them … the white shadows of words that were to be sensed and interpreted. In the theatres they spoke in ancient metres. Concrete … cotton … clouds … water … concrete …

but then all at once …

Meno wrote,

but then all at once …

68. For technical reasons. Walpurgis Eve

Dances, dreams … Sleep became mushy, the early shift came and went, doors banged, from the rooms at the farther end of the corridor came Nip’s babbling, sending the duty NCO or his assistant to the nearest shop to get some schnapps (over in Samarkand, an hour on foot through mud and the proud lifelessness of no-man’s-land) … ‘To be sloshed for a whole week,’ Nip had said, ‘and then to get up as if nothing had happened, simply to lose, forget a whole week. Seven empty pages in the calendar and despite that you’re still there.’ — ‘That’s too much of a luxury, boss,’ said Pancake, who enjoyed the privilege of being allowed to sit on the edge of the mine crater playing tangos for the excavators; he took the right to address him by that title from the deals he set up with Nip. But the sergeant seemed to be taking him for a ride, threatening him with a ‘you know what, Kretzschmar’, so that Pancake had started to make a list that he added up now and then. Too much of a luxury: not to know what was going on for a week, then just to smooth out your uniform, ‘not even kings can do that. And anyway, I’d be there. I like shirkers. Boss.’

Between the shifts, on the lemon-yellow linen that made the soldiers’ quarrelling somehow cosy, amid tobacco smoke, the clatter of dice, bored-frustrated card bids, Christian spent a lot of time thinking about things.

‘Do you think Burre was an informer?’

‘Course I do. What else could he do, Nemo?’

‘You’re not calling me Mummy’s Boy any more?’

‘No one who can stick out a summer in the carbide is that. Simple fact, simple conclusion. — That makes you feel good, does it? Applause is our food, as they say in the circus.’

‘I saw him outside the staff building. — You see a lot of people there, but not like that. It’s hard to say why, but I could imagine where he was off to.’

‘If I’d been him I’d have done just the same. You tell them this and that and you’re left in peace. It must be difficult to pin something on you after that.’

‘So what would you have told them about me?’

‘That you think too much for a convinced socialist brother. That makes you dangerous. A clever Dick who can keep his trap shut as long as you, who quietly observes and isn’t close to anyone, will never be satisfied with some provisional solution. He wants more. Freedom or justice, for example. And they’re always the ones who make difficulties.’

‘Perhaps you’re an informer?’

‘I’d get nothing out of it. Would ruin my business. I depend on my reputation and something like that always comes through, like damp through the wall.’

‘Still.’

‘Anyone else would have had that stuck in his ribs by now.’ Pancake pointed to the crowbar propped against the shed wall.

Up to 29 December the winter was unusually mild; the cold arrived suddenly, Christian could see the puddles freezing over from the excavator, the rain abruptly turning into hail. The wires of the mine’s electric locomotives crackled. The wind blew cold dust at them.

‘Oh, brother’ — the foreman in charge of the shift adjusted his hard hat and looked in concern at the flurries of snow — ‘this really looks as if it’s going to be something. And that just before New Year’s Eve.’

‘Four o’clock sharp, Meno.’ Madame Eglantine’s cigarette-hoarse, guttural laugh drew one’s gaze to her eyes, which were as wide as a startled animal’s and had the vulnerable-seeming shine of chestnuts fresh out of their spiny shell, to her dress (natural-green linen with red felt roses sewn on with exuberant irregularity), to her melancholy gait, which didn’t appear to go with it, in cheap trainers or (in the winter) hiking boots that had been handed down to her, the laces of which she liked to leave untied: just a big girl, Meno thought as he followed her into the Hermes conference room, where another editor, Kurz, had already switched on the television for the live transmission of the ‘Ceremony of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the German Communist Party’. But the picture vanished a few seconds later, the radiators crackled and went cold, the hum of the refrigerator in the hall ceased and Udo Männchen, the typographer, standing by the window, said, ‘Our life overall here is — underinstrumented. The whole of Thälmannstrasse’s dark. We ought to be publishing books in braille.’

‘You suggested that last time and the joke doesn’t improve with age,’ growled Kurz. Frau Zäpter brought in candles, a Christmas stollen, home-made gingerbread. ‘I was just going to make tea anyway.’

‘Why else would we have a spirit stove?’ said the managing clerk, Kai-Uwe Knapp. ‘I’d even filled it — man is a creature that can learn from past experiences.’

‘How romantic,’ Miss Mimi and Melanie Mordewein, who was sitting next to her, sighed simultaneously; Miss Mimi had got the tone so exactly, so caustically right that the laughter came slowly and remained just an expression of admiration.

Putting on white gloves, Niklas tipped the record, a flexible EMI pressing given him by one of his State Orchestra patients, out of its sleeve and the paper protective covering lined with foil, held the disc between middle finger and thumb (his index finger supporting it on the red label with the dog listening to his master’s voice coming out of a gramophone horn), started to stroke it with extra-soft carbon fibres, which looked like a collection of seductive women’s eyelashes, in an aluminium brush from Japan (another present from a musician patient), which was said to remove the dust more gently and yet more thoroughly than the yellow cloth that VEB Deutsche Schallplatten put in with its Eterna albums, slowly and pensively combed the fine sound track until Erik Orré, who was free that evening and had been talking to Richard about duodenal ulcers, said, ‘That’s enough, Niklas, I think you’ve gained its trust now.’ The Schwedes (she, an operetta singer squinting with charming helplessness through lenses as thick as the base of a bottle; he, with handsome Clark Gable looks, Richard thought, a toothbrush moustache, a cardigan, worked in the branch of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid on Lindwurmring; the women there, as Richard knew from Niklas, called him by his first name, Nino) were standing by the window, both holding a tulip glass of beer; Nino said, ‘If it keeps snowing like this we’ll be switching on our water-pipe heater again, Billie.’

The whole town seemed to be in motion, pushing and shoving, things quickly breaking out in the darkness, violence kept under control by the street lamps, perhaps also by the civilizing power of other people’s looks (violence, Meno thought, that grew remorselessly since you couldn’t see the eyes of the people you were swearing at, elbowing, jostling, hitting); groups formed but only to disperse within the next few minutes; the streams of people seemed to be following the most cautious changes in conditions, perhaps just a murmured rumour, a correction in the magnetism (pushing, hoping), and at the same time to be moving aimlessly, disturbed bees whose hive had been taken away. Screaming and groaning, shouts across the dark streets, the tinkle of broken glass: had looting started already? Meno wondered, trying to keep his composure. Clinging on tight to his briefcase, he crossed the Old Market, heading for Postplatz, where he hoped to find a tram that was working. There were still a few lights on in the Zwinger restaurant, contemptuously called the ‘Guzzle-cube’ by Dresdeners, as also in the House of the Book and the fortress-like Central Post Office, built by Swedish firms. Meno was caught up in a rapidly growing swarm of people who seemed to be drawn, with moth-like instinct, to the lights, heliotropic creatures that would perhaps have been better off in the dark. A blizzard started. The theatre was in darkness, the ‘Socialism will triumph’ sign on the high-rise building had gone out. The trams had stopped, marine mammals, frozen in a ball of snow.

‘Replacement bus service,’ one of the conductors kept shouting resignedly, carefully wrapping himself up in a blanket, to the people crowding round. The bus for the 11 route left from the Press House on Julian-Grimau-Allee and was crowded; Meno saw Herr Knabe, the Krausewitzes, Herr Malthakus in his good suit with a bow tie, even Frau von Stern, who waved her senior citizen’s pass in sprightly fashion as Dietzsch helped her onto the bus and to a seat that had been vacated for her. ‘The opera, the theatre — all shut down,’ she shouted angrily to Meno. The bus took them as far as Waldschlösschenstrasse.

‘And the rest of the route? Are we to walk?’

‘Yes,’ the bus driver replied with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘I have my instructions.’

After walking for a few kilometres the little cohort that was left halted at Mordgrundbrücke. The hill before them wasn’t steep but, as they could tell in the strange brightness of the driving snow, covered with a milky sheet of ice. Halfway up a tram was stuck, frozen fast up to the top of its wheels; long, bizarrely shaped icicles were hanging down from the wires and the steep slope on the Mordgrund side of the hill.

‘A water main must have copped it,’ Malthakus said in an appreciative tone. ‘The question is, how are we going to get up there. Given that no one’s going to pull us up —’

‘A belay such as they have with roped parties in the mountains,’ said Frau von Stern. ‘We had that during the war when it was icy.’

‘— otherwise we’ll all have a nice slide and they can hack us out of the stream in the morning.’

‘I’m not going up there with my instrument anyway,’ a double-bass player from the State Orchestra declared; a French-horn player agreed. ‘Our valuable instruments.’

‘Why didn’t you leave them at the Opera, then,’ Herr Knabe asked exasperatedly.

‘What a … excuse me, but I have to say it: stupid question. I’m sure that even in these conditions your Mathematical Cabinet will be well secured, but our miserable artists’ dressing rooms?! Do you think I’d leave my instrument by itself?’

‘OK then, but have you another suggestion?’

‘We’ll just have to go up by Schillerstrasse.’

‘But the water mains run along there too. They could well have burst as well … And Buchensteig is even steeper. But don’t let me stop you going to reconnoitre. Or you can simply stay here with your valuable instruments,’ Herr Knabe said scornfully.

‘What the hell, we can just turn round and go to a hotel,’ said Herr Malthakus. ‘I’ve got a few marks on me, perhaps they’ll let us stay in the Eckberg with a down payment.’

‘You’ll be lucky,’ Meno said, ‘they’re already full with evacuees from the Johannstadt district.’

‘Look — a snow blower.’ The French-horn player pointed to the stretch of road before Kuckuckssteig.

The cold bit deeper, the cold crushed up the white clouds from the cooling towers of the power station that usually bloomed like a drunken dream: finding heaven here on earth and swelling up, with explosive clarity, thrillingly, fantastically into short-lived atmospheric mushrooms; the cold gave the iron of the pickaxes a different sound; the power station cables, usually buzzing with electricity, whispered like the strings of instruments with mutes on, seemed raw and sensitive to pain under the coating of ice; made by humans. Christian had been working for seventeen hours continuously. The trains bringing brown coal were lined up outside the power station, but the coal was frozen fast in the goods wagons and had to be blasted out; the detonations briefly drowned the rattle of the power hammers that had been hurriedly brought from the Federal Republic. It wasn’t pleasant to be one of the squad whose job it was to move the wagons out of the way when the explosive charge hadn’t detonated.

‘We’ve two candidates,’ Nip said to the drivers, who were getting their bachelors to draw lots.

‘Hoffmann or Kretzschmar, who’s going?’ He tossed a coin, said, ‘Kretzschmar.’

‘Stay here,’ Christian said, ‘I’m going.’

‘Why?’ Nip asked, flabbergasted.

‘Things’ll go wrong with him.’

‘All right then,’ Nip said, ‘it doesn’t bother me. I’ve nothing against heroes.’

‘Don’t fool yourself, Nemo. Your knees are trembling.’

‘Yes, but you’re staying here all the same.’ Nothing was going to happen, Christian decided. –

A helicopter landed, letting out a few big shots, who went here and there, waving their hands about nervously, clicking walkie-talkies, talking with the crisis committee of the Brown Coal Combine (plans were unrolled, held their attention for a moment, then there was something new and the plans, hurt, rolled up again and just stayed there); decisionmakers whose movements in front of the power station and the setting sun behind it seemed to Christian like a ritual dance of Red Indians. Before the decisionmakers climbed back into their helicopter, they stood motionless, arms akimbo, by the coal wagons, a collection of sad, impotent men.

30 December: the evacuees came out of the town on army lorries labouring up the track that had been chipped free up the Mordgrund; more water kept running down the hill and freezing; gravel and ash didn’t stop the route from turning into a dangerous skid-pan. Richard saw companies of soldiers and some of the staff from Grauleite swinging pickaxes to keep the way clear; some acquaintances were spreading grit. Where was the water coming from? The power cut — it was the south of the Republic that was said to be affected, the capital with its special fuse protection was still bathed in the pre-New Year glow — had allowed the water to freeze in many of the pipes, causing them to burst. But that was ice? Richard thought, as he strode through the snow beside Niklas observing the water flowing over the road; more kept bubbling up and quickly turned to ice, those spreading grit couldn’t keep up with it. Niklas was pulling a handcart with bandages and medicines they’d taken from his practice. Richard was quietly cursing, he’d thought he was going to spend a relaxing New Year with punch, conversations, some post-Christmas reflections, a walk to Philalethes’ View to watch the blaze of rockets over the city and to drink to the New Year … Anne was still at Kurt’s in Schandau and of course there were no trains running; they’d arranged for Richard to phone the pastor of St John’s (Kurt still wasn’t connected) but the line was dead — that too, then. Now Anne was stuck in Schandau and he was trudging through ice and snow with Niklas to attend to the sick — and there were probably some waiting there already. They were going to the military hospital, that was where Barsano and his crisis team had set up their base, people were being evacuated there from the new developments: Prohlis, Reick, Gorbitz, Johannstadt.

‘Have you noticed that your sense of touch seems to get duller if your hearing’s worse?’ Niklas, Richard thought, was aware of the seriousness of the situation. ‘Ezzo must be stuck in the Academy of Music, Reglinde was going to see the New Year in with friends in Neustadt, Gudrun was supposed to be on stage — Meno! Hey, Meno! Have you seen Gudrun?’

Meno, who was getting off a lorry, shook his head. ‘She wasn’t on our bus. — You’re going to the military hospital?’

‘Herr Rohde!’ Barsano called from the gate with the red star and waved. ‘Come and help us — you speak Russian. I’ve got enough to do coordinating things. We can use you as an interpreter. Herr Hoffmann, Herr Tietze, will you please report to the duty doctor.’

A Forbidden Place, a place of dust, Meno thought, going through the gate that a confused sentry was trying to guard. NATURA SANAT was the greeting from the former ladies’ pool, in front of it, with a Kirghizian smile, the silver head of Lenin. The suspended walks were dilapidated, windowpanes shattered, art nouveau decoration faded, wind and rain had gnawed at the roof. From the eaves, off which many of the projecting rafters had broken away like teeth off one of those hand-sawn beauty-salon combs anointed with good wishes and promises, a proliferation of icicles was hanging down, heavy and dirty, as if they wanted to silence a music box, the gracefulness of which would have enlarged the cracks in the buildings and amplified the throb of the conveyor belts from the heating plant on the slope. On the covered walks outside the former patients’ rooms were the old tubs, crammed full of sticks of wood and newspaper. Spiders’ webs, like the ornaments on Tartar helmets, hung down from the carved wood, black, glittering with frost. But were they spiders’ webs? Meno thought he had been mistaken. None of the spiders’ webs he was familiar with were shaped like that, not even ones made over decades and with many layers, only to be destroyed in moments. They were lichens, long mossy growths, hanging down, sucked into the flesh of the arms of the trees at the outpost; felty beards of indefinite colour on the roofs that the woods seemed to be trying to draw back into their kingdom in a slow embrace. Barsano waved Meno over to join his deputy, Karlheinz Schubert, who led the way to Heinrichshof, a half-timbered villa that had belonged to the former owner of the sanatorium and now housed the hospital headquarters. The gentlemen’s massage room and the kitchen were empty, boarded up. Blocked gutters, missing roof tiles, clouds of dry rot building up on the woodwork of the corridors that had once been glazed, black mould creeping across the ceiling. Schubert said nothing, marched on with long strides that ate up the ground, as if he were afraid of missing his footing with short ones, past piles of dead leaves and snow that had been blown in, doors marked with Cyrillic letters and meticulously drawn numbers; glassy-eyed, he silently greeted the occasional patient they encountered, who glanced at the two men apprehensively. The musty smell of the corridors, the greeny-blue gloss paint that had been plastered over the walls to counter the damp and the pests that had taken up residence in them; the mosaics that had been shamelessly taken up from the floor where corridors crossed, only the odd pale tile left to suggest ancient Roman bathing scenes; on the other hand the dust-swathed chandeliers dangling in the fluctuating draughts over smashed windows were untouched; wall newspapers with the current editions of Pravda and the satirical magazine Krokodil — both present impressions and old memories that awoke many things in Meno’s mind. In a faltering voice Schubert asked Meno to wait; after a few minutes he came back, shaking his head: the lavatory basins had all been torn out, packed up and addressed to be sent home, and two soldiers were squatting over holes, a camp stool with the board on it between them, playing chess … But Karlheinz Schubert seemed to pull himself together and, pressing his lips into a thin line, reminded Meno that it was allies they were talking about, brother socialists. In Heinrichshof, where they had to wait, Meno looked at a framed silhouette hanging in the vestibule; it was, as he could see from the fine cut-out signature, one of Frau Zwirnevaden’s, showing scenes from Goethe’s poem ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ in which the apprentice himself, who was usually portrayed (by the author too) as in despair at his unbiddable creation, appeared to be waiting for his master’s return with cool interest.

The open-cast mine looked like an army camp. Soldiers had been transferred, were camping in hastily erected tents. To go by the rapid-rumour network, power supplies were unaffected in the north of the country and the capital. To the south of a line corresponding roughly to the course of the middle Elbe between Torgau and Magdeburg, the excavators were at a standstill, the houses in darkness, the supply chain collapsed; Samarkand no longer received its most important raw material and the huge power stations, coal-consuming tumours pumping energy into the life around that had knotted themselves with an abundance of veins into the lunar landscape, remained dark, unnourished, unexpectedly starving.

The soldiers went out on twelve-hour shifts — there weren’t enough tents, one shift could sleep while the other was working. Christian’s room now housed sixty men, the ten bunk beds had been given a third storey (for those on the top the gap between body and ceiling was so narrow that they couldn’t turn over) and there were only twenty lockers for the sixty men — some now had three padlocks on them, which didn’t contribute to the quiet in the room. Pancake and Christian shared bunk and locker; Pancake threatened to beat up anyone daring to claim room in the locker and the former circus blacksmith’s physical strength and violent temper made an impression on even the toughest types. A piece of soap, a cigarette, a letter not handed out on time could lead to a punch-up, and since the men came from other units and their officers were far away, Nip had no power over them. ‘Oh, go to hell,’ they said to him when, lying drunk in his room, he pointed to the mail (forgotten letters that should have been sent out, forgotten letters that should have been distributed) with a mournful, apathetic gesture; before his very eyes, which had taken on the dull this-ness of hard-boiled eggs, they wrote their names in the exit log, stole his schnapps and underpants, which, bawling and shouting, they hung on poles they stuck into the pile of spoil beside the shed — where they fluttered in the wind, exposed to everyone’s pity — or soaked them in miner’s hooch the brown-coal engine drivers sold to them, then roasted the spirit-infused item over a fire.

A shower tent had been put up, ten showers for a hundred filthy bodies, with the water coming in dribbles and ice-cold from the nozzles; the crudely chopped-up slabs of soap made no foam. Christian was revolted at the idea of fighting for a few jets of water in a cramped space, he hated the enforced removal of the last bit of privacy remaining to those who had managed to keep an individual self alive in the uniform and tried to keep it out of the compulsory ‘us’ of the army. Recalling the winter water from Kurt’s tank, he washed himself far away from the shed in one of the puddles that were steaming with cold.

On New Year’s Day the water in the tanker that supplied the units in the camp was frozen and there wasn’t enough to eat, a lorry with the meals had got stuck somewhere, the Komplekte had all gone long before Christian and Pancake arrived; to his astonishment Christian discovered that hunger existed. He’d never gone hungry. Not in Schwedt, not on the Carbide Island, certainly not at home, where everyone he knew groused but strangely enough had everything … acquired, of course, through contacts and endless chasing round, but bread cost onezerofour, a roll one groschen, milk had gone up from sixty-six to seventy pfennigs, but all that had always been available …

‘We need something to eat, Nemo.’ Pancake wondered whether to take the Komplekte from one of the younger, weedy soldiers who had been in front of him in the queue, but others in the line of waiting soldiers behind them were doing that already, the tough ones were taking the food away from the less tough ones, the faster pursuers from the less fast ones running away, and whenever anyone protested against this law of the jungle, it was fists that decided who was in the right. ‘Any ideas, Cap’n?’

‘The woman who does the unloading on my shift,’ Christian said after a while spent searching hungrily through his memory, ‘lives on a farm somewhere in the coal. There’s sure to be something there.’

‘D’you know where it is?’

‘Not exactly,’ Christian said hesitantly. Schecki had pointed vaguely in a northward direction. ‘Torch and compass, perhaps we’ll find it. We could ask one of the railwaymen.’

‘Better not, Nemo. If we want to get something, then we don’t want anyone else in the know.’

‘We could knock.’

‘We could. But if she lives the way you say, she won’t open. — We have to be back before the shift starts. I don’t fancy being put away again.’

Doctor Varga lifted up the lamp, shortening the shadows on the walls of the cellar passage. The water on the floor didn’t seem to be getting any higher, it still hadn’t risen up the legs of the rubber boots they were wearing; also it was starting to freeze over so that the rats, which showed no fear in following them, had to go under water in some places; the dark bodies with the pointed noses covered in bristles paddled under the ice and didn’t panic even when one of the soldiers accompanying Varga and Meno tried to crush them under his heel. ‘Air-raid shelter,’ Meno read, a red arrow pointed to a steel door, the handle of which was draped in spiders’ webs. Notices in old German handwriting with Cyrillic scribbles over them on the cellar walls. The water started rising again.

‘Here, I think,’ Varga said, but he spread his arms out in front of the doors. ‘I don’t know exactly, I’ve never been down here before.’

‘Voda — otkuda?’ Barsano’s deputy asked. The soldiers shrugged their shoulders. With the butt of his Kalashnikov one knocked the padlock off one of the doors; the rats scurried towards it and vanished, it was impossible to see where. The soldiers dragged the door open, Varga said, ‘Let’s have a look’, and clicked on a rotary switch, light shot out of ceiling lamps encrusted with spiders’ webs only to be swallowed up by the darkness again with a muted ‘fatch’ that was reflected back from the depths of the room as a distorted echo — the teeming darkness filled with pecking and scraping noises into which Varba pushed his pit lamp. Meno thought: the ticking of thousands of clocks; but it was the legs of the brown rats, some heading purposefully, though with comical slithering, stumbling and waving of legs, for the depths of the room, while others were trying to recover their balance with desperately clutching claws; thousands of brown rats; there were so many black button eyes caught in the smoky light that they looked like a shower of sparks leaping across the room. It seemed to be very big, the far side couldn’t be seen. None of the men ventured inside, the soldiers grasped their rifles tight — the rats kept going towards their goal. The water wasn’t coming from there, although the floor was covered in a thick layer of ice. Meno took Varga’s lamp (the microbiologist had frozen, likewise the deputy, though he had managed to turn his head); by the faint light Meno could make out marks, lines forming a circle, the ice sounded as hard as porcelain; the strange ticking noise of the thousands of tiny feet had grown louder. But there was a goal there! A handball goal with a torn net, beside it posts and climbing ropes, wall bars, a pile of rubber mats — the gymnasts were there too. Frozen stiff in the ice, orthopaedic models were standing on the court in bent and contorted postures; they were carved from old wood that gleamed darkly in the light of Meno’s lamp, as if it had been rubbed smooth by the hands of generations of interested pupils.

The torches were kept off, Pancake waited until the grey of first light began to change objects back out of the cellar darkness: a chopping block with the axe sticking out, jars that the blanket of snow had cemented together, making them look like dully glittering molars in a white shimmer of swollen gums. He broke out one, a standard jam jar with a plastic lid, examined it in the meagre light, cut out a cone of the waxy pale contents, smelt it. ‘I don’t think anyone would conserve poison in jars,’ he whispered, holding out the cone to Christian. ‘Though time can poison many things.’

69. A storm brewing

‘When I saw you for the first time I never thought you’d be giving me lines of verse. — That’s honey. Frozen honey.’

‘Artificial honey?’ Pancake wondered as he tasted it. He broke more jars out of the snow and put them into their bag. The jars seemed to have stayed airtight. ‘We’ve got to clear off. It’s too quiet for my liking. I’m surprised they don’t have a dog. I’d have one if I had to live out here.’

The dog jumped up on Christian in silence, pressed him against the wall by the cellar door, stayed on its hind legs, panting and flapping its chops, its front paws on his shoulders. A scythe blade curved round Pancake’s throat, drawing the alarmed blacksmith up the steps. Schanett crooked her index finger, beckoning them into the house, the scythe she hung on a peg over the door. The house was cold, the windows crooked, covered with fern-patterns of ice. Schanett led the way with a lantern, leaving it to the growling dog to push the two surprised burglars forward. More dogs appeared but Schanett shooed them away. The touch of the soft muzzle Christian could feel on his behind was like that of a rubber truncheon — a sign from stick to cloth, individual, biding its time; Christian was horrified at the thought that Schanett might report them and thus send them back to there; in that case, he decided, he’d try to take the quick way out. They probably didn’t have a telephone here and of course there was no electricity … They seemed to be going down, there was a cellar smell to the air. The circle of light from Schanett’s lantern no longer reached the ceiling, a black vault with meat hanging down in pieces from the size of your finger to that of a man, all frosted over, some entirely encased in ice that seemed to be waiting, motionless, for contact with the floor; presumably the weight of all this and the yielding ground of the open-cast mine were making the house gradually subside. But that didn’t explain the vast height of the room that nothing suggested from outside — perhaps the house had been torn in half, the lower storeys were sinking while the roof stayed above ground. Meat; Pancake kept his head down. Dark-red flesh, with sinews running through, embedded in white fat; ice-bound kidneys; pig’s heads, glittering with rime, their open eyes giving them a strangely ironic expression; hearts close together, dotted with white lumps.

‘Come.’ The proofreader nodded to Meno. ‘Redlich,’ Klemm murmured, ‘as every year honest Josef Redlich faithfully bears the yoke, prepares for the Fair and … oh, Fräulein Wrobel, I didn’t think you were still here; the Beethoven quartets have fallen silent.’

‘You’re … going to the events?’

Instinctively they moved out of the light from the street lamp and as answer Oskar Klemm, a gentleman of the old school, offered his arm to Madame Eglantine — which she took even though, as Meno was aware, the ‘Fräulein’ annoyed her. Her face was pale, her eyes dark with doubts and fear; but her coat, her grandfather’s loden coat that had been altered to fit her, had felt patches of various colours in the form of soles of the feet, the toes of which were cheekily splayed. ‘May I tie your shoelaces? Just think of the consequences of a stumble, my dear.’

‘Rosenträger’s going to speak,’ Meno said cautiously.

‘It’s good to hear something different for once. Schiffner’s forbidden us to go but, my dear colleagues’ — Klemm stopped and lifted up his face — ‘I for my part have finally decided to start being brave.’

The Church of the Holy Cross, a programme of music by the choir’s former director, Rudolf Mauersberger. The people were so tightly packed that a middle-aged woman close to Meno fainted but didn’t fall down. The motet: ‘Now is the town laid waste’. But (and that was characteristic, Meno thought) the terrible things had to be beautifully expressed, resolved in euphony — the transparent tongue of the boys’ choir started to beguile their ears — and harmony, within a framework of elegant proportions and established modes; people then called it traditional, even though it could well be something different. Ethereal voices, the simplicity of the burnt-out church a contrast, the roughcast walls, in the candles’ halo above the boys’ heads the measured gestures of the conductor evoking mourning, negotiating hurdles, which the choir’s veil of transfiguration around the supporting tones of the Jehmlich organ followed with childlike innocence.

Rosenträger entered the pulpit. A perceptible movement went through the people who had been gripped by the music, upper bodies leant forward (like the ominous, tumescent turn of a carnivorous plant towards a potential prey that has unknowingly touched the outer signal circuit), necks were craned, hands nervously felt prayer books, fingered the brims of hats as if they were prayer beads; the clouds of breath from their mouths became invisible and passed, when the clearly articulating voice of the preacher was at last heard, like a sigh of relief through the flickering gloom of the nave. He spoke about the thirteenth of February. Meno sensed that that wasn’t what people had hoped for — and what Madame Eglantine had perhaps meant with the hesitantly spoken word ‘events’; they had expected memories of the air raid, war, devastation and the past, but had hoped for words about the present. When they did come, it was as if a flash of lightning went round the galleries, so quickly did the congregation lift up their faces to look at Rosenträger, whom Barsano, as Meno recalled, had designated a ‘main enemy’. The lean man with the straggly, casually combed hair calmly said things people would previously only have dared to whisper in private or have kept to themselves. Meno kept being made physically aware of the way people froze when Rosenträger spoke of ‘aberrations’, of the sole and indivisible truth that could only be found in God and not in political parties; when he used the comparison of a mirror that didn’t reflect fine wishes but realities people would prefer not to see (out of ingrained habit Meno was not sure whether the image worked). The man, Meno decided after some time observing him, was neither a gambler carried by the wave of presumed gratitude beyond the sands of inhibition necessary for survival, nor a self-important windbag for whom, when he mounted the pulpit as God’s representative in ecclesiastical dress, a little sun of vanity rose. He expressed simple truths in simple words. That he was doing it here, in Holy Cross Church in front of an audience of a few thousand, was a necessity and it was by no means merely the way of seeing things of an ‘isolated clique’, as Barsano called those who attended services in the church. Here someone was breaking through the barrier of silence, of looking the other way, of fear; Rosenträger was afraid, Meno could tell that from the pastor’s movements, which were more agitated than might in the long run be good for his authority in the eyes of cool observers — but the people, as Meno could see, sucked in his words in greedy silence. Perhaps it was precisely the fact that Rosenträger’s bearing was not that of a Party official crudely and dictatorially handing down judgments from the clouds of the laws governing the progress of history; Rosenträger adjusted his spectacles, spoke without notes, searching for words, in an upright posture, the people heard no empty words; he was afraid — and still spoke.

Richard had asked Robert to stop before the bend to the quarry. He wanted to do the last few metres on foot, with Anne’s sarcasm behind him, true, but, to make up for that, in glorious anticipation of enjoying a long eye-to-eye; and he also wanted to amaze Robert, his seen-it-all son (being overwhelmed was good for people). How clear the air was — spring sketches; a bird on a branch shook its feathers, sending down a shower of alarmed drops of water.

Jerzy, the sculptor, was hanging from a pulley, busy on the ear of his giant Karl Marx, and waved to Richard. From the other end of the quarry came the sound of furious hammering: Dietzsch was shaping his ‘work in progress’ as he called it, ‘The Thumb’, but didn’t wave back to Richard. The shed was in the lovely disorder of children’s games. Stahl, in reflective and self-ironic mood, had once commented on work that was done with enthusiasm and for its own sake because it was being done by grown men disguised as boys; brightness threaded in through the gaps in the planks. His car was waiting under the tarpaulin. ‘Hispano-Suiza,’ Richard whispered, the very sound delighted him. Repeating the name, his eye fell on some pliers Stahl had used. Nothing was left of his aeroplane, the ‘SAGE’ as Gerhart had christened it after the first letters of ‘Sabine’ and ‘Gerhart’, but a few chalk marks, partly washed away by the rain that got in, partly scuffed by Richard’s shoes, indicating the former places of tools and material. The children had been sent to children’s homes, in different towns, that much Richard had learnt from Sperber. Which towns? Embarrassed, Sperber had looked away and shrugged his shoulders.

For a few seconds Richard enjoyed the sight of the postbox-yellow oilcan on the black shelf. The way it shone. How immediate it was and how calm its immediacy. Then he went to the car and pulled off the tarp.

The Hispano-Suiza had been demolished with professional precision. The leather seats had been slit, the steering wheel, the column sawn off, had been stuck into the upholstery of the driver’s seat. Richard opened the bonnet. The leads, the copper arteries that seemed so alive, the nickel-plated fuel veins, had been hammered flat and cut up — with enjoyment, oh yes, one could sense that. The engine — concreted in; lying in the solidified mass as if in a stone case — Richard could take them out easily — were the bolt cutters he’d lost when they’d tried to steal a Christmas tree. Dangling from them, neatly attached between the two blades as if they were a birthday present, was a note on which ‘With socialist greetings’ had been typed.

Splints, padded protection for legs, leather straps: even though it was an old-fashioned version, Christian had already seen the seating along the tiled walls during his periods of practical experience in hospitals, similarly the glass cases with neatly arranged instruments: steel cylinders of various sizes cut off at an angle, dressing forceps, kidney bowls, clamps. From the next room, the warmly heated kitchen gleaming with copper, came the rich sweet smell of cakes. The honey extractors rattled and rumbled as Pancake and Christian turned the cranks to remove the wax. Towards evening Schanett let them go with a shoebox full of vanilla slices topped with caramelized almonds.

One April evening, there were more people than usual out for a walk, Pastor Magenstock put up the call to action of an environmental group in the glassed-in board outside the church, a bright orange notice, a magnet to the eye, between quotations from the Bible and another one about donations for the Third World. Meno stopped and watched Herr Hähnchen, the district policeman, reluctantly approach, looking down at the ground and up at the sky fading in floral colours, placing his hands alternately behind his back or over his imposing stomach, thumbs in the Adidas braces visible under his uniform jacket. ‘You know that you shouldn’t do that,’ Herr Hähnchen said after he’d read the notice thoroughly through the spectacles he’d made heavy weather of unfolding. By now Herr Kannegiesser, the organist, his face bright red with alarm, had come to stand in front of Pastor Magenstock, taking deep breaths as he protected him; the tall, fat district policeman and the short, skinny church musician looked each other up and down in amazement for a while.

‘I suppose you want to be a hero?’ Hähnchen asked, sadness in his look.

‘The word “hero” does not occur in the New Testament, Herr Hähnchen. It is my duty to my parishioners and to my own conscience no longer to remain silent,’ Pastor Magenstock said.

For a moment Hähnchen said nothing, then admitted he could understand that. Nevertheless it was his official duty to request the removal of the notice.

‘But you have children as well,’ cried Herr Malthakus, who had come over with the Kühnasts and the Krausewitzes and stood by Magenstock’s side. Herr Hähnchen replied that that was true.

‘There’s no point shutting your eyes,’ Frau Knabe declared. She was carrying several shopping bags and also came to stand at Magenstock’s side, together with a few members of the emancipation group she’d recently set up.

‘Herr Rohde, come over here,’ she commanded.

‘Herr Hähnchen,’ said Meno, ‘perhaps it’s possible that you haven’t seen anything?’

Herr Hähnchen said that in principle such a possibility always existed, only –

Staff from the Grauleite barracks approached. ‘Disperse!’ an officer bellowed. But the people stayed where they were. Frau Knabe slowly shook her head. The officer looked aghast, seemed confused. Other people out for a walk saw the gathering and instead of quickly going past, heads down, with eyes that saw nothing, as had been the case in confrontations with the power of the state so far, they came over, more and more of them, followed by observers from the gardens along Ulmenleite and stood beside Pastor Magenstock.

The officer remained silent. And never had Meno seen such a lonely man as District Police Officer Heinz Hähnchen in the middle of the open space between the two groups.

Nina Schmücke’s circle was mixed. Richard, whom she greeted like an old acquaintance with kisses to the cheeks right and left (probably so that Anne would see, he started on an explanation but she waved it away), nodded across to Clarens and Weniger, who gave him a surprised and hostile scrutiny, at the same time whispering something to one of the bearded men in check shirts and jeans, who, as far as Richard could tell from a quick assessment, ran the show. Anne was confused by the pictures on the walls, on several easels whose crusts of coloured drips were at war with the aggressive tones on the canvases. From one of the few windows of the studio that weren’t pasted over or nailed up with cardboard or plywood, Richard looked out over Neustadt: broken roofs in which naked men bowed before the setting sun; eroded chimneys, the boards below them for the chimney sweeps all taken: a fat man was sleeping on his back, arms and legs hanging down. A gaunt person in black latex clothing walked up and down, a woman was checking her angling equipment. Richard got a drink for Anne, put a chair by the window for her — after the man with the full beard had taken Nina Schmücke aside and clearly been calmed down by her, the discussions, which had been interrupted by their entrance, continued with frequent striking of matches and clicking of lighters. Sluggishly, slowly, sluggishly. Richard knew a few of those present: two women who were medical technical assistants from the Neurological Clinic, the former junior doctor from Internal Medicine who had spoilt their Christmas-tree triumph, Frau Freese stared at him with uncomfortable directness — he lowered his head, was furious with himself at his cowardice and stared back defiantly, at which Frau Freese ducked behind the shoulders of two men who worked on Coal Island. Richard recognized the attendant who had leafed through his documents in melancholy fashion before Regine had emigrated and let him stay in F corridor; he had had dealings with the other about the gas water-heater. Rapid looks that slipped off faces and waited between them. Fear that was afraid of fear. Hands that didn’t know what to do with themselves. An engineer was talking about his life that, as he concealed rather than revealed in evasive descriptive loops, could no longer be ‘sufficiently’ distinguished from the mundane … tedium. The Great Tedium had his existence in its grip! One agreed. One shared the experience. One asked for suggestions. — One ought to start with a sit-in straight away, said a woman with a pirate’s headscarf and a linen dress that had embroidery in the shape and red-and-white colour of a traffic cone on it that Richard found as beautiful as it was unusual. Something must finally change in the country, too many had gone already, half the multistorey building where she lived, for example — how was it all going to end?

‘Perhaps our guest could tell us something about that,’ said Weniger pointing at Richard, ‘he has contacts not everyone has —’

‘That’s a malicious insinuation, Manfred, you’ll take it back, please.’ Anne had stood up.

‘Great, the way you stand up for your husband. — You should have told us you were inviting him, Nina. I can see too many unknown faces anyway.’

‘When we talk and want to get beyond our little circle, then we have to go outside. You agreed with that, Manfred,’ the bearded man replied.

‘Maybe, but I would like to have been told whom you’re inviting. If he stays’ — Weniger avoided looking at Richard — ‘I’m going. The risk is too great.’

‘Sit down and eat your cake,’ Clarens begged him.

‘We have to take risks,’ said a man with a shaven head. Richard knew him, one of Gudrun’s colleagues at the theatre. His leather coat came down to the ankles and was very scuffed. He folded his arms (rich creaking of leather), licked the cut end of a cigar. Two young women sitting cross-legged, both wearing keffiyehs as neckcloths, spoke up. — ‘I’m Julia,’ said one. — ‘And I’m Johanna,’ said the other. ‘We think what Annegret’s just suggested is a good idea. And I’m sure Robert in Grünheide would also —’

‘And would Robert in Grünheide also have known where the sit-in’s to take place?’ Weniger broke in. Did they seriously believe they could compel them to introduce reforms with methods like that?

‘Absolutely,’ a man in a suit and tie replied in measured tones, ‘in general yes.’

The man beside him, wearing a jean jacket with a ‘Swords to Ploughshares’ sew-on badge, argued that they should read Bonhoeffer.

‘No, read Bahro,’ someone on a settee under an acrylic Stalin with a black eye demanded.

Richard could see the woman with the fishing gear waving. Police burst into the room. The interest in art had suddenly become widespread.

‘Identity card check! No one is to leave the room.’

70. Walpurgis Night

‘Ah, there you are.’ Arbogast leant back against the window, looking at the butterfly on the tip of his forefinger. He handed it to Herr Ritschel, who put it in a net and left, walking carefully.

‘It’s no small matter you’re asking of me, Herr Hoffmann.’

‘You have published something before.’

‘Our Assyriologist’s blue book, yes. But that was entertainment. Your piece is about politics. To accede to your request would be to give them pretexts.’

‘So you won’t help us?’

‘Who is “us”?’

‘A group of people who are more than just concerned about the situation. Who are determined to do something about it.’

‘— are determined, aha. There’s something direct about determination, that could well be seen to correspond to the principles of my institute. Why don’t you approach a newspaper, Herr Hoffmann? The best place for multiple copies. There have been many interesting reports recently and not all editors are blinkered.’

‘Herr von Arbogast — no newspaper in the country will publish such an appeal. You know that just as well as I do.’

‘That’s something we must discuss … As you wish. Did you get my letter? I thought of calling you several times. — I suspect you have other things than my project to worry about at the Academy.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Moreover I share many of the views expressed in your piece, Herr Hoffmann. I’ll think the matter over.’

‘The fee —’

Arbogast smiled. ‘Oh, you know, that wouldn’t be a problem, Herr Hoffmann. A few jokes … you know perhaps that I collect them? Possibly the Bier/Braun/Kümmell surgical manual you have? Your brother-in-law from the Italian House told me about it. — Let’s both think it over. Will I see you at the Sibyllenhof afterwards? — Pity.’ Arbogast stood up, smoothed down his red jacket as, on the horizontal face of a desk clock behind the forest of sharp-pointed pencils, a dancer, an ivory Thumbelina, began to turn to the strains of a waltz.

A fancy-dress ball! The foyer of the Sibyllenhof restaurant was decorated with Chinese lanterns and garlands with streamers dangling down, flickering coloured bulbs had been hung over the window bays, a banner across the ceiling announced, ‘Dance your way into May’. Meno showed his invitation, took his old zoologist’s overalls and microscope out of his rucksack and went to the cloakroom, where a Red Riding Hood attendant hung up his hat between the Borsalinos of the two Eschschloraques. Karlfriede Sinner-Priest, dressed as a lady-in-waiting from the baroque period in Saxony, was standing next to Albert Salomon (August the Strong) by the Sibyllenhof telephone booths, which could be opened with a Allen key you were given after your name had been entered in the house telephone book at reception, and seemed to be in animated conversation with several writers — Meno recognized Lührer (embarrassingly also dressed as August the Strong) and Altberg (as a miner, who raised his hand in a half-wave of greeting). The main room of the restaurant was bathed in bluish-purple light that, coming from disco spotlights, ran down the wall like veins of ore. Albin Eschschloraque was wearing a nightwatchman costume and sitting, looking quite forlorn, with his lantern and nightwatchman’s horn, at one of the tables with white cloths; he waved to Meno. ‘Well then, man at the microscope, how’s things?’ he called out gloomily; Meno replied evasively but in markedly friendly tones.

‘Things might get quite lively tonight.’ Albin Eschschloraque pushed a bowl with pieces of Brockensplitter chocolate across to Meno but was dipping into it so frequently himself that Meno felt obliged to tear open one of the triangular packets from VEB Argenta and refill the bowl. Stewards in white that the Sibyllenhof, short of staff as were so many businesses, appeared to have borrowed from Arbogast’s personnel (by the entrance Frau Alke was occupied making last-minute adjustments to the buffet), were putting out carafes on the tables; Albin filled two glasses with the juice of a reddish tinge: ‘Rhubarb juice,’ he announced with a look on his face that still appeared undecided whether it was to express appreciation or displeasure. ‘They urgently need to make an inventory of the drinks in East Rome.’ The Sibyllenhof had hardly made any contribution, it didn’t have an allocation for such events; that was a Michurin product or one of the scientists’ little jokes to celebrate the day, as was, for example, the punch, brewed in Arbogast’s laboratories in Grünleite. ‘Have you brought your excommunicated sphinx, Herr Rohde, the grey-haired Roman lady?’

‘She doesn’t need to get me to escort her.’

‘Do I detect a note of bitterness? That’s true, she’s once more held in esteem and dread, as Papa, for whom the dread a person arouses is definitely part of a mature personality, would say. It’s the same with paternosters as with this guy here.’ He felt inside his costume and held up a ballpoint pen, the barrel of which was filled with a transparent liquid in which a little figure floated up and down when you turned the pen. ‘A Cartesian diver, quite nice. They’re handed out free as advertising in West Elbia, usually by pharmaceutical firms. The guy over there’ — Albin jerked his thumb at the barman, reputedly the tallest man in the Republic — ‘sells replicas. Of course, they can’t copy the reservoirs. Instead of pills, promotion of our little town in its little hills, and instead of the Argonauts there’s a daughter of the winds dancing here. — Here come the others.’

Malthakus had simply hung a Beirette round his neck and gone as a photographer, Record-Trüpel as a chimney sweep with ladder and top hat, Frau Zschunke wore bundles of radishes as ear-rings; Frau Knabe, in her overalls and carrying a molar on her shoulder, was beside Frau Teerwagen and the Honichs, who had hardly made any effort (Babett in a Young Pioneers blouse and a blue cap; her reply to Meno’s nod was rather silly: she put her hand up vertically to the top of her head in the Pioneer’s salute; Pedro in his combat group uniform with a full row of medals). Behind them came Joffe, rather amusingly dressed as a red taper, in lively conversation with Frau Arbogast; in that light the Baroness’s blue rinse looked metallic, the leather tan of her face contrasted sharply with the Dalmatian fur she had draped over her shoulders more for decoration than for warmth. After her, Guenon House arrived, led by a merrily laughing Widow Fiebig as the witch Baba Yaga on the arm of Herr Richter-Meinhold, who was dressed in yellow-and-red, like the covers of his maps.

‘Look, here come the balloonists.’ Albin Eschschloraque pointed to the terrace outside the main room that was now lit by floodlights. Alke and some of those in white overalls opened the French windows, where a crush of curious onlookers was growing.

‘Why don’t you come over here if you want to see something?’ a slim figure with an ass’s head, whom Meno recognized as Eschschloraque senior, called out to them. ‘You look surprised, Rohde — and would be justifiably so: not everyone has the self-irony to discover this grey fellow within himself. Most don’t even look for it. And imagine they’re lions and eagles. — They’re landing.’ A balloon came down, steered by Herr Ritschel, who was wearing a sailor’s peaked cap and had a bosun’s whistle. Beside Arbogast in his black cloak, Meno saw Judith Schevola — in a balloonist’s jaunty leather outfit; she’d even managed to get hold of a pilot’s leather helmet — and Philipp Londoner, he in the picturesquely ragged costume of a buccaneer.

‘The Flying Dutchman.’ The mocking comment came from the ass’s head. ‘Through the thunder and storm, from distant seas. And that on the eve of the day of the working class. He’s also got his steersman with him. Together with Senta in leathers. — Fatigant, hideux, and, above all, by no means fair. What do you think, Albin?’

‘I think she should beware. The sea is cold and deep.’

‘Your colleagues’ — the ass’s head nodded to the entrance — ‘Heinz Schiffner in a toga, laurel wreath round his brow. And in his hand a thistle, probably even a real one. That must symbolize clauses in a contract. What do you say to your boss appearing in his true colours, Rohde? That’s going over the top. It really shakes you up, doesn’t it, Rohde?’

‘Fräulein Wrobel as the Chocolate Girl,’ Albin said, licking his lips, ‘a delicious child, all at once I have a yen to see that sharp girl’s sweeter vein. A pair of scales she has as well, the pans say come then go again. — I’ll keep your seat for you,’ he shouted after Meno.

The nomenklatura of Dresden’s Party rolled up. They rolled up in the rubber-tyred horse-drawn charabancs from Heckmann’s carriage business; Julie-the-horses was on the box of the first one, cracking her whip merrily as she drove the two draught horses. The funicular brought more guests and locals, directing furtive glances at the Party secretaries dressed as knights who were toasting each other in loud voices. Their wives, in the costumes of high-born damsels, were quieter. The passers-by kept their heads down and quickly continued on their way.

When Meno returned, Judith Schevola looked through his microscope. ‘I hope those aren’t infectious.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Meno asked irritatedly.

‘About those pretty things on your slide, of course.’

‘Well, they’re certainly not things,’ said Albin, who was also peering through the eyepiece. ‘Do enlighten us, Herr Rohde. All I can see is full stops, dashes and commas.’

‘I didn’t bring a preparation with me,’ Meno said, bending over the microscope. ‘Cocci stained with eosin, I’d say at a glance. Someone must have stuck it in.’

Eschschloraque senior’s ass’s head suddenly came alive again: ‘Eosin, what a poetic name in the cool realm of tissue science. Eos, rosy-fingered dawn, Aurora in Latin. And that shot in the year of seventeen that made a breach in the gate of time. What I wanted to ask, Fräulein Deepyear: what is it like flying with the Chilly Councillor? — But silence, comrades. Our prince is about to have a shot at addressing us.’

Barsano spoke poorly but kept it brief. It was the same empty catchphrases as ever and Meno wondered whether Barsano believed in what he was saying, whether there was a man behind the public figure as he knew there was with Londoner, who spoke quite differently at university staff meetings and on other occasions from how he did among friends and family at home. There were rumours about Barsano going round, Londoner had told Meno that for some time now their First Secretary had no longer been so highly regarded in Berlin, he was too close to ‘our friends’ in Moscow, too sympathetic towards certain ideas of the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet. There had been ‘visits’.

That evening old Londoner was ill at home on Zetkinweg, but only yesterday he had enjoyed a play-reading with the parts cast, corrected Meno’s English pronunciation and joined in at favourite passages, so joyfully carried away that his absence through illness gave Meno pause for thought. But at the very least, Meno was convinced, Londoner would have advised Philipp, Judith, the Eschschloraques and himself not to attend Barsano’s party if it had been dangerous. Perhaps though, Meno reflected, Londoner had deliberately not given them such a warning since it increased the credibility of his own excuse if he didn’t attend himself but those closest to him did; in that way Barsano wouldn’t suspect anything. The balance of power seemed to be changing … Barsano had been attacked in Neues Deutschland, which Pravda had found ‘disconcerting’, which in its turn caused deflections on the seismograms that alarmed even less experienced quake-observers.

An emcee took over, he had the same red tie as the pianist, who appeared with arms outstretched and eyes closed, groping in the dark (the piano had had to be turned round); the other members of the dance band were also sporting red ties, which resulted in a barrage of algal up-and-down cross-beats when they began their tasteful manipulation of a few evergreens; a routine that made Meno think of the sales assistants at the Christmas market who showed the same matter-of-fact efficiency in packing the balls to decorate the trees as these instrumentalists in playing their way through their musical comfort food. Judith Schevola leant over to him. ‘One, two, three, another bar fini. The socialist work ethic applied to dance music. So silent, Herr Rohde? Actually your name ought to be Kibitzer. May I beg one of your Orients?’

… but then, all at once …

Else Alke brushed against flowers as she went past, the flowers withered. Malthakus and Frau Fiebig and the Guenons were drinking punch and started to twist and turn on their chairs as if they could hardly hold themselves back; their legs twitched in time to the music.

click,

Meno heard, beside him, the flame of a cigarette lighter lit up Judith Schevola’s features, Altberg was giving her a light. From Barsano’s table came the feverish laughter of the high-born damsels, vodka, punch, schnapps trickled down throats, eyes glistened as if blackened by deadly nightshade. Meno heard dogs barking, heard the wind carrying voices to him through the dreamily slow movements of the guests, across the tables and the brushed-aside chords of the dance band; howling and wailing; but it might have been an illusion like the two men in green at the window, like Eschschloraque’s voice, quiet but distinctly audible through a hubbub of voices, as he said to Philipp, ‘I’ve looked through your papers; as far as I can understand it we’re heading for bankruptcy. That’s explosive stuff, if the figures are right, and I can’t understand why they’re shutting their eyes to it.’

The emcee threw his head back like a stallion, his mane, fixed with Dreiwettertaft hairspray, looked frosted in the disco light, his moustache lifted on one side, revealing long teeth. ‘The floor is yours, ladies and gentlemen.’

Heinz Schiffner, his eyes on Babett Honich’s cleavage, searched in vain for a comb in the folds of his toga.

… but then, all at once …

‘They’re not interested in that kind of report. D’you know what he says? “For me that’s of no value whatsoever. That’s exactly the same as what’s in the Western press.” That’s why it doesn’t bother him.’

‘Since that which must not —’

‘— cannot be. I would start to wonder if people on Grauleite were saying the same as Der Spiegel. In that case there might be something to it. But those at the top think in exactly the same way and that’s the problem.’

‘Recently the Politburo was looking into the panties problem. There are no panties, neither in Berlin nor in the unimportant rest of the country,’ Albin Eschschloraque said, ‘so they were trying to develop a panties-problem-elimination plan. But the Women’s League had already started a newspaper campaign with patterns for making your own panties.’

‘The two Kaminskis have come as angels! God, if only virtue could be taught.’

‘But don’t listen to that Eschschloraque, Rohde. We’ll deal with him soon enough. That count with the slick, Frenchified tongue — who’s only in favour of communism because it means everyone will have time to go to his plays.’

‘Oh, Paul. Don’t say you’re jealous.’

‘And you, Lührer? Wherever you go you’re gabbling on about journeys to the West and hard-currency royalties.’

‘Herr Schade, there’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you for a long time —’

‘Oh, are you still around, Fräulein Schevola?’

‘As you see.’

‘Yes, OK, things can change. And what is it you want to say to me?’

‘You’re useless.’

‘What?’

‘Completely. You’re a functionary but not a writer.’

‘I tell you … I tell you, the Jews … they’re back in power again. They’re stirring things up against us in America, getting our loans blocked … We’ve come to an agreement with Japan. The Japanese are helping us. There are certain traits of character, national … whatsits.’

‘You’re drunk, Karlheinz. You … revolting.’

‘Just grin and bear it, Georgie Altberg. Like Comrade Londoner. Don’t get worked up. My God, this is pretty strong stuff. Almost as bad as the boss’s accordion playing.’

‘Ladies’ panties? Let them tie Pioneer neckerchiefs round them — like that Honich woman. There’s no shortage of them.’

‘Karlheinz, I’ve always kept my mouth shut when you go on like this, but now I’m asking you to apologize to Philipp and Judith.’

‘Hey, what’s got into you? Have you got something you want to get off your chest now, Georgie? Usually you’re the best at keeping your trap shut. You’re finished, I mean — dead.’

‘You may well be right. But being dead’s not that bad. You can get used to anything. If you refuse to apologize I will pass on what you said to the Party Control Commission.’

‘Oh, you’re going to inform on me, are you? All I can say is: best of luck. You’ll hear a quite different tune from those birds.’

‘Virtue, virtue! I’m asking you about virtue, my dear Altberg, and you come back to me with — virtues. Don’t keep making one thing into many — like people who break something.’

‘And what is it, in your opinion, my dear Eschschloraque? By the way, may I congratulate you on your costume. The ass’s head suits you down to the ground.’

‘I knew you’d allude to it. Well, not everyone will go down — or should one say sink — so low as you … To take pleasure in beauty and to have it at your command. That is what the philosopher says. So this is what I understand by virtue: to be able, full of desire for beauty, to acquire it for oneself. — Herr Ritschel, over here. Please. Surely our table gets its turn. I’d love to try the marbled electric ray looking up with such a resigned expression from your fish board.’

‘According to your logic, my dear Eschschloraque, every punter who buys a pretty whore is a very virtuous person. He’s full of desire for beauty and presumably he has enough money in his pocket.’

‘You’re cynical, Altberg. That’s not you. A cynic starts to die during his life.’

‘Excuse me if I laugh, my dear Eschschloraque, but, you and a paragon of virtue! That’s ac-tu-al-ly something for Arbogast’s joke collection.’

‘I’m a paragon of virtue as long as virtue is something useful. Come on now, Altberg, I’ve often been occupied with useful things.’

‘Useful but not good!’

‘Good because useful! Dig, miner, dig deep.’

‘And always with the mighty, my dear Eschschloraque: eat and carouse with the high and mighty, sit with them, be agreeable to them.’

‘Ah, but there’s more. You will permit me to continue, my dear Altberg? From the good alone will you learn what is good, the bad will rob you of what wits you have.’

‘Panties? Pioneer neckerchiefs?’

‘My husband, well, you know. In the morning I always think I’m married to a walrus. His hair stands on end, he takes the toothbrush glass, whips the toothpaste up into foam and gargles like nobody’s business. Then he blows out the whole lot through his stubble into the basin. I watch him and think: you’re wedded to something like that, cooped up in this marriage for thirty years. And then the constant changes of address. Free German Youth study year, extension course, advanced study in Moscow, Party Secretary in provincial holes, and I’d promised myself that we’d go to Berlin sometime … My friends have all got a house out in the country and a dacha and a car as well, most even two cars. And us? A three-room dump in a new development because he didn’t want to be in Block A and because a Party member has to set an example and he can’t stand the corrupt guys who can call themselves comrades and damage the Party’s reputation … Which means I’m sitting there asking myself, what have you made of your life, girl?’

‘The eye has a very simple anatomy, my dear Rohde. It’s as if you were to write something, in a letter say, in plain, clear language, as simply as possible, but the other person only reads what someone else’s lens system, an optical illusion, places over the sheet of paper as meaning — the one thing is written but the other is understood.’

‘Oh, if only I’d taken King Thrushbeard, oh, if only I’d taken that one.’

‘Those brain-dead bastards! Ideals? God, they never had any! They wanted to earn money, really live it up, perhaps even get themselves a car from the West, that’s the limit of their ambitions! Socialists? All they do is drag the idea of socialism through the mud!’

‘Be careful what you say, Philipp.’

‘That’s the worst thing about it, that you have to be careful what you say.’

‘Tell me where you stand —’

‘Herr Ritschel, a little more of your chemist’s punch, please. I’ll tell you one thing, Rohde. That business with the red comma — forgotten. I was even quietly amused by it.’

‘— and how you serve the land.’

‘I’m a man of the Enlightenment, that is: critical, ironic, an unbeliever perhaps. It’s possible I don’t even believe that I believe in nothing. You’re a Romantic and that means you contribute to capitalism. For longing and homesickness drive the world but the driving force is capitalism. Utopia is being at a standstill. That’s why I want the clocks not to chime, that’s why I’m for the winter. As a Romantic you think you’re renouncing the world, escaping from it. Nonsense! You’re driving it on … the pursuit of happiness, that’s what it says in the American constitution. A Romantic principle. And the motto of the empire of the self.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen, especially for you: songs by Karat! For all of you who love the “Rainbow”, Karat have lit the “Magic Light”: Henning and Bernd have cast a spell on their strings, Micha has drummed out his heartbeat, Herbert and Ed given of their best. And of course, the floor is still there for those who want to dance.’

‘I’ve seen a picture, my dear Eschschloraque, ice floes coming up through the frozen surface of a lake; relics they were, the past in the here and now. Will there at some time be a society consisting entirely of things from the past?’

‘Such alarm, Herr Altberg? Don’t worry, I’ve no objection to anyone daring to think that there might be something different coming after socialism.’

‘There have been times when you’ve taken a quite different line, Eschschloraque.’

‘Come with me, Judith. It will be a great time, we’ll be making history …’

‘Just stories are enough for me. Break with Marisa.’

‘I can’t, I simply can’t. I love both of you. That’s the way it is … both of you, each in a particular way.’

‘Said Casanova: I have been faithful to all of them, in my fashion.’

‘You’re accusing me of bourgeois attitudes? And yourself, Judith?’

‘And what do you say, Master Kibitzer? Should I go with him? — You remain silent. You always remain silent.’

‘He’ll have his reasons, Judith. Come with me, I beg you.’

‘The floor is yours! Already a few bold couples are dancing their way into May.’

‘It is one of the mysteries of nature as well as of the state that it’s safer to change many things rather than just a single one —’

‘You’re suspicious tonight, Trude.’

‘Oh, you know, Ludwig, as far as thoughts are concerned, suspicions are like bats among birds — they’re always fluttering in the twilight.’

‘It’s a sickness that always eats away everything. Good evening.’

‘Ah, Herr Eschschloraque. How are your two machines coming on? Did you get the pencils I sent you?’

‘Clouds the mind, darkens the brow, distrusts sugar, calls it the sweetest of poisons, makes friends part and nourishes the nettle of suspicion. Crawls along beside time bent crooked … a forest of suspicion, full of dark creatures.’

‘That Eschschloraque — there were times when someone like that would have been arrested. What do you think? He comes from the past, doesn’t he? Yes … we ought to have been more alert. He’s absolutely convinced of his own greatness and immortality … Did you know, Rohde, that he’s had all his plays engraved on steel plates, from the Freital stainless-steel factory — in case there should be a fire? He has a bunker underneath his house and that’s where they’re kept.’

‘We can rely on the Japanese. They love German orchestras more than anything, above all our State Orchestra. Recently we had … perhaps you know this. It wasn’t in the newspapers. We had this toothbrush problem. A Russian artilleryman was drunk and fed up. And he — whee! — sent a little artillery rocket on its way. And of all places, it hit the main production plant of our toothbrush factory. There was no one in it, thank God, the workers on the night shift were playing cards.’

‘May … might I ask for a dance, Comrade Esch … sch … You do have a funny name, Herr …’

‘I don’t think you should dance in your state, Frau Honich.’

‘Ki-king of the f-fancy fish, ha ha. That’s what they call you. Come on, you miserable lord, you … Bolshy-wigg.’

‘Herr Rohde, I think I’ll just go out for some fresh air, are you coming?’

‘Then you dance with me … Nemo … Rohde. Another o’ those funny names. Oops! My brooch’s fallen in your solyanka soup.’

‘Unfortunately I can’t dance, Frau Honich.’

‘Limp-dick … you’re both the same … no toothpaste in the tube … you —’

‘Don’t … please.’

‘— cocksuckers. The pair of you! Pansies!’

‘Yeah, the night shift. And nothing left of the toothbrushes. The news spread like wildfire right across the Republic that there was likely to be a toothbrush shortage in the near future. We had to respond! People started hoarding toothbrushes like mad so that there really was a shortage. But the Japanese helped us. Sent an aeroplane full of toothbrushes at once. In return we sent them some half-timbered houses, from the brown coal, they had to be pulled down anyway. The samurai’re very keen on ’em. Rebuild ’em, in authentic style. And we had our toothbrushes — made in Hong Kong, the Japanese import those things as well.’

‘Whether it’s possible to teach virtue, that’s the problem.’

‘Just look at the Kaminskis. The Honich woman’s just given them a clout round the ear. Does she know what she’s doing?’

‘Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please for our solidarity tombola. Don’t worry, every ticket’s a winner! A fanfare for Frau Herrmann, you will all know her from Tele-Lotto, where she makes sure everything’s done according to the rules … Our Comrade First Secretary is drawing the first prize — he unrolls the slip of paper — the furrows disappear from his brow — he hands me the slip of paper — he has won: a sociable get-together over coffee and cakes with veteran workers of the Elsa Fenske Retirement Home!’

‘click,’

said the Old Man of the Mountain.

‘click,

I hear the lighter strike, the blue light flares up, but the wind blows it out; to the East, to the East, the drummer boy cried and the soldier tightened the straps of his knapsack. To the East the tanks rolled on, the Greatestleaderofalltime cried Deutschland Deutschland; the soldier had a comrade, he opened his darling’s letter, laughed as he started to read, a bullet punched a hole in his steel helmet and he fell down, his eyes staring up at the sky. At once another comrade wanted to have his boots

click,

and the soldier was on guard at night when they were bivouacking by the river and he didn’t guard them very well for he was reading a book by moonlight and partisans came at night to the bivouac by the river and stabbed the other guards, who had not gone down to the river, and stabbed his comrades while they were sleeping, finally the company commander’s dog barked and those who could still see saw the soldier pull himself up, he didn’t say anything, didn’t shout anything for he could no longer do that; but the others shouted and grabbed their rifles, shots cries fire the red flashes from the muzzles, and he saw the company cook with a carving knife

you bitch you bitch you Russky bitch

cut the throat of a female partisan, and before that her chapka rolled off into the snow and her hair fell down, her soft blonde hair

click click,

an anthem rings out, hands are raised in the white oval, the Greatestleaderofalltime steps up to the microphone, declares the Summer Olympics, Berlin 1936, as open, a grammatical error the young blond man reflects on for just a second, for in a moment the camera up there on the rails with the bold young woman director will swing round to focus on his troop, the youth of Germany will perform gymnastic exercises, the youth of classical antiquity, the youth of all ages below a sky of blue silk with an aeroplane sliding across like a slim flat-iron, the young man’s pulse is racing, he senses his movements fusing with those of the others, Gau Brandenburg, Gau Breslau, Warthegau, into something higher, hears the stadium announcer’s voice, shimmering with enthusiasm, what a magnificent day, what a magnificent life, then the blond young man seeks out his father’s eye, he’s in the delegation of the Silesian NSDAP, for the first time he looks proud and the blond young man feels something tighten his throat, go through his veins, into his eyes, a swimmer as free as the bright clouds up above.

Snow. Mother Holle shaking out her eiderdowns. An old woman with a kindly face, they sometimes saw it, slumbering in the lakes, quivering and vanishing among the water lilies when the pike awoke. Snow filling the muddy furrows of Russia, soft, creeping snow. The horses’ bodies steamed, the soldier and the sergeant rubbed them dry. They whinnied, fearfully jerked their heads back, shied in their harnesses, their eyes like lumps of pitch. Flakes, hands slowly descending, white, six-fingered hands, stroked his comrades’ hair, shoulders, felt the tents, the radio truck, motorbikes, tanks. White hands cut white osiers, wove white baskets round the bivouac. White feather-hands, scattered down, plunging down, no longer melting; outside Moscow the soldier saw the towers, the Spasskaya and the red star on Lomonosov University, the colourful onion domes on St Basil’s Cathedral; outside Moscow the winter, cross-hatched by the anti-aircraft fire, tightened its frosty vice, the company was caught in its icy jaws. The snow grew coarser, didn’t caress them any more and sometimes the soldier heard scraps of songs or voices drifting towards him, the little mermaid was dead, the red flower was frozen in Malachite Mountain, the soldier thought he could hear the snow rattling, the flakes clinked like little pewter plates. A comrade passed water beside him, it froze up from the ground, he swore and broke it off. Snow packed up the jeeps, the blankets on the horses that nudged the frozen-stiff tents with their frosted nostrils. Snow blocked the tanks heading for Moscow and then the diesel froze, then the oil froze, and the soldiers of the company saw people hurrying to and fro in the streets of Moscow, saw trams and banners.’

‘And swing to the left, then swing to the right, that keeps your eyes both clear and bright. Dance your way into May, comrade ladies and gentlemen.’

‘What is it that comes up out of the deep sleep of time,’ Meno heard Eschschloraque murmur, ‘out of the deep sleep of time and then, Rohde, this melody quivering up, this swan-white melody flickering, yes, flaring up, a star over Moscow, and Levitan spoke, but you know him, don’t you know him? You were a little boy, I know, I know your father, I knew your mother, what is it that comes up out of the deep sleep of time?’

71. The main task

‘click,’

said the Old Man of the Mountain, ‘goebbelstongue crackled from the radio, Lale Andersen sang Lili Marlene and Zarah Leander sang I know some day a mi-hiracle will come, Christmas on the German front line, and Goebbels shouted and the Greatestleaderofalltime shouted and the voices on Reich radio and the Russians shouted. Urrah, urrah, they broke out from Moscow, at first black dots on the white background, pinpricks, intermingling swarms, then lumps, then nests and then the tanks came at us from both sides and ours were stuck there, tracks broken by ice, and had no fuel and one comrade shot a bazooka at the oil tank of a T34 that sprang a leak, the oil a black trail in the snow that caught fire, spiders of flame ran over the tracks, but the T34 drove on, they could drive without oil, and then over the comrade in his tank-hole, turn to the right first, the soldier emptied his magazine but it just went ping ping ping on the sides of the tank, then turn to the left, until his comrade’s cries could no longer be heard, and then across and the soldier picked up a handful of snow and looked at it, he couldn’t think of anything else

Hang him

No

It’s your turn, so

I don’t want to

Hang him, the Jew

I can’t

So you’ve got to learn, you coward, that’s an order

that was in the Ukrainian village. The captain drew his pistol and pointed it at the soldier, who saw the black hole of the muzzle aimed at his face. An order, and if you refuse to obey it, I’ll blow your brains out. And his comrades said to the soldier Come on. It’s only a lousy Jew. And they pulled the thin young man by the hair, he was a lad of twenty, the same age as the soldier, and his hat was lying in the snow and beside it his girl was whimpering, crept over to the captain and tugged at his coat, he pushed her away, she went back to him, he shot, she lay there. Then the soldier said I can’t. And the captain Oh yes you can, I’ll make you get a move on! Here! and threw the gallows rope over the branch of the lime tree beside the village well, its trunk had no bark any more, the sole lime tree, shot to a white ghost, from which the mayor and the doctor and the rabbi were dangling, it had gone round his comrades in turn, the captain hissed Get on with it, or, chambered a round and pressed the muzzle against the soldier’s forehead. And the person beside him threw his arms up and down and clutched at the empty air and tried to get to the captain and sank into the snow beside his girl and gently stroked her sleeve and shook her head. His comrades dragged him up and tied his hands behind him, put a cloth over his face. The soldier picked up the rope, his comrades lifted the lad onto the stool, pulled the noose tight, the soldier climbed onto a stool beside it, the captain made a sweeping gesture with his pistol, the soldier carefully wiped the snowflakes off the man’s collar. His breath was blowing the cloth out and sucking it in, and then he heard the man start to bleat, disjointedly and askew like a billy goat, ugly, as the soldier thought at that moment, and as he did his spittle moistened the cloth. That sounds so silly, I want to see his mug, take the rag off, the captain laughed. But then the soldier was already pushing the stool away

click,’

‘click,’ Eschschloraque murmured,

‘… up out of the deep sleep of time: the corridors, stream of dark, and the rats not only at night, envy sending its yellow mist creeping out, it penetrates all the cracks, it knows all the doors, in dreams, at night, by day, rolling out travel destinations, lighting magic lamps as the husband of Lady Greed, the Cold Councillor, and makes the whisper-buds grow in the field of thoughts’

DIARY

At Ulrich’s place. Richard and Anne there, a party for a few relatives. Ulrich worried. He’s aged. Problems at work, difficulties meeting planned targets. Talked about meetings in Berlin, with the Planning Commission. Since the international price of crude oil, and therefore of industrial products based on petroleum, had sunk sharply since ’86, the price we had to pay the SU for oil, according to the COMECON agreement, was well above the international level. That made our products more expensive — we could no longer sell them to the West with the necessary profit margin. On which we were totally reliant. At his factory they were compelled to use the wastage produced by their suppliers — which of necessity increased the wastage among their own products. Now we were suffering the consequences of not having released funds for investment. How often had his warnings been given a dusty answer by the Party Secretary? As a Party member, he was told, he couldn’t use that kind of argument … The department with which his firm had to cooperate for the electronic control units you need for modern typewriters now had to join in the great microchip madness. Consequently he had to procure his control elements elsewhere, at the moment from Italy. Which more or less swallowed up the amount of foreign currency one could earn with typewriters nowadays. Since, however, his firm was required to earn such and such an amount of foreign currency he, the managing director Ulrich Rohde, might possibly be faced with personal proceedings against him. In September ’88 the 1-megabit chip had been presented to the General Secretary in a grand ceremony — what the population at large didn’t know, however, but that he had learnt from Herr Klothe upstairs: that chip was a handmade specimen. What, he asked us, could one do with it? Attach the chip, as an existent reality, to the completely outdated machines, as an equally existent reality? In the hope that they would then automatically be transformed into manna-producing, miracle-working cybernetic beings? The state was subsidizing the 256-kbit chip to the tune of 517 marks per item, on the world market, on the other hand, it didn’t even cost two dollars any more. ‘And now I’m asking you, Richard, Meno, what conclusions should we draw from all this?’ Richard suggested buying bicycles. If everything should collapse, no electricity for trains, no petrol for cars, we could at least still get round on bikes. We ought to build up stocks of provisions that will keep and somehow secure them against looting, official raids and confiscation. Guard one’s valuables for which, as after the war, one could get at least something from farmers. Barbara should set aside material from which clothes could be made. I was instructed to acquire books that might be of interest to people from the West, for if our money was worthless and, as had happened before, subject to inflation, then the West German mark would be the sole currency. Anne and he, Richard, would see to medicines.

‘click click click,

the lighter,’ the Old Man of the Mountain said, ‘the snow covered the plains, covered the villages, Argonauts saw it in Colchis, on Mount Kazbek and Mount Elbrus, over which the swastika flag flew, the soldier caught typhus and his sister’s fiancé froze to death at Stalingrad. The frozen body of a wren lay in the snow. Aeroplanes went into a tailspin and fell into rivers that burnt. Scraps of songs, of bagpipe tunes to which the troops of Marshal Antonescu went into battle. Anti-aircraft batteries, artillery, the hoarse bark of Schmeisser machine pistols, the tumbleweed whispered, balls of weed driven by the wind. The taste of sunflower seeds, whores dancing in a front-line brothel, chewing up liquorice sticks between their mouths; horses with swollen bodies in the ditches, their eyeballs screwed into stillness. The slaughtered woman in the fancy-dress shop in the little town on the Narev, chests broken open, splintered cupboards that had been kicked in, one of his comrades laughed, went out into the front garden, shot the tea rose, that was waving in the wind, off its stalk, plucked the petals she loves me she loves me not, oh to hell with it, shit, comrades, stopped laughing, chambered a round in his Parabellum, picked up the woman’s cat, which was crouching in the corner, stuck the muzzle under its chin, squeezed the trigger.

click,

the torch of the military policeman going round the hospital in search of malingerers. Bullet lodged in the lungs, the doctor said, bending over the soldier. The clatter of instruments thrown into a dish, the smell of tobacco, long missed, a surgeon in blood-soaked overalls, a nurse holding a cigarette out to him in a clamp; the soldier remembers the sweet plant-smell coming from the anaesthetist’s mask. Field hospital, shots, Katyushas blotting out the light, a tent for the wounded burning down, screams will make him start from his sleep at night. The clatter of trains being shunted, the steam whistle of an engine cuts through the fever’s curtain of heat, Rübezahl’s mocking them. Retreat during the rasputitsa, the muddy season. Trucks got stuck, wheels spinning until they were completely enveloped in mud, had to be pulled out by horses and men. Yoke and bridle, soldiers and prisoners of war got into harness, tried to heave the baggage wagons out, their axles broke, the swingletrees of the forage carts broke. Mosquitos ate at their faces, crept into their ears, mouths, nostrils, bit their tongues, through their clothes, crept under their collars. Then the frost returns, it comes all of a sudden, the air seems to pause, is stretched, tautened, compressed, starts to crunch, is motionless for a while, then breaks like the neck of a bottle. The mud froze as hard as concrete, the bizarre ridges sliced through truck tyres and soles of boots. Retreat. Villages. Suitcases in the snow, locks forced open, letters, photos scattered

click,

the radio knob

Ideals! Not one, darling! not one

artillery fire, close combat, the white eyes of the Russian, then he’s on me, his panting breath and filthy collar tie, I see the sharp outline of a cloud over his knife

Not one was too much for you

the beads of sweat on the Russian’s brow, the soldier sees a birthmark and at the same time a scene from the puppet theatre he had as a child, the beautiful, colourful Harlequin’s costume, tries to thrash his legs around a bit, senses he’s going to succumb to the Russian, who’s working silently and is stronger than he is, suddenly the Russian throws his head back, his eyes widen, he opens his mouth

The German soldier’s absolute will to victory and fanatical determination will

opens his mouth in a toneless look of amazement, the captain has stabbed him from behind

Every inch of ground will be defended

blood comes pouring out of the Russian’s mouth, splashes over the soldier’s face

To the last cartridge, to the last man

You owe me a beer, sonny

the captain said, wiping the blade in the crook of his arm’

‘click,’

said Eschschloraque, ‘the radio knob

click, and in the evening we turned into glass: in Hotel Lux, fragile in the lips of a telephone, breathless in the creak of a lift: Those footsteps, where are they going? To your door? The night was an earthly process, we lay, rigid, on the diaphragm of a stethoscope, the night was Snakekeeper’s Empire’

DIARY

In the evening at Niklas’s. Talking about Fürnberg’s Mozart story — Niklas agrees with my assessment, which truly astounded me and made me wonder about my judgement of him — when Gudrun came in: we were to come and listen to the radio. We heard: death in Peking. Demonstrations. The Square of Heavenly Peace. On the Republic’s stations: dance music. Ezzo continued to practise stoically. Beautiful weather outside. Niklas on Ariadne under Kempe, but I left. The smell of wisteria in the street, from Wisteria House, as Christian calls it — how will he be doing? Shimmering blossom, the whole house seemed to be engulfed in flames of fragrance.

‘click,’

said the Old Man of the Mountain,

‘Six groschen worth of fat bacon

and graves in the snow, iron crosses with steel helmets and a rifle hung on them, open graves full of staring faces, machine-gun emplacements with gunners in white camouflage cloaks, arms round each other as if asleep

Six groschen worth of fat bacon

and in the Ruthenian forests they cut the leather off the bodies of those who’d been hanged, shot, throttled in order to boil it in snow-filled steel helmets to make it soft enough to chew and swallow down to still the hunger, like the lumps of tallow of which the cook still had a supply; boiled leather and tallow candles the soldiers ate, and the thin-stripped bark of the aspens

click,

went the lighter from the Sertürn Pharmacy, setting the torch alight, the soldier shook his head, raised his arm

What are you doing, are you trying to stop me setting this damn Jew-dump alight, sneered the deputy leader of the Buchholz NSDAP, pointing the torch at the Hagreiter House of the Rebenzoll Brothers, the richest merchants in the town, who had regularly invited the mayor, the medical officer, the pastor and the pharmacist to dinner; now the yellow star was emblazoned on the door and on the walls between the smashed windows

Where are the Rebenzolls

Where d’you think, where they belong, in the house there’s only the pack of relatives the mayor’s been protecting, that traitor to his people, he’s just as much of a milksop as you

You will not do it

The way you’ve always been

You will not do it, or

What

the soldier raised his gun, but the Buchholz NSDAP deputy leader, owner of the Sertürn Pharmacy, just gave a snort of laughter and shrugged his shoulders, on the upper floor a woman’s voice started pleading

Stop it, these people

Jewish vermin, loan sharks, they tried to shut me down with their exorbitant interest, so

No

Perish the lot of you!

and threw the torch, the house was set on fire immediately, the flames blazed up to the first floor, where terrified faces appeared, at once followed by a commotion in the house, clatter, screams, and the soldier looked his father in the face, that he no longer recognized, for a moment disconcerted by the grey hair and the hands hanging down helplessly

Would you raise your hand to your father

You set the house on fire

They’re only Jews

People! Human beings!

Have you joined the traitors now as well

Human beings!

You’re aiming your gun at me

Human beings!

I’ll put you down like a rabid dog, you’re not my son, you bastard

the soldier shot his father.’

Dresden squatted by the riverbank like an arthritic hermit crab, cocoon threads ran round the roughened edges of the blocks in the new development, the powdery grey of which fluttered at the almost halting footsteps of the passers-by and blanked them out as if in an overexposed photograph. The casing creaked and groaned. Meno stopped but no fissure rent the air. That returned his fear to him as something serenely elegant, the teardrop shape of the cross-section of an aeroplane wing had set off the heavy rotation of the concrete mixers in the town centre, flexing like the wings of an insect as it takes off into the flow matrices that for moments traced the air, even though it was so sluggish. He saw a wrecked boat-shaped pulpit, the viper-needles of the master compass frozen in the gesture of a sun-worshipper. In the waves of the heat-surf the monstrous, herpetic lips of the navigators spewed water lilies over the Old Market and the Zwinger, the syrupy brightness of Thälmannstrasse (and fairy tales as their almanac, a young fairy in clothes from VEB Damenmode scattered gladioli over the tower blocks on Pirnaischer Platz); the water lilies, with flowers boiled soft, swelled out towards the people so that he looked for the bottom of the sea on the chalky sky and not below, where bunches of cars held up at crossroads resembled flounders gasping for oxygen. The Elbe had laid aside its keel-scratched, wind-hackle-roughened clothes and was sunning its metal body, which he had never seen so smooth and bare. The sun, however, with its quivering scatters of birds electrically magnetized to and fro, was at its zenith; micro-impulses were constantly knocking at the taut quicksilver skin of the river on which circles, as fine as if drawn with dividers, appeared with the abrupt noblesse with which the yellow flowers of the evening primrose open at a specific moment of twilight, or the bathyscaph of the moth in which the mysterious, inexplicably immense metamorphosis takes place. While he was remembering that you could accelerate the opening of evening primrose flowers by removing the calyx-lobe from the tip of a bud close to bursting so that the compressed petals, rolled up and under tension, sprang open and the long sepals submitted to the eclosion, became redundant and slackened to a rigidity that was that of sprung mousetraps — while he was remembering that, he saw the eddies heading for encounters, making contact, the parabolas, visible echo waves, splintering into each other with the precision of sections of buildings in architectural drawings. And while he mused on the words of his physics teacher, which came back to him from the unimaginable remoteness of discontented provincial summers and with his musing chipped off a flake from a block of previously unknown nostalgia since his words, nameless, had traversed time, just as buoyant meteorological balloons cross considerable deeps when the lines tethering them to the seabed, eaten away by the mandibles of the zooplankton, the caresses of the sea veils, its own disintegration accelerated by growths and carbonization, finally break — while he heard the voice holding forth over the dutifully lowered heads of the pupils, telling them that even two wardrobes exert attraction on each other and in millions of years would have surmounted the space separating them in a typical bedroom of the Workers’ and ‘Peasants’ State, while he heard all this, interspersed with the muttered mockery of the boy next to him declaring that, with all due respect, such durability of wardrobes from the VEB Hainichen furniture factory was purely theoretical, he saw the town turn into an ear.

In those sweltering, heat-weakened days Anne decided to abandon caution (for only strangers, Richard thought, could call it timidity or delusion) and to look the various swirling threats in the eye, threats others’ hands, mouths (printed mouths that spoke, at profuse length or in silence, on others’ behalf), had at their disposal. After the destruction of the Hispano-Suiza, thinking about which during many futile meetings, petty quarrels, the fight against woolly-headedness had made some things bearable for Richard, his rage had given way to depression, rebellion to resignation. Sometimes he went to the cellar and planed away aimlessly at a few planks. Sometimes in the morning he would stare at himself in the mirror and couldn’t look away; the water fizzed and bubbled in the basin, he hardly moved when it started to overflow. He bought flowers for Anne, drove round the country looking for something that might give her pleasure; but after she had responded with polite consideration to a water pump he’d painted bright yellow and installed in the garden, and a Steiff teddy bear, all he could think of was household implements. Now she attended the Schmücke group alone, although Arbogast had helped them to duplicate their article.

When the names Hungary, Budapest, acquired a conspiratorial, blue sound of freedom, Anne and Judith Schevola took over the job of duplication; instead of Party brochures, Judith Schevola was now running off copies of dissident articles. Richard observed Anne and was amazed to see how, in a short time, their apartment had become a kind of conspirators’ cell. Shoeboxes with photocopies of articles were piling up in the rooms (and were collected by tight-lipped young men after giving a password, once by André Tischer in an ambulance), strange books and strange people appeared; the latter were given food and drink, swiftly threw up their arms to rant on about some ideal social system or other (afterwards the sandwiches were all gone) or listened to others ranting, made intelligent or less intelligent objections, admired the grandfather clock and the remains of middle-class prosperity that a copy of ‘Chopsticks’, put on the piano for amusement, somehow gave an oppressively alien feeling that was only slowly warmed up by the solitude and quiet once they’d all left. There were break-ins, after which shoeboxes with the photocopied articles were missing and — an odd, primitive way of camouflaging the real reason — whole shelves of bottled fruit. One day Robert’s collection of football pictures had gone (photos inserted between the silver paper and the wrapper of a West German brand of chocolate that Alice and Sandor had for years included in their Christmas parcels) and for the first time for ages Richard, who in impotent despair had gone to the police, to Coal Island, finally to Grauleite to complain, fell ill (Clarens called it endogenous depression, he said nothing) and, while outside the almond trees were in flower and from the meadows by the Elbe the nutty scent of summer hay came through the joins in the lockable windows, spent two weeks of profound melancholy in Clarens’s clinic, along the corridors of which Frau Teerwagen shambled, a blank look on her face, where Richard saw Alexandra Barsano again with short-cropped hair, following without resistance the instructions of the nurses who accompanied her on her daily routine; where at night the insane screams from the suicide room chopped up the warm sleep of the other patients — until the duty doctor appeared, followed by a Valkyrie with a tray full of syringes, from which he took what he needed, as Richard knew from going with him on his rounds, as others would take spare parts off a conveyor belt; and ‘reestablished’ quiet — injected it back in, throat by throat. Richard had no visitors. His colleagues said nothing, no one wanted to know anything after he’d been discharged, not even the ever-inquisitive nurses. And Anne? She had no time. Said, ‘You’re back. Good.’ She didn’t make many telephone calls (they’d only have been able to exchange banalities), did a lot of organizing, was often out. Richard didn’t ask where it was all going to end. Perhaps Anne wouldn’t have answered that — so he could still hope he might get an answer from her. At weekends, when he wasn’t on duty, he had dinner, waited on by Adeling, in the Felsenburg with the pendulum ticking and the corals of paint on Kokoschka’s easel dustlessly gleaming in the foyer. Anne slapped something on a roll and went out to what she called her ‘work’: meetings somewhere in town, talks with representatives of East Rome and the Schmücke group. She too had packed a suitcase; it was next to Richard’s bag in the hall cupboard. The more the exodus via Hungary increased, the more tense Anne was as she sat on the veranda, where she immersed herself in articles copied in purplish print on poor paper. She had arranged contact between the Schmücke group and Pastor Magenstock, who was a friend of Rosenträger; Rosenträger was in a position to offer refuge to those in immediate danger. She talked to Reglinde, telling her she would have difficulties if she continued to live with them — Reglinde began to work as a courier, the zoo was a good, neutral meeting place (presumably no outsider would dare to search the gorilla enclosure); secret messages were exchanged beneath the somnambulistic clasp of the gibbons. What Anne was doing, what Magenstock, the members of the Schmücke group were doing, was illegal, the section in the Criminal Code was number 217. But she, who had previously held Richard back when it was a matter of something ‘political’, now hesitated no more. She seemed to know exactly what she wanted. He didn’t.

72. The magnet

… up out of the deep sleep of time,

Meno wrote,

paper: was sucked down grumpily where the fullers were poking their rods, fulling mills felting the raw material, down the arm of the river to the paper republic, SS Tannhäuser sailed down the avenue of uniforms (and I remembered brass bands and military bands, the wide boulevards of the Atlantic city with winter and clouds sweeping across it like eider-duck nests, polar explorers sailing in the sky: the Chelyuskin and Nobile expeditions, greeted by children of October), the river raised and lowered the city as if it were on hydraulic stages, the water, brown, with smears of ice, heated up by remnants of cellulose and engine oil and the loudspeaker horns (encrusted, leaking, dented by body hammers) over the concreted bank that spewed into the effluent drain from a fertilizer factory, the foam: guano white, phosphates, swirling at the sluice, set off a vein of lemon yellow — was it the lemon-yellow Neva, crackling with rouble notes in the frost, was it the Moskva, was it the Elbian river that suddenly became transparent for the ships on the bottom, poisonous honey glowing with blossom? — ice floes creaked as they rubbed against each other, and in the early hours of the morning, when the brontosaurian, weather-beaten, thousand-headed tenements — with the sour smell of rumours and fear, of the sweat of having to hold their tongue, at night holding their breath at the beams of light, the stamp of boots, the corridors with the washing lines and vests frozen overnight into Eskimo salt cod, the blocked toilets in the communal apartments, the Moorish plaster arches in the rigging four metres up, rooms divided up by the backs of cupboards, curtains, trunks — seemed to melt back out of frozen blocks of graphite in the early hours of the morning, when the black lorries with the inscription ‘Meat’ had done their work, when the crows from the city parks had discussed what was to be done during the day (visit the slaughterhouses, see the frozen fountains of Bakhchisaray, blacken the portrait of Our Beloved Leader over the Admiralty, the Navy Museum), in the early hours of the morning the military marches started up, pumping four-four time out of the loudspeakers onto the main streets, where it lay like ooze, it must be the birthday of one of the bigwigs, one of the high priests from the Palace of Byzantium, red star over the sea of ice, it was going to be a morning full of trolley buses stopping, faces tense with joyful expectation, veterans with chests covered in chinking metal; a morning of the air force, Ulrich, envying the pilots their Poljot watches and the light blue on their peaked caps and collar patches, waved their flag with the propeller on it; I liked the navy uniforms, dark blue with gold buttons, liked the Raketa twenty-four-hour watches the submarine commanders wore, and then, when the commands from the loudspeakers died away, drumrolls and military marches faded, there was a second of silence, Atlantis holding its breath by radio sets in the factories, schools, universities, the inevitable Tchaikovsky melody rang out, played by the Bolshoi, then the Great Procession started to move, drum majors’ batons whirled in front of white-gloved drummers and shawm bands, on the gallery of the Red Pharaoh’s Mausoleum there was a flash of gold as the fanfares were raised. Mere dots, the royal household, sublimely blasphemous on the red granite blocks beneath which the Great Man lay, waved to the masses of workers marching past, to the electricity works on wheels, to the Taiga, the boreal forest of the rockets, the white-gloved commanders saluting on their tanks that creep past aligned on an invisible spirit level, the MIGs tying colourful birthday bows in the air, I remembered that the houses of Atlantis were rinsed through with military marches and Tchaikovsky, losing grain after grain of an old, half-forgotten substance, like salt being washed out of a level –

The city was listening. Extremely sensitive stethoscopes kept track, as if they were in the hands of midwives on the bellies of the summer days pregnant with rumours that waddled along the singed Elbe valley, squashed flat beneath the baroque shapes of cumulus, without looking for a place to give birth. They listened to Prague, to Libussa’s reports of the things happening in the Federal German embassy there, climbed the stairs of the district, returned, distorted and blown up, didn’t come to rest, trickled down Buchensteig to Körnerplatz, scurried across the Blue Miracle, encountered Meno in Fendler’s delicatessen, where he was buying foam-rubber cosmonauts, as a conjecture, at Nähter’s, where he was doing an errand for Barbara, as a manifest certainty. They were listening to East Rome, where the garden gnomes were smiling and the cuckoo-clock postboxes overflowing with petitions.

Londoner wanted to know what Meno was worried about. During those days he seemed to be in the best of moods, gave his ex-son-in-law a glass of port, crossed his legs with an expression of cheerful satisfaction. Yes, Hanna had told him. Those people at the embassy … He was the brother-in-law of a surgeon, wasn’t he, they called it lancing the abscess. Where there is pus, make an incision. At that very moment there were unmistakable signs of significant progress; the Secretary for Economic Questions had consulted him, referring to an article he, Jochen Londoner (the old man’s face glowed with pleasure), had published in Einheit, the Central Committee’s periodical for theory … There was to be an, oh, what was he saying, there were to be many, rubbish, there were to be masses of actions taken by the Free German Youth, for the Max iron works in Unterwellenborn, for example: Max needs scrap iron — we’ll take them a hundred thousand tons. That showed what huge reserves we have at our disposal. Meno remained silent, staring at Londoner. In previous times he would have said what an awful joke he’d just made, now he was rubbing his hands, talking about loans from Austria, about secret (how he savoured the word, the gratified smile of one in the know on his lips) reserves of hard currency, making Meno wonder what the Londoners father and son would talk about in the evening; Jochen Londoner gave Meno a cheerful pat on the shoulder: his latest book (‘perhaps, no, definitely my best’) had now finally been accepted for printing, moreover he and Irmtraud were going on holiday: to Sicily, Taormina! What did he have to say to that?

… but then, all at once …

(Schade) ‘Oh, do stop going on about the people knowing best, Fräulein Schevola. We’ve seen what that amounts to once before, we, the communists of the first generation were proved right and the people wrong! We have a truth, we have the truth, just you remember that, and we will defend it again, even against the people if need be!’

(Lührer) ‘Haven’t you got anything else to say? You sound like a scratched record.’

(Schade) ‘And you’re talking like my uncle, who was a shopkeeper. You say “my readers”, just the way he used to say “my customers”. And he did everything for his customers!’

(Schevola) ‘Knowst thou the land, where light and shade are clearly distinguished? I long for it.’

(Barsano) ‘Something for your joke collection? When Khrushchev was sacked he wrote two notes. To his successor he said, “If you’re ever in a hopeless situation, open the first one. If you get in such a situation again, the second.” Soon his successor was in such a situation. In the first note it said: Just blame me for everything. That helped. In the second it said, “Sit down and write two notes.” ’

(Emcee) ‘I’m the Whirligig, when wound, I keep everything going, round and round.’

The cry of the thousands of prospective emigrants up to the balcony of the German embassy, where the Federal Foreign Minister had proclaimed freedom, was like a highly infectious splinter in the hearing of the sick and weary body whose fortieth birthday had to be celebrated in a few days’ time. Even when the six trains with the emigrants were passing through Dresden, the Prague embassy was overcrowded again. The news that a further train from Prague was to be diverted northwards, via Bad Schandau and Dresden, swept through the town like an infection, beyond the control of the radio and the press, which were trying to play it down, impossible to contain with lies and intimidation, beyond the despairing fury with which the duty officers employed their nautical instruments: despite their delirious tone, the ship they believed they were steering was scarcely obeying their orders any more but, as Meno knew as he made his way home from Barsano’s reception for the Writers’ Association, the wind, with which the unpredictable, power-hungry force that they thought they had tamed over the years with promises, threats, distractions, sweetness, returned.

The cold built up in the tenements, in the kitchens with the extractor hoods and sliding doors, from which hung little mascots, kitchens in which the mothers grew old at the tiny cookers for baby’s milk and dinner, the menu dependent on what was available in the local store: shelves for flour and malted bread, for cabbages, preserves and for ‘nowt’, at the meat counter gleaming empty hooks and the usual under Plexiglass hoods: blutwurst, brawn, tripe, bacon fat, among them a little aluminium figure of Ernst Thälmann; cold air saturated with particles hung in the hatch between kitchen and living room where the Sandman introduced the children’s evening programmes to Young Pioneers sitting staring at the standard wall unit with matryoshka dolls, miners’ pennants; the cold in the halls with local wall newspapers, the house rules, the announcements of the Tenement Community Committee (‘Tee See See’ voices resounded across the river, SS Tannhäuser at the border of Atlantis): The Committee Secretary calls on you to do a day’s extra voluntary work. Care for your green spaces, citizens. Not everything should be put down the refuse chute, citizens. Call to participate in the Economic Mass Initiative (‘Ee Em Aye, Ee Em Aye,’ sang the Minol oriole): Repairing the paths in the area. Cold turned the puddles outside the tenements to ice, made the muddy paths freeze. Wind, the dark foreman, sucked warmth out of the central heating, tore the banners outside the House of Culture, rummaged round in the skips where the children played cowboys and Indians after school

Pale children. Scarred knees, cuts on the head, gashes that are sewn in the local outpatient clinic without anaesthetic; grazes, stinging, at the ice-cold Sepso tincture, while racing round the clothes poles in the back yard, skin scraped off on the wood; freckled, jug-eared children in football shirts made by their mothers with the famous numbers on, the legendary names: Walter, Rahn, Ducke, Puskas, Hidegkuti (difficult to spell! difficult to find someone who knew how to), Pelé. Girls played at Chinese twist, girls read books … girls played chess. (‘This book prize is to honour your successful participation in the City Spartakiad in the field of chess. We wish you much joy and success in the practice of this mental exercise. Your sponsoring work team.’) You couldn’t go a hundred metres without names. Freedom for Luis Corvalán. The Bohr, the Rutherford, model of the atom; the Comrade Chairman of the State Council looking up from the light-blue background, his head slightly tilted to one side, with a thoughtfully reflective gaze at (‘nah!’ ‘nah!’) ‘our young citizens’. Build up, build up: in the physics and chemistry rooms the ‘Young Technicians’, ‘Electronics’, ‘Young Cosmonauts’ study groups –

On 3 October a crowd forced its way to Central Station, to the Kasko advert and the ever-lit Radeberger sign, several hundred men (the women, more cautious, waiting to see what would happen, behind them) on the dull, chilly evening that belonged to a new reckoning since the New Forum had been banned, since the events on castle hill in Prague, something had happened that could no longer be determined by the traditional enclosures, something was happening somewhere in the darkness that was perforated by the rectangular yellows of the tower-block windows on Leningrader Strasse, the reciprocal tunnelling of the headlights of the trams and country buses. The men were young, almost all of them around twenty or thirty, dressed in the ill-fitting jackets, army anoraks with dyed artificial fur and check cotton shirts of the country’s garment industry; a few middle-aged men were, absurdly, Meno thought, in their Sunday best, as if they were off for an excursion and a meal at a country inn. Their faces bore the defensive and horrified expressions of people who have been rescued, and are in a place that is for the moment safe, at the sight of a natural disaster. The larger the waiting crowd became, the more police lined up against them. They seemed to have come from all over the country, Meno saw Rostock and Schwerin numberplates on the police vehicles.

‘But we’ve got tickets, we have the right to go through,’ Josef Redlich said. He was stopped, a policeman brusquely ordered him to show his ID and open his luggage. Confused, he lifted up his briefcase with the documents for Hermes’s autumn meetings, a swift gesture of surprise, the policeman leapt back and raised his truncheon. Meno and Madame Eglantine, who was chewing a frankfurter, stepped between them and were grabbed by several policemen, who pushed them into the station, where they managed to prove their bona fides. More people were waiting there. Most, Meno learnt, had come from Bad Schandau, where they had hoped to take one of the emigrants’ trains or get to Prague but had been forced back by police or men in bomber jackets. Since midday, passport- and visa-free travel to Czechoslovakia had been suspended, that to Poland had not been reintroduced. Now the bitter joke in the town was that the only way of leaving the country was feet first.

The police were wearing helmets with visors; they were uncertain and watchful in their movements, like pilots who had made a good landing but in the wrong place and were therefore only half heroes. Punks were camped in front of the station flower shop. A bevy of nuns was following a yellow umbrella waving the message ‘Jesus lives’ above the heads of the waiting crowd. Outside the telephones near the exit to the tram stops for the 11 and 5, usually, when Meno went to Berlin, an area with bunches of people buzzing with impatience as they besieged the booths, an exclusion zone had formed round a huge patch of vomit, a beige ejaculation fraying outward, still seething with explosive energy, a paint bucket slopped out in a wild, Expressionist gesture. Josef Redlich took off his hat to it. In the Mitropa a crush, tobacco-smoke-filled air, yeasty looks over the red-and-white checked oilcloth covered in splotches of sauce, plastic plates, restaurant cups with a green rim. Outside, clusters of people, the three had difficulty pushing their way through to their platform. Overfull wastepaper baskets knocked down. Pigeons, fluttering, agitated, the whale skeleton of the concourse stretched over a chalk reef given a daily coat of whitewash. Josef Redlich examined the trains, explained details. Electric engines, diesel engines, on the outer tracks fossils from pioneering days expelling smoke from their nostrils like angry buffaloes. The little man seemed uncertain what to do, jiggled his case, kept tugging at his hat. ‘What do you think of all this, Herr Rohde?’ He stared at the smooth, putty-grey floor covered in beer bottles and crumpled newspapers.

‘I don’t know,’ Meno said evasively. They had to be careful, that was all he could say. He’d always liked Redlich, that ‘honest soul’ as he was called at Hermes, who ‘did what he could’.

‘What about you?’ Madame Eglantine asked, flicking cigarette ends down onto the rails with the toe of her shoe.

‘I don’t know either.’ Josef Redlich shivered as he raised his shoulders.

‘Something has to change, surely you know that,’ said Madame Eglantine.

‘But where is it going to lead, Frau Wrobel, where, that’s the question,’ Josef Redlich replied quietly. ‘You went to Holy Cross Church, the two of you and Herr Klemm. The boss has put that on the agenda. As if there were still time for such kindergarten disciplinary measures. — Do you play cards?’

On the opposite platform a cloud of paper swirled up, a sweeping machine rattled past like a bug being chased. Immediately the balance of the waiting crowd shifted, a patter of feet, excited shouts, a baby whimpering, a train wasn’t in sight yet but one just had to come since the crowd were invoking it so intensely, ‘Wishes become Reality’, Meno read in an advert torn out of a West German magazine. But all that came was an orange shunter. The driver jerked his head when the crowd’s disappointment was expressed in whistling. The police were there at once. Groups of three or four advanced, grabbed protesters, dragged them back, the main force swallowed up those who’d been arrested, here and there a shaking head, arms protesting and thrashing could be seen before disappearing in a hail of truncheons. Suddenly perceptible air pressure, swirls bouncing forward and back, the power cables over the platforms humming like the taut wires of an egg-slicer; protests flickered up out of the acoustic mush of voices, single cries slit the human cocoon of uniforms and civilians outside the exits swelling and subsiding, then swelling again. The Berlin train drew in with a provoking lack of urgency. The cries now splashed over onto that platform, Redlich and Madame Eglantine hopped into the carriage before those dashing along the platform, Meno was pushed away by the panicking knot of people the police were shoving from behind. And more bits of paper falling, a hail of scraps, some descending as if in slow motion onto a bench, Meno could make out ‘H. Kästner, condoms supplied discreetly by mail order’, exchange requests, outboard motors, laxatives. Redlich’s horrified seal’s face sank in the compartment window, in front Madame Eglantine’s hand stretched out over the platform to Meno, really to me, he thought in the buffeting and tussling, her mouth torn in a strange grimace between the desire to shout and her throat’s refusal, the loudspeakers looked blind in the snowstorm of paper that, repeatedly kicked up by furious boots, dodging shoes, was a confetti revue dancing onto the ash-brown stage of the ballast and sleepers. Meno didn’t manage to get on the train. Whistles, the guard’s baton, a hoarse ‘Close doors’. Someone knocked his briefcase over, another man tripped over it, collided with Meno, who was trying to get his case away from the trampling feet. ‘Can’t you watch out? Fucking idiot!’ the guy shouted and drew his arm back for a punch. Meno ducked and it landed on a policeman behind him, who, like a fat, spoilt child who suddenly feels the flat of his mother’s hand, clutched his cheek and uttered a whiny, flabbergasted ‘Oww!’ Meno grinned. Two policemen plucked him out of the crowd, he was hit, in the pit of the stomach (which, since he had a travel chess set in his coat pocket, wasn’t particularly painful), then in the kidneys (at which his round-bowled pipe broke with a crack of regret), several blows, not delivered quickly but with a searching deliberation that took his breath away, then led off, together with the man who made the unfortunate punch and was bleeding from both eyebrows. There was the clatter of glass breaking, howling, pigeons shredding the air with their wings. Meno’s briefcase was left behind. A train drew in on the next platform, clearly the one expected from the Leipzig depot that was to collect those who’d occupied the embassy; it was stormed with shrill cries of panic intermingled with the screech of loudspeaker warnings and police megaphones demanding the station be cleared. In the station concourse boys were kicking balls of paper at the barricaded Intershop.

‘Clear off, man,’ the policeman said.

‘But my briefcase —’

‘Buzz off.’

(Eschschloraque) ‘But people, when they’re free, what do they do with their lives? If their aspiration is to be happy, what is then the expression of that happiness? They go hunting! The favourite pastime of the aristocracy, which had the most leisure, was to go hunting. And ordinary people have their own ordinary kind of hunting: they go fishing. What are you going to achieve with your revolution? An increase in the number of anglers. That’s all. The improved lot of the workers will consist in being able to devote themselves to that simplest form of hunting. And liberty, equality, fraternity for just that? Gosh!’

(Altberg) ‘Now you’re the one being cynical.’

(Eschschloraque) ‘I’m simply trying to avoid idealizing. Don’t make human beings more interesting than they are … Things are often too easy in life and art often imitates it as well, so what then?’

(Schubert) ‘But there must be hope! You can’t live without hope.’

(Eschschloraque) ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to learn to do that. — To stand on the Mastersingers’ shore, the place of the age-old new melody, everyone remains in his place in the firmly established order, time, the sorceress who is eternally changing everything, powerless!’

(Emcee) ‘There he is, part of that power, misunderstood, that ever evil wills and ever works for good, listen now, ladies and gentlemen, to the “Mephisto Waltz” rendered by our enchanting big band from Dresden.’

(Albin Eschschloraque) ‘Not do anything at all. I just want to … sit here and brood. I wish I were a hen.’

(Judith Schevola) ‘You’re keeping for yourself the whole repugnance people feel for a former idol.’

(Albin Eschschloraque) ‘Should I call you Fräulein Anna Lysis?’

(Eschschloraque) ‘You can’t stay calm, my son, when the world’s revolving round the quiet axis of your room.’

(Sinner-Priest) ‘You can imagine what I felt when my boss wanted to proceed according to the principle of that nation I hate. That in superstitious madness actually knocks the noses off statues so that they won’t come alive.’

(Barsano) ‘We believed that all people were basically good. If we gave them enough to eat, somewhere to live, clothes to wear, then they wouldn’t have to be bad any more. An error, what an error!’

But Meno refused to. The case in the station contained manuscripts, including one of Judith Schevola’s, with corrections; irreplaceable. A sense of duty, fear, curiosity and adventure: he circumambulated the station, went back in by a side entrance. Since he could show a valid ticket, he was allowed through. Meno’s briefcase was under a bench, guarded by an old woman who lived nearby and had come to hand out tea and biscuits. She had seen Meno and the other man being led away.

‘Have you ever seen anything like that before?’

‘No,’ Meno said.

‘That only happened during the war and on the seventeenth of June. You’re young — in your place I’d go too.’

Meno went home. The tram was full of rumours, people didn’t hold their tongues any more, they didn’t seem bothered whether anyone who would report them was listening. Dresden lay in the chill shade, heavy with mourning, of the desolation of its autumnal days; the lamps swung over the quiet streets of the district, full of the whisper of swaying branches.

Swirls of wind twisted the treetops on Mondleite, bounced up from the roof of the House with a Thousand Eyes, which creaked and groaned. Pedro Honich had already put the flag in the holder outside his window. The television was on at Libussa’s. The scent of vanilla tobacco was feeling its way through the gaps under the doors even though Meno had put cloth draught excluders made by Anne and Barbara over them. Someone was walking restlessly up and down in the conservatory. Meno opened the door onto the balcony and went out, followed by Chakamankabudibaba, who sniffed the misty air. From the park came the smell of decaying wood, which mixed with that of humus and wet leaves in the garden. Meno stared at the city, the visible bend of the Elbe, on which a gently bobbing lighter was drifting: so that, too, was time, someone had to keep an eye open for currents and signs, people needed coal or gravel or whatever the ship there was carrying. He went back into the room. How peaceful his desk was: his microscope and the typewriter with a blank sheet of paper still in it. He sat down, tried to work, but his thoughts kept slipping away. He stood up, he had to talk to someone.

By now Libussa and the ship’s doctor, who gave Meno a vigorous wave through the wooden-bead curtain, had switched on the radio.

‘Shouldn’t you be in Berlin?’ Lange asked, surprised.

‘Couldn’t get through, Central Station’s been closed.’

Libussa found a Czech station, translated. Hardly anything new, qualified expressions. The familiar sonorous announcer’s voice on Radio Dresden didn’t say a word about the events. Libussa switched off and remained silent. Suddenly Meno couldn’t say anything any more, he sat, hunched up underneath the collection of knots. He wanted to see Niklas.

‘Don’t endanger yourself, lad,’ Lange called out to him as he left.

The Heinrichstrasse villas seemed to have withdrawn into an ivy-wreathed dream, the few lighted windows were not looking out into the street but at the Land of Yesterday; the rhododendrons and brambles on the fences between the rusted gates seemed to be made of rampant silhouette paper. The light was on in the Griesels’ apartment; the first floor, the apartments of André Tischer and the Stenzel Sisters, was dark. Richard was on duty, Anne probably out, at a meeting of some opposition group in Neustadt or over in Loschwitz, in Kügelgenstrasse … Or at Matz Griebel’s with his more or less anarchist artist friends.

Ezzo came to the door; his violin stuck under his chin, he tightened his bow, tried a few strokes while Meno was hanging his coat on the coat hooks opposite Reglinde’s former room. Ezzo left him there. Far away in time the abbot’s clock and the grandfather clock in the living room asked the question and the silvery voice of the Viennese clock in the music room replied. Meno waited by the flowers engraved on the frosted glass of the living-room door, careful not to let his shadow fall on them, then he knocked briefly and cautiously pressed the handle down. Niklas, standing by the stove, nodded. The Oldest German Cathedrals was centrally placed on the table with a few Dehio volumes round it. Meno tried to say something but couldn’t. Art books open, warmth, then some music later … Niklas’s universe.

(Barsano) ‘At night the footsteps. At night the scuttling of the rats along the corridors of the Lux. A bakery at the bottom attracted them. They were there during the day as well, weren’t bothered by us. Lifts went, lifts stopped. At night we lay awake and counted the seconds the lift motor ran. Counted the seconds the footsteps were coming closer.’

(Eschschloraque) ‘A time will come when it’s diabolic for the rituals of uniformity — I’m being imprecise, Rohde, and you’re not telling me off. The concept of ritual contains within it the concept of uniformity. Heheh. Diabolus: the one who throws things into confusion. To put it bluntly: the eternal revolution is devilish, the eternal change of the existing state of things …’

(Barsano) ‘Mother was taken to be interrogated. The examining judge threatened her with the stick. The other swore. Coarse, filthy swear words. Russian is a language that’s rich in swear words. Mother asked whether she was at the Gestapo. The two started swearing at her again. Then she stood up and said, You haven’t served in the army, comrade. I’ll show you how to swear properly.’

(Eschschloraque) ‘… time, therefore. Time is the devil’s work, Rohde, for it is the instrument of change … the glue to which we’re stuck … That is why we’re living in a divinely ordained state, for we have undertaken to abolish time. Woe betide us if we fail … I see an age of the present dawning in which all change will consist of the eternal recurrence of the ever-same, Diabolus will plunge into everyday routine, his affair will no longer be change but quiescence, uniformity, the mill that grinds all great or would-be great stones to powder on the paths of an eternally unchanging present …’

(Barsano) ‘Which struck the others dumb and they stopped swearing. They started asking Mother about intimate matters, it had nothing to do with the charge, they wanted to know everything, and that in my presence.’

(Eschschloraque) ‘… which would mean that God had become the devil, had merged with him. God is the devil.’

Order and security:

But the paper, the snow-shower of scraps, falling asymmetrically, colourful as a circus. Meno worked his way through the crowd to the station exit, clutching his ticket and his case; duty called but didn’t entice him, here something beyond the usual thesis-and-antithesis games was happening, also beyond the usual answers. Luise, his undaunted mother, would perhaps have said: It’d be reckless not to stay here. The noises in the station: cavernous, with slithery, aimless echoes: was that like the way the outside world flooded into our hearing, the still unfiltered acoustic stream splashing, breaking against our eardrums, making the malleus, incus and stapes vibrate: Morse signals to the endolymph contained within the membranous labyrinth of the tympanic canal? The town was the ear, the station jutted out into the cochlea: the helix, oscillations, particles of sound rolling about, knocking, some as fine as dust, just scratching at the acoustic threshold of perception, others full of themselves, vibratory amplitudes of the authorities. Cinderella’s peas, then a clicking, a hailstorm of glass raining down, as if a hole had been punched in the store of a marbles factory, meanwhile a basic rhythm was getting into shape, boomboom! boomboom! the crude, martial, theatrical solemnity of Siegfried’s journey down the Rhine to death — perhaps the police had been trained, or was it mere chance. (But did mere chance exist in uniform in this country?) Hitting their truncheons against their plastic shields, they shooed the people in droves out of the station. Meno was carried along with them. The exits spewed out those fleeing the police, at the same time sucking in, as a whale’s stomach factory does plankton, a crowd curious to see what was going on, the background body of which was gathering in Prager Strasse and, after crossing the tram tracks on Wiener Platz, headed for the northern entrance to the station. Two forces; they collided under the Radeberger sign (now mute and dull on this plumage-grey morning), forming a buffer zone of kicking, of gesticulations, of archaic fear and relief, a remarkably soothing ring, bubbling up like batter, with thorny wound ruptures shooting off in places where the stitches burst between the battering wedges, which immediately blunted each other with the force of thrust from behind: as Meno saw in units of time of hallucinatory alertness that had nothing to do with his attempts to keep his balance in the swirling tumult, nor with his ticket that, in mortal fear, like a fish flapping in the air, was a vague promise screwed tight in a grip that was being jogged every moment; that had nothing to do with the thought that he didn’t want to leave but to stay there, daring. I’m staying here. I want to see. I want to see (with my own eyes) what is going to happen here. Curiosity? A maternal gene that had so far remained silent, that had started to flash hesitantly on the Rohdes’ partisan horizon and wanted to have an effect? Paper, floating, hissing, tramped on, scrunched up out of rage or joy. People trickling to the passageways. Suddenly shouts: the train! the train! Fields of swimmers desperately doing the crawl. The train was said to have arrived. Where! Where? The train! The expected train, from Prague; the train to freedom. The train. Freedom! some cried at the camouflage-coloured turbine that started to throb, greedily and dangerously: batons beat out their rhythmical Clear off! Clear off! The train had not arrived. Immediately the people slipped back into waiting postures, many awake with pain and furious, even more drained and disappointed; backpacks slumped down onto paper-strewn platforms. The train didn’t come.

Berlin had called Dresden. The district had called the Administration of the Academy, the heads of the city hospitals, the transfusion centres. The management had called the wards. That was where the instruction had ended, was noted and kept quiet about. Have extra supplies of stored blood ready: the blunt terms of the message. In the breaks between operations Richard walked round the clinic to get his conflicting emotions under control. He went down into the basement, where the nurses and doctors were smoking, whispering, exchanging rumours about the unrest at Central Station, the situation in Prague. He went out into the park, where it was monastic and autumnal, where the statues on the fountain were frozen in remarkably graceful attitudes, which must have demanded a great effort from the sculptor, for their grace was beyond this world and yet was not a lie. It wasn’t even kitschy; the statues seemed to feel at ease and that must have cost the greatest effort. It was the grace of lunatics. Christian had written, ‘What should I do if they order me? You’ve always tried to bring us up to be honest, but you lied yourself. What you said about moral cowardice, all those years ago outside the Felsenburg (it was loud enough, perhaps we boys played so happily so that we didn’t have to hear everything) — the lessons with Orré, your warnings and reproaches in the training camp, do you remember? What should I do? The barracks is on stand-by, no day-passes or leave, the telephone lines out have been closed down, there are no newspapers any more. If they give me the order: Hit them! — what should I do? I’m giving this letter to the cook in the hope that it will get to you and that your reply, if you should (can?) send me one will reach me.’ Richard kept the letter with him. Never before had Christian written one like that to him. He’d avoided the word: father. And Anne? Richard hadn’t shown her the letter. What had happened, what had happened to him, to them? Time, time, came the whisper from the branches with the copper-art foliage. The wind smelt of coal.

Someone had thrown a stone, a cube of black-and-white granite from the cobbles that fitted nicely in the hand; there could have been a commentary on its flattened parabolic trajectory, like a ball that even at the player’s run-up, at his crisp, explosive shot, the experienced reporter suspects will become the goal of the year, analysed again and again in countless action replays, demonstrated by fathers, who were there, to their sons on male-bonding Sundays (or would there come a time when there were videos in this country?); Meno watched the stone descend over the phalanx of transparent shields, which reflected the clinical fluorescent light, and appear to lose height and its curve turn into a dotted line, as on airline pilots’ maps, before it would hit its target and, in a strange reflection, make the line of its trajectory flash up again, the electric-fast click of the bolt again confirming the alignment of the sights

and

shouts, the drumming of batons, sheer lust. Kettling, scurrying, boring. Thousands had come back from Schandau on foot, driven partly by the police, partly by other authorities, partly in resignation after days of camping by the tracks

and

rioters, the scum of every day on their faces cracking open to show the white undercurrent of hatehatehate, they stripped wood off scaffolding, broke bottles into deadly jagged crowns, suddenly had an armful of cobblestones that they hurled at the advancing power of the state, shields cracked, visors split open, windowpanes shattered, glittering theatrically, into splinters that seemed to salt the ground, howling was the response. Meno was standing pressed against a pillar, incapable of moving

and

yet they came closer, the gangs and cordons and rubber truncheons at the ready, Describe the rutting and attack ceremonies of red deer, went through Meno’s mind, he still had his case, not his ticket any more, just a scrap of paper, someone had torn it out of his hand

and

the black dogs, barking, their gums very pink, their teeth very white and dripping saliva, pulled on their leads, shaking their handlers with the power of their black haunches, strange engravings of their claws on the smooth, hard floor of the station concourse, loops and scrolls, perhaps flowers, dog roses, Meno thought

and

truncheons came raining, pelting, whizzing down, a thudding like horse chestnuts on the roof of parked cars, the bizarre reality of the screams that answered them, people were kicked to the ground, trampled, hands raised in defence, but the rubber truncheons had tasted

fear and

blood and

blood and

lust

and

there were the toilets, Meno ran with the others, the herd, instinctive, opportunities. The toilets. The vault, blue tiles, the stench of ammonia cutting like a discus through the breath of those rushing in. Meno recoiled, the trap, what will you do if they lock them, ran out, he could see the expressions of the police, the index-finger arms. Out, out, outside the station, get out of the station. Tear-gas cartridges clattered on the ground, people ran away, a yielding zone yawned like a slit in taut skin, then the smoke swirled up. Water cannons squirted paths through the tangles of flight and free-for-all, mashed the paper, pushed it into slimy castles on the edge of the tracks. Meno looked up, saw video cameras, saw smashed station monitors; water was dripping down from the girders, filling the station with spray and gleaming metallic ribbons with which threads of blood interwove in slow motion.

— paper,

Meno wrote,

paper, the mountain of paper –

Christian was sitting in the quartermaster’s store, to which he now had a key, and roared as he bit his teeth into a fresh pack of soldiers’ underclothes. Sometimes he thought he was going mad. That the barracks, the tanks, the transfers from company to company were nothing but a dream, a long, unpleasant nightmare that yet must some time come to an end and he would be in bed, free, perhaps with the Comedian Harmonists singing on the Stenzel Sisters’ gramophone. Then he would go to the barracks library, a grotesque place watched over by a fat kindly woman with a granny apron and knitting (she knitted kidney warmers for the ‘young comrades’). Pale-gold trees shimmered along the barracks roads. The officers saluted jerkily, tension and fear on their faces. The political education classes had been doubled. The clichés trickled from their lips, covering the ground where they lay, invisible but attracting dust, despised, not taken seriously by anyone. There were exercises, work on the tanks, there were to be manoeuvres in the autumn. Christian was counting the hours to his discharge. Sometimes, even though he’d been in the army for almost five years now, he felt that he could no longer bear the few days of being locked in, would climb up onto the roof of the battalion building, the tar on which was still a malleable summery mass bubbling in the thermals between the black extractor fans, write letters that a kitchen assistant would smuggle out into a civilian postbox, read what Meno sent him (little Reclam paperbacks, Soviet fiction published by Hermes that had changed remarkably, suddenly there were blue horses on red grass). Most of the soldiers were now being sent out to work for various firms in Grün. Christian stood by a lathe, doing shifts as an assistant lathe operator. The soldiers wanted to go home but on the morning of 5 October they were given batons. Pancake laughed and asked Christian what he was going to do. Christian didn’t know, he couldn’t imagine, he didn’t want to imagine. Police came and trained them in their use on the regiment’s football ground. Attack from the left, attack from the right. Recognizing ringleaders, advancing in groups. For a while there was a rumour that Christian’s unit would be sent out with firearms. The soldiers were a motley crew brought together from companies that were left (sometime in the spring of ’89 disarmament had been decreed), from Cottbus, Marienberg, Goldberg, no one could keep track of the streams of transferees any longer. Nip was happy if he could scrape together enough clothes and food for all of them. The kitchen assistant was still allowed through the barracks gate and he brought new rumours, from Grün, where there was unrest in the metal works, from Karl-Marx-Stadt and Leipzig, from Dresden. In the evening they were ordered into lorries. No firearms! Rubber truncheons, summer combat fatigues, body protector, an extra ration of alcohol and cigarettes for each man. Most of the soldiers were silent, staring at the ground. Pancake was smoking.

‘I presume you don’t care,’ the man next to Christian said.

‘Get stuffed,’ Pancake said. He stuck his head out. ‘Nothing to be seen. No signs with place names.’

‘If we only knew where we’re going,’ a younger soldier said, he still had a year to go.

‘To Karl-Marx-Stadt,’ the man next to Christian said. ‘Makes sense, hardly anyone here comes from there.’

‘We’ve already gone past,’ Pancake said.

‘Have you swallowed a map?’ a corporal asked.

‘Plus an odometer.’

‘So it’s Dresden,’ the younger soldier said.

‘Beat up a few queers, something to look forward to for once,’ the corporal said. ‘Hey, Nemo, are there many queers in Dresden? I’m sure there’s loads of them there.’

‘Class enemies,’ Pancake prompted; someone gave him a light.

‘Do you believe what they told us? That it’s just hooligans and that kind of thing? From the West. And counter-revolutionary factions.’

‘And you’re one of them too, hmm? You just watch out,’ the corporal said menacingly. ‘Hey, Nemo, lost your tongue?’

‘Just leave him in peace,’ Pancake said casually.

‘I don’t let people threaten me, and I don’t let people run our state down,’ the corporal said.

‘Christ, what dark hole did you crawl out of?’ growled a sleepy voice from the seats by the driver’s cab.

‘So you’re going to fight,’ Pancake said.

‘Of course, they’re just a load of swine. It’s all they deserve.’

‘Then I’ll whack you over the head. The way you grunt.’

‘I’ll report you, Kretzschmar. You all heard what he said.’

‘You won’t report anyone,’ Christian said.

‘My view entirely,’ Pancake said. ‘No one here heard anything. Nichevo.’

‘They’re supposed to have hanged a policeman in Dresden.’

‘Fairy stories.’

‘They say Central Station’s closed. More damage than from the air raid.’

‘That’s what they tell you. And you fall for all that nonsense. Their fucking lies!’

‘Who said that? Who said fucking lies?’

‘And what if it’s true, eh?’

‘Can’t you lot just shut up,’ the sleepy voice said.

The soldiers fell silent, smoked, checked the numbers of the cars that overtook their convoy of lorries.

Dresden. Dismount.

They were in Prager Strasse. Christian saw the lights but they were something alien, unknown, he came from this town and yet didn’t seem to belong any more, and the objects, the buildings seemed to have come alive: the Round Cinema had coyly covered up the glass cases with the film posters, the Inter-Hotels stared arrogantly over the heads of the soldiers, the riot police, the trainee officers who were assembling, instructed by officers running to and fro, but also by bomber-jacketed civilians: shouts, orders, threats.

Crack down.

Hard.

The enemy.

Counter-revolutionary aggression.

Defence of the homeland of the Workers-and-Peasants.

In front of them people heading for Central Station. The soldiers formed squads of a hundred, hooked arms to make a chain. Christian was beside Pancake in the second row. From the station came a dull rhythmical knocking noise. ‘Forwaaard — march!’ the officers shouted. Christian could feel his legs turning to jelly, the same feeling as he’d had when judgment had been pronounced in the court, oh to be able to fly, to be able to do something that would put an end to the madness, to turn around and walk away, he was afraid and he could see that Pancake was afraid as well. The station was a gurgling, gobbling mechanism, an illuminated throat that swallowed footsteps, spewed out water, smoke and fever. Over there? Was that where they were going? Trams lay, helpless, like seeds in the swelling flesh of a fruit made up of human beings. A car was turned over and set alight, Molotov cocktails fizzed through the air like burning beehives that burst, throwing out thousands of deadly spikes of flame. The soldiers halted by the Heinrich Mann bookshop, closing off Prager Strasse. Christian saw Anne.

She was a few metres away, one of a group of people outside the bookshop and was haranguing a policeman. The policeman raised his baton and hit out. Once, twice. Anne fell down. The policeman bent down and continued to beat her. Kick her. Was immediately backed up when someone from the group tried to stop him. Anne had put her arms over her face like a child. Christian saw his mother lying on the ground, being kicked, thrashed, by a policeman. Lamps slid by like divers. There was an empty area round Christian, a lost darkness into which all the silence and protection and obedience that had gathered inside him slipped. He took his baton in both hands and tried to rush at the policeman, to beat him until he was dead, but someone was holding Christian, someone had wrapped his arms round Christian, someone was shouting, ‘Christian! Christian!’ and Christian shouted back and howled and thrashed about with his legs and wet himself out of impotence, then it was over and he was slumped in Pancake’s vice-like grip like a puppy that has had its neck broken, they could do what they liked with him, he wanted nothing but to be in the future, he wanted nothing but to be elsewhere, Pancake carried him to the rear, Christian was sobbing, Christian wished he were dead.

He was taken back to the barracks’ where the following day he was interrogated by an official of the sealed and barred doors. He studied Christian’s file, rested his chin on his hands woven into a loose mat, said, ‘Hm, hm.’

Christian had been given an injection, a tranquillizer, from the doctor at the Med. Centre. He said (thinking as he did so of Korbinian and Kurtchen: We’ll see each other again. You’re not going to get out of here. Farewell and forgive us): ‘Schwedt’, said it in a matter-of-fact voice.

The other man stood up, went to the window, scratched his unshaven cheek. ‘I’m still thinking what we should do with you. But I don’t think Schwedt is what is required. No. I think you need …’

Christian waited, unconcerned, his nerves weren’t much use any more.

‘… leave,’ the other man said. ‘I’m going to send you on leave. You have a few days left. Go and stay with your grandfather in Schandau. Though … you might do something stupid there. It’s better if you go to Glashütte.’ He took a pass out of one of the drawers, signed it, stamped it. ‘Perhaps you’d better not go via Dresden. There’s a country bus from Grün to Waldbrunn and you know how to continue your journey from there.’

Christian remained seated. The pass was on the table in front of him.

‘Just say thanks, Comrade Captain. We’re not that bad.’

Walpurgis-Night’s Dream:

Meno wrote,

Climb aboard, Arbogast says, breaking a pencil in two and jamming a piece in the rudder. The airship rises, it’s rigid but light and I can see the city, Berlin, the government’s Copper Island. In front of it the ships are stuck in the wide, coagulated Liver Sea, their masts wrecked, their keels beyond dreams, on the isle the outline of a mountain becomes visible, a deposit of still-ticking clocks, behind it is the surging, sucking, swallowing Whirlscrew, the spiral, the downward reflection of the Tower. Blue skies over the Republic, real national-holiday weather. If I look through one of the eyepieces of the strange construction — a kind of huge microscope — fixed to the cockpit of the airship, I can see details; it’s 7 October, the anniversary of the founding of the Republic, a Pioneers choir is singing the song of the young naturalists: Our land has donned its Sunday best, the dew glints in its hair … The fields are full of flowers bright, the trees stand tall and strong, and whisper soft, for our delight — come hear their secret song. We approach. I don’t need the microscope to see that the roads are an extensive network of convolutions of a whitish substance, I can see the two hemispheres floating in the Liver Sea; the piece of screen above the brain, a TV weather map with the felt-pen circles of the areas of high and low pressure, has taken on the tent-grey of the dura mater; the cobwebby skin of the arachnoidea is covered with the rusted hedges of the hundred-year-old roses whose scent washes over the smell of fat from the state-owned fried-food outlets. Neues Deutschland, the organ of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party, has appeared in a special edition, doves of peace, workers’ proclamations, flutter up from the paper, smiling, children-kissing soldiers wave. The official route, along which the cars with the foreign delegations will approach the centre with its rostrums and still-empty main streets for the procession, has been swept clean, the buildings freshly plastered up to the maximum height that can be seen from the official limousines and decked out with optimistic slogans. In the eyepiece nerve cells, with an auratic glow from psycho-cocktails, tropical plants spring up on the banks of the Spree, the Palace of the Republic infiltrated by the furtive, lethargic blooms of flesh-red parasitic flowers, other nerve cells appear to have been shut out, avoided by nutrients and neurotransmitters, they decompose and, in a kind of retro-embryonic abandonment, are walled into the rhythm of the clocks on the mountain, layer by layer the calcareous deposit thickens round their cell membranes. The brain is old, an aged brain, the fine blood tubes supplying it crack like puff pastry when searching endoscopes — I am not the only one looking, the system has distrusting members of staff — follow a curve, arteriosclerotic plaques have been deposited, only allowing single red, oxygen-bringing blood corpuscles through. A gala performance! The Sandman arrives by helicopter. The Skat Court of Arbitration, cross-hatched by fibre roses of rising pain tracts, lays its cards on the table, Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler, the bosun of the Black Channel — its offbeat, jangling, vampire-drama theme tune is playing in the entrance hall of the Palace of the Republic, a lamp shop that today has spared no expense with the illumination — has turned into a naval shipworm, his chief propagandist’s mouth twisted in a grimace of hatred and torment, we can see him bore into the room of Make a Wish where Uta Schorn and Gerd E. Schäfer weave little anecdotes into their cosy chat, but that is not his destination, nor the jolly lads in blue from Eight Bells, Sea Astern singing sea shanties to the squeezebox and small talk, he traverses Kati’s Ice Show and disappears in the depths of the Book Ministry lodged in Wernicke’s Centre, the auditory word centre, drills into the crumbling mass of files and log books. Dance the samba with me, Samba, samba the whole night through. Dance the samba with me, For the samba brings me close to you, rings out over Alexanderplatz, the guests at the state reception turn to the culinary delights: ham from Wiepersdorf pigs that fed under the olive oaks there, venison between decoratively crossed Suhl rifles, parsley in the barrels, to go with it Edel brandy, lemonade for the fraternal Soviet delegation, wine from Meissen, pineapples and all the other things the TV chef recommends — Truth! Truth! the Minol oriole cried, and it is printed there, in the Party newspapers, the CENTRAL ORGAN and in the district newspapers, do you see the wires, they’re as fine as cobwebs, touch them, a telephone will ring and a trembling editor will reply, and if it’s time for the drinking trough, every Thursday after the meeting of the Politburo (Tuesdays) and after the discussions of the Secretariat of the Central Committee (Wednesdays), then gather, you editors-in-chief of all the newspapers of Copper Island in the depths of the copper forest, of the mass organizations, with the head of the government press office, plug the functionaries into the machine, the apparatus: the linguistic punch unrolls its tongue = lingua! white-gloved robot hands pull, the linguistic punch starts up, trial run! there’s a clinking on the floor: empty word shells, tin headlines, paper streamers curl: THE MOST IMPORTANT CRITERION OF OBJECTIVITY IS COMMITMENT, COMRADE! TO BE OBJECTIVE MEANS TO COMMIT ONESELF TO THE LAWS GOVERNING THE PROGRESS OF HISTORY TO THE REVOLUTION TO SOCIALISM! The linguistic punch had a red button: the Lenin button that is now pressed: THE TRUE PRESS IS A COLLECTIVE PROPAGANDIST, AGITATOR, ORGANIZER! –

(Emcee) ‘The State Opera ballet will now perform the polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. For those of you watching on black-and-white televisions I will describe the pretty tutus of our comrade ballet dancers.’

An embrace here, an embrace there, outside a couple of demonstrators but they’re all singing and dancing, because it creates a good atmosphere, the head of the riot police mobile unit, with his office in the House of the Teacher doesn’t dare to order a large-scale operation to clear Alexanderplatz. –

(Emcee) ‘Now comes the “Awake” chorus from Richard Wagner’s Mastersingers.’

(General Secretary) ‘Today the German Democratic Republic is an outpost of peace and socialism in Europe.’

(Gorbachev) ‘Anyone who comes too late …’

(The people, in chorus) ‘Freedom!’

(Minister of Police) ‘Most of all I’d like to go and give these scoundrels a thrashing they won’t forget in a hurry … No one needs to tell me how to deal with class enemies.’

(The people, in chorus) ‘Freedom!’

(Minister of Security) ‘Well, once he, Comrade Gorbachev that is, has left, I’ll give the order to move in and that’ll be the end of humanism.’

Porous zones, the brain switches off awake fields, the alpha waves of sleep can be seen. But this little attachment, the thyroid gland, the control centre of metabolism, never sleeps, a grey concrete palace with reflective or painted-on windows below which the lymph creeps along the slimy lactiferous duct, infested with enemies –

… but then, all at once …

the clocks struck –

Gudrun said, ‘We step out of our roles.’ Niklas said, ‘Fidelio’s on at the Opera and at the prisoners’ chorus the people stand up and join in.’ Barbara said, ‘And Barsano’s sitting in the royal box, his mind elsewhere, and doesn’t join in.’ Anne, her face still beaten up, her wrists swollen from the blows with the truncheon, took a candle. Richard and Robert, who had saved up his leave for the last days before his discharge, checked whether the slogan ‘No violence’ was dry on the paper sashes they were going to wear. They went out into the street.

There were a lot of people out in the streets. All their faces showed the fear of the last few days, grief and unease, but also something new: they shone. Richard could see that these were no longer the dejected, slump-shouldered people of the previous years who slunk along, greeting and cautiously nodding to people but avoiding holding eye contact for too long, they had raised their heads, still breathing apprehensively, but already full of pride that this directness was possible, that they could walk upright and declare who they were, what they wanted and what they didn’t want, that they were walking with increasingly firm steps and felt the same elemental joy as children who have stood up and are learning to walk. The Schwedes and the Orrés had linked arms with the inhabitants of Wisteria House, Hauschild, the coal merchant, came out of Ulenburg, the house next door to Caravel, with his wife and many children (‘like organ pipes’, Barbara said), looking as if they’d lit their whole winter’s supply of candles, Herr Griesel with his wife and Glodde, the postman, who’d just come home from work, locked his Trabant, the saw fell silent in Rabe’s, the carpenter’s, workshop, he whistled to his apprentices, took a candle stub out of the pocket of his corduroy trousers.

For a moment they hesitated — down Ulmenleite to the church or along Rissleite towards Walther’s bakery? The queue outside the shop began to precipitate, grew thin, dispersed, the assistants looked out, crumpling the skirts of their aprons in their hands, ‘Bring some rolls,’ one man shouted, hands waved, cries of ‘Join us, we need every man’, and Frau Knabe, pushing her intimidated husband forward, added, ‘That’s right — and every woman.’ Ulrich threw his Party badge away. Barbara put off an appointment with Lajos Wiener, who wrote on the door of his salon, ‘Closed due to revolution’. Frau von Stern, with a lunch box slung round her neck, thumped the ground with her heavy, gnarled walking stick: ‘In case anyone tries to tread on my toes. Oh, that I’ve been spared to see this, after October the seventeenth.’ And for Richard the day, that October day of 1989, suddenly became serious and simple, full of energy that seemed to bring out the hairline cracks in the clouds behind the trees, he saw the potholes, the futile blobs of asphalt, the perfunctorily patched cover of the old roads, which were now about to break out, like a snake sloughing, and even though twilight was already falling there came through the fissures something of the overpowering freshness he’d felt as a boy when they were up to some prank, the sudden flash of one of those splendid ideas that infringed the norm but gilded his inner self with a nimbus of happiness and battlesong. ‘Hans,’ he said to his brother, who had come from Wolfsleite; ‘Richard,’ the toxicologist said, and that was all, even though they were their first words for a long time. Iris and Muriel rejected the candles Pastor Magenstock offered them, Fabian too, now a young man with his somewhat ludicrous hussar’s moustache, declined; they weren’t carrying candles, nor wearing Gorbachev badges, as so many were, they didn’t want better socialism, they wanted no socialism at all, and for their hopes they didn’t need a sermon, nor a candle chain. The Honichs too, as Richard had to admit, demonstrated courage, unrolling the GDR flag, the mocked and despised flag that here and there, as Richard was aware, had been disarmed by a circular cut; they joined the rest and were admitted, without anyone taking further notice of them.

They rang doorbells. Some didn’t come, some curtains twitched and were lowered again, some dogs started to bark and weren’t silenced, and Trüpel from the record shop, hobbled — sorry, sorry — past with a conveniently broken leg and an inconvenient plaster cast on it. Malivor Marroquin’s fancy-dress shop remained closed, no warning signs out in the street, no photo of the more and more confident demonstrators was taken by the white-haired Chilean.

… but then, all at once …

the clocks struck:

and Copper Island tips under the weight of the people, who take up position on the starboard side, the red-and-white checked tablecloths slither down to where foam and sea are gyrating in a funnel, the briquettes with a too high water content disintegrate –

(Emcee, handing out medals from a shoe box) ‘There you are. Medals! For exemplary achievements in socialist competition! There you are. Plenty of everything. There’s no charge!’

the giants on the Kroch skyscraper in Leipzig let their hammers thunder on the bell, Philipp Londoner sits in silence in the darkened room, the workers in the cotton mill switch off the machines and join the processions of demonstrators, 100,000 people marching into the centre on this Monday, to the rose-wreathed university, to the Gewandhaus, shining like a crystal in the twilight, the people trying out their voice, refusing to be put off, weary of all the lies and barred doors and windows –

(Eschschloraque) ‘Mole, blind in the dark earth, morning noon and night, but without time, that was what made him afraid, without time. A ship with a mad captain and a mad crew, full of noise and rage between yesterday today tomorrow … a journey woven on the Big Wheel, which is still turning in the mist and we the kings at a board on which is marked in blood the rise and fall of empires, the eternal recurrence of what is eternally the same, and for a brief moment the suggestion of a sunbeam and lovers embraced by the executioner’s block of the beautiful new world, in which purity is an evil beauty and a black womb gives birth to a black womb’ –

‘We are the people’

(Eschschloraque) ‘Mole dreams the mole’s dream of sunlight and an open sky and digs and digs in the darkness, but he is not guided by his dream, only by his forepaws and following his nose, and he dreams he is the Lord of Creation, heaven earth stones created for him alone, Mole is the centre of the world and his burrowing race of blind diggers to whom the Mole-God promised immortality — but suddenly there are doubts, a voice: the Mole is just a mole and nothing else, created the Mole-God as his mirror, a shadow image made of sound and delusion’ –

‘We are the people’

(Eschschloraque) ‘And just as the river doesn’t flow upwards, Mole will ever remain a mole, will never leave the tunnel of darkness, never reach the light of the sun: that is his lot as a mole, the universe isn’t concerned about it and however much he suffers, struggles and thinks and feels, he won’t change anything, he will remain without time’ –

‘We are a people’

… but then, all at once …

the clocks struck

the clocks of the Socialist Union, the Kremlin clock stopped with the sound of a broken spring, the red star over Moscow still sending radio signals across the sea to the vassal islands, to the guards on the ridges between Bucharest and Prague and Warsaw and Berlin

(Pittiplatsch) ‘Ouch, my nose’

(Schnatterinchen) ‘Naknaknak’

the blood, that special juice, clots, Apoplex extinguishes Lenin’s lights, now the copper plate sticks up out of the sea like an ice floe, I’m the Whirligig, when wound, I keep everything going, round and round; thyreos, the shield, where ferns crawl and break the monolith, the concrete of Norman castle architecture, into whose rooms with their standard flower wallpaper, veneered furniture, standard ashtrays, standard officials’ desks fresh air now sweeps as the people break through; paper swirls up, paper, the old files treated as founding documents, a storm of papers, a riot of papers down the air well, from the galleries with foliage plants and plastic watering cans that, equipped with a surveillance camera, can be used anywhere in the Republic’s cemeteries, in the cellars the shredders gobble up paper, gulp the typing down into their voracious maws for as long as they still can, the citizens’ committees still have enough to do making sure their amazement, their revulsion is not misinterpreted as weakness: the seal is opened on the room in which the register of smells is kept, the sweat under the armpits of thousands who are persona non grata is taken on a piece of cloth, shrink-wrapped in cellophane, precisely mapped and kept for the dogs, paper crunches underfoot, little scraps of paper make breathing difficult, punch-reinforcement rings, white confetti from the cast-iron hole punches, crumbling files swell up, an indigestible mush from the entrails of the authorities, paper, paper –

And on a November day Christian and Pancake stood outside the barracks, some of the guards at the checkpoint enviously watching them leave while others had already gone back to their duties. The flags along the barracks road, still the black-red-and-gold ones with the hammer, compasses and wreath of grain, the blue of the Free German Youth, flapped listlessly in the wind, as the new recruits reported for duty, uncertain and heads bowed at the fact that here, that now, given what was happening outside, they would no longer have their freedom and would have to wear the hated uniform of the National People’s Army. Pancake, in a worn leather outfit, his home-made reservist’s sash with the forbidden black-red-and-gold eagle, dog tag, insignia, reservist’s badge, a green tank and the ballpoint pen signatures of his comrades between his years of service in Roman numbers casually knotted over his shoulder, turned to Christian, who felt he looked ridiculous in the same get-up (how he had been imagining this day for years, especially since the ‘99 Balloons’ of Nena’s song that were traditionally released into the sky above every regiment when discharge candidates only had that many days left in the army), also anachronistic (as if anyone were still interested in that, as if anyone would actually have waited for them, the young men who were now leaving the army, waving the brown tracksuits they’d been given as trophies, bawling and drunk when they fell upon the stations and bars, but getting quieter and quieter the closer they came to the various places where they belonged, where people had other things to worry about and would brush off with a ‘So there you are’ their stories, which had to remain untold in a nucleus of explosive silence); Pancake turned to him, jerked his thumb at his mates, who had turned up on motorbikes and revved up now and then or let in the clutch to make their bikes leap forward; Pancake said, ‘So long.’

‘So long,’ Christian said.

— Seeking: purity,

Meno wrote,

paper, with writing on and blank, with photos printed on, with the fine and heavy lines of a drawing woven in, paper confirming, pacifying, emphasizing, read between the lines, exultant, cautious, shady, opaque, official, revoking; paper for the TRUTH, the printed mirror, NEUES DEUTSCHLAND, JUNGE WELT, PRAVDA, newspapers washed down the drain, greaseproof paper for sandwiches, cigarettes form raging whirlpools, tickets for CSKA Moscow Sparta Prague Dynamo Dresden Lokomotive Leipzig HFC Chemie football matches, for speedway races and swimming pools, receipts mix with insulating paper; announcements, ukases, books, writing pads trundle along towards the propellers of a turbine in which they are mashed and pulped, scraps of paper trailing down like moss from the propeller blades, paper slush, fibrous sludge being wound into gigantic ropes that are chopped up by the slicers, mowing machines in constant scything movement that clip off the ends of the paper strudel like a string of spaghetti dough; newspapers that are flushed into the water, there are the buckets of the excavator dredgers, the leaking flanges over a field of vegetables that is being fertilized with chopped-up paper, there are the gutters on the archives sinking in patient impassivity under the weight of paper, the pressure sinters the spring folders, layers forms, makes files damp, arranges moist marriages between printer’s ink and wood pulp and acid, wing nuts are tightened, drops form, like beads of sweat on the brows of men arm-wrestling, swell, one layer of moisture curves over another, a calibration mark is passed, suddenly it starts to run down an incline, two drops amalgamate with the sound of a chest expander held by too-weak arms snapping back, make two out of one, pus-white rivulets look for a way to the pipe openings, which point to pipe entrances, which point to pipe exits, mouth spews into mouth, and out of the gutters pours the extract, a liquid as precious as blood and sperm, from the papers of the archives –

… but then, all at once …

the clocks struck, struck 9 November, ‘Germany, our Fatherland’, their chimes knocking on the Brandenburg Gate: