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Bending

The lodger’s room was taboo. Käthe sent Ella and Thomas into it in turn just to kneel and clean the floor. They drew back the curtains, aired the room and scrubbed the floor. All through the hot, stifling month of August he hadn’t been there, dead flies lay on his windowsill, and in sultry September he still didn’t come. It could hardly be a guilty conscience that kept him away, for it hadn’t been the first time he had raped Ella, and apart from Thomas no one knew she was carrying a child. Presumably his superiors at the Ministry of State Security had other plans for such a glorious and versatile lodger as he was. The anti-fascist struggle certainly called for conspiratorial meetings along the border which was making such waves. Perhaps the conspiratorial meeting place, the room under Käthe’s roof for entertaining officers and spies working undercover, seemed rather risky to the Ministry of State Security after 13 August. Ardent and zealous as the communist attitude of someone like Käthe might be, she went on welcoming friends and relations from abroad, whose true intentions and convictions could not be guaranteed as harmless. Hadn’t Thomas heard Käthe telling her American brother Paul at her summer party that her lodger was a State Security officer whose spying activities, as she saw it, were above all harmless, but also a lucrative source of income and necessary if she was to practise her profession? It was possible that this conversation had not only lingered in Thomas’s mind but had made its way into higher circles. How secret and secure was the Rahnsdorf room now? The question of whether she talked to her brother about her lucrative sideline entirely inadvertently, or on purpose, knowing that bystanders would hear this confidential remark and she would be rid of her lodger, gave him no peace. After scrubbing the floor, Thomas sat in the lodger’s armchair and would have liked to take a nap. Outside the window, the maple rustled in blood-red fire, its glow anticipating winter, and the wind bowed its branches. There had still been a lime tree beside it last year, with heart-shaped brimstone-yellow leaves and a black trunk. But it had been felled after Käthe managed to acquire a Wartburg. For the Wartburg — its acquisition being entirely due to that lucrative sideline of renting out a room, and maybe the lodger himself had something to do with it — Käthe needed a broader entrance to the yard, and had simply picked up a saw. She had been furious when Thomas refused to hold the other handle. In the end her hired model from Friedrichshagen had helped her.

Why was a dying leaf so beautiful? No mating took place in the maple’s autumn, only death, yet it magnificently outshone the courting of other deaths.

Ella had given birth to the child in the lavatory, she claimed. For the first time Thomas didn’t believe her. How? Thomas had asked cautiously, and regretted his question when she began to tell him. After all, there were such things as phantom pregnancies, couldn’t she have had one of them? Hadn’t the child maybe disappeared unnoticed, as people so nicely put it? But Ella would have no truck with such pious wishes. First she had drunk a litre of hot wine, she said, later a large glass of vodka, she had jumped off the bed to the floor, had drunk more vodka, had jumped again, it went on all night, hadn’t he heard her? He had been asleep, he hadn’t heard anything. Towards morning she had drunk castor oil, then she sat on the ice-cold lavatory seat waiting in pain as the cramps set in. Ella’s nostrils quivered. Hadn’t she moaned and groaned? she asked. Distressed, Thomas shook his head. He had been asleep. He hadn’t heard anything. Her wild eyes troubled him. How could he not believe them? He was her close friend, devoted and obedient. He placed his hand on Ella’s forearm, he placed his hand on her temples, he touched her forehead. He wanted to stop the noises she was making, stifle her twittering, and he held her close, to no avail. Ella went on, crackling, burning. First there had been pale scraps. Wouldn’t he believe her? The flashing of her eyes almost caught him out. But then the hairy tangle had fallen into the pan.

Mouth sealed, eyes blindfolded as befitted a confidant’s loyal silence. Not a word to a soul. Thomas had nodded, Ella had gone out dancing. In a few days’ time Thomas was to board the train for Magdeburg. Gommern was the name of his future. One day, surely, he could study geology in Freiburg. Someone who scored top marks in all subjects in his school-leaving exam ought to show that he has two good hands and can work in a stone quarry. He was to stay in the hostel on the spot. Working for the class struggle. Thomas closed the window looking out on the maple tree and drew the curtains again. No wind at all, it was as if he had never aired the room, which smelled stuffy. Thomas watched a spider that had woven a close-meshed funnel of a web between the curtain pole and the wall, and was now weaving another that seemed to be loosely connected to the first; the spider made skilful use of the weight of its body and the consistency of the thread. A knock on the door. There was only one person who didn’t ring the bell or simply walked into the house through the unlocked front door. Thomas went to open the door of the room to Michael.

Our lodger’s gone missing, Thomas announced to his friend, leading him into the stuffy room. He would never talk to Michael about the dubious aspects of the whole affair. He showed Michael the half-full bottle of wine he had found on the veranda. Laughing, Michael took a small package out of his net bag. The smell of grated lemon peel, warm egg yolk and love streamed into Thomas’s nostrils; he accepted the package, which was still warm, his mouth watering.

Michael shrugged his shoulders apologetically. She couldn’t get any vanilla, and she knows you don’t like raisins. She’s really worried, a young man can’t grow without cake, she thinks.

She’s right. Thomas nodded, he smelled the paper and soaked up the love of his friend’s mother, he could already taste the butter. He wanted to share the cake, but Michael waved the offer away, smiling and saying he had plenty of it at home. Thomas ate alone, the little package on the windowsill in front of him; he broke a piece off the cake and then another, eating it straight from his hand, licked the palm of the hand that he had used as a plate, munched the sweet dough. The warmth of the radiator rose from the grille, he went on eating the cake with his back to Michael, who wished him bon appétit again as he ate the last of it.

One of the greatest mysteries of mankind is that Käthe doesn’t do any baking. You know what my mother’s like. She’s afraid Käthe lets you two go hungry.

Thomas nodded, agreeing with him; he rolled up the paper and let the crumbs trickle into his mouth.

A narrow ray of light fell through the curtains onto the brass picture frame, making it look golden. His radiance comes, his radiance goes. Thomas pointed to the black-and-white photograph. An altar to His Majesty, explained Thomas, pointing solemnly up at Walter Ulbricht; he bowed reverently to it and offered Michael the armchair. We have a desk with its only drawer locked, we have a bed that isn’t used, we have air that isn’t moving. His stomach was grumbling; more and more often these days, Thomas felt hungry directly after eating. It might be better not to eat any cakes, and particularly not to eat the love of other people’s mothers. Thomas filled his pipe with the herbs that Michael had grown in his greenhouse on the plot of land near the woods and dried in the loft of his parental home.

Let’s paint the walls black. Thomas pointed to the two buckets of paint in the middle of the room. The colour wasn’t dark enough yet; he tipped black powder into the viscous paint and stirred it in with the long handle of the scrubbing brush. As he puffed the pipe Thomas kept his gums closed and enjoyed the bitter taste cutting through the sweet flavour in his mouth. He handed Michael a broad brush. Under cover of the falling dark, they tarred the air and their mouths, they painted the walls black in the smoke. Thomas spread paint with the scrubbing brush; now the floor was clean and the wall was black. Michael made two newspaper hats and handed one up to Thomas. Thomas stood on the ladder and worked on the ceiling with the scrubbing brush.

The future’s unthinkable in a self-contained system. Michael swung his arm well back and stretched so that he could pass the brush over the wallpaper. The Wall will turn us into animals in the zoo.

Thomas laughed at the idea of freedom and the doctrine of frugality. Ulbricht’s monkey house.

No monkey has to go near the fence.

No lunatic has to climb a wall.

Keep quiet and be good. Michael bent and dipped his brush in the black paint.

No one’s forced to take a jump into the water and venture into the muzzle of a cannon.

Their anger alternated between bitter grief and silliness. Their hair and shoulders were black now.

Death to the tyrant!

They would stay in this room for the rest of their lives. A bunker in prison, no one would dare to drag them out of the crypt where they were buried alive and into a class struggle, it wasn’t their struggle and they didn’t want to be the class. An airgun fired more than just gas into the world. You could use it to kill.

The first shot broke the protective glass; it shattered into umpteen pieces, splinters of glass lay on the desk, on the floor, and there were still a few inside the photo frame. The brass sparkled like gold; there was a hole in Ulbricht’s cheek.

Let me have a go. Michael laughed and took the gun from Thomas. He doesn’t need any eyes now. Michael hit Ulbricht’s left eyebrow. They took turns to aim the gun.

Death to the tyrant, death to the Führer, death to the just man. They had been shooting for about half an hour when the door opened, and the figure of Ella showed in the bright light behind her. She looked at her brother, at his friend, at the picture on the wall that was now full of holes.

What are you two doing?

Our life is over! Michael was lying on his back on the floor aiming the airgun. He fired and said: Wall closed, monkey dead.

The swallows have gone this year, there was an epidemic, they abandoned their nests. Do you know the breeding pair of barn owls? Have you seen them soaring through the air? Pipe in the corner of his mouth, Thomas took the gun from his friend, aimed, shot, and handed the gun back.

What are you doing? Baffled, Ella looked from one to the other.

Shooting, explained Thomas. Ella was in the way, she had no idea what it was all about. He drew on his pipe and blew smoke rings into the air. All that pointlessness has seduced us. We’re devout believers now, we believe there’s no point in life.

To emphasise his faith Thomas, grinning, put one hand round the other and raised them in the air as a double fist, holding the pipe.

Nonsense. Michael shook his head, he stood up, the gun held loosely in his hand, went over to Ella, raised an admonitory forefinger and said gravely: It has nothing to do with belief, we know it. Michael looked at Ella; you would have thought he was in full possession of worldly wisdom. All he needed was to predict the entry into the earth’s atmosphere of a meteorite with absolute certainty. God doesn’t think in terms of sense and nonsense, God thinks only beautiful thoughts, added Michael, things of this world were seldom enough for him, God’s existence was evident to him in all thinking. Only man, unfortunately, has no talent for beauty, or not usually. He’s trapped in functions, intentions, all that nonsense — Michael took a step to one side and threw the airgun to Thomas, who caught it and aimed, keeping his pipe in his mouth. Michael excused himself to Ella; he had to go out for a moment. Thomas shot and immediately aimed a second time. Shot. He took the six-chamber magazine out of the gun and reloaded it with diabolo pellets. Taking no more notice of Ella, he pushed the magazine back into the gun, looked through the sighting notch, drew a bead on Ulbricht’s forehead.

You two are crazy! Ella cried. She stumbled against a bucket of paint; it fell over and left trails on the pale bouclé rug. She put her hands on her hips. You pair of stupid nihilists. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Her voice caught in her throat. Are you disappointed to find that we’re not in Paradise?

Only pretended sympathy. Exhausted, Thomas grinned at her.

You can keep your daft grin to yourself, idiot!

Michael came back. Right, we were going to paint the rug black as well. He nodded his agreement. All that elegant white was bothering me. Smiling gently, he reached his hand out to Ella. Thanks, Ella, thank you very much.

Ella flinched away like an animal. The hand seemed to her as untrustworthy as his thanks. She stood in the doorway with her legs apart and her arms folded.

But Thomas wanted no female spectator; he closed the door of the room in her face.

Stupid nihilists, shouted Ella through the door.

Thomas thought her anger out of place; he put his ear to the door and heard the tip of Ella’s nose still touching the door on the outside, he heard her exhausted breathing, her jealous whispering: stupid, stupid, stupid.

You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine. Thomas bent down to the floor, took a sip from the wine glass and drank to Michael. He took a folded piece of paper from his trouser pocket, holding the glass in one hand; it was difficult to unfold the poem with the other alone. He had written it in pencil and hadn’t got round to typing it yet. ‘A Call’. The wine was pleasantly rough on his palate. I tell you, away so far — / I tell you, far away — / Far away on the star: / Here is what I say! / Noisy men stride by, / And much is broken — / The silent weep in silence, / No law is awoken! / Those who stab us, / Judge them now / Who break our eyesight / Judge them too. / Noisy men stride by / Broken freedom was bright — / Blood flows in the pool of water: / Give us light.

He went to Gommern on his own. Käthe had given him a sketch-pad and charcoal to take with him, bedlinen, a spare pair of trousers, soap. Even from the train he saw the pillars of dark smoke, and soon after that the two chimneys from which they were rising came into view. Going south through the woods, he passed the great wandering dune that lay on the Kulk, one of the oldest lakes filling the stone quarries at Gommern. The sandy soil threw up ripples. The hostel, three huts, stood on the road to the quarry. Behind it was the manager’s house. They slept four to a small room, two bunk beds, a table and a locker in each. Thomas was sent to a room with the apprentices. There was an acrid smell of sweat, alcohol, urine, something going bad. You got up at five in the morning when it was still dark, work began at six, gloves were provided. At first sight the apprentices looked to Thomas rather younger than him, one might have been seventeen, like Thomas, the other two were more probably fifteen. Were they apprenticed to learn about stone quarrying? Was that a profession you trained for? The boys made fun of him when he said hello, asking what sort of posh guy he was. No one asked him anything else. Thomas took the free bottom bunk, his bedclothes were too small for the long, scratchy blanket above them, which could have been woven of coarse wool and remains of plant substances. Thomas thought of thistles, he turned to the wall and scribbled words on the sketch pad with his well-chewed pencil. Instead of silence: lonely helpless pointless / Always beginning — / Always the same / Life, you are death / I am great in the shadows — / I am endless waiting / A small, dirty scrap of fear. . / Your sphinx eyes are fixed / for millions of years! Later he closed his eyes, although the neon tube on the ceiling was still lit, and the boys were playing cards. They were bawling. The prize on offer was a certain lady from the Wasserburg. The boys raised the stakes, the atmosphere was heated, in spite of the cold they sat there in their vests sweating. They reminded each other of intimate details of the woman. Her big boobs, her behind, but also how much she obviously enjoyed it. She was the prize for whoever had won at the end of the evening, and the others were going to watch.

In the morning Thomas opened his eyes and heard a splashing as if someone had turned on a tap. But no one was washing. The boy with an ear that stuck out and freckles who had been sleeping above him that night was standing beside the bunk bed peeing. Thomas blinked; perhaps he was wrong. The boys murmured, laughed at a joke that Thomas hadn’t heard. He pretended to be asleep.

Someone held an alarm clock right against his ear. Thomas threw back the blanket and was going to slip his shoes on. They were wet with the boy’s piss, it was running out over the tongues of the shoes, over the leather and so to the floor, it was trickling through the seams, the boy hadn’t aimed straight and Thomas’s shoes were standing in a puddle. Six eyes were resting on him. He looked up. Get dressed!

There was nothing to be done; Thomas had no other shoes. Got any ciggies? The youngest boy stretched out his hand to Thomas, patted him experimentally down, his jacket, his trouser pockets. With the bunk bed behind him, Thomas couldn’t avoid his hands. What was the boy looking for? Thomas took the packet of cigarettes out of his trouser pocket; the boy snatched it from him.

It was still dark in the stone quarry; they had pickaxes. The water was high in most of the pits, shallow in the later ones, pits had been closed over the last few years as soon as groundwater emerged and rose. The new boy had to show his fins. He was surrounded by the laughter of the apprentices, who had been joined by four other young men. Thomas was the new boy. Show your fins!

Maybe he was a girl, someone suggested, not wanting to undress? Hey, the girlie’s coy! They were crowding round him. Scaredy-cat! Their laughter echoed against Thomas’s ribs. He was not cowardly, he undressed. His wet, stinking shoes, his shirt, his underpants.

The water was soft and cold. The bottom was stony, obviously the bottom of a former quarry. Thomas showed what his fins could do. The water glowed dark blue, he had never seen water like that before. Maybe it was quartzite that gave the water its colour. When he came out of the shallow lake after a few minutes, his shoes were where he had left them. Ten eyes rested on him, no one was laughing.

Where are my clothes?

Clothes, anyone seen any clothes? Seen her dress anywhere? The boy with the sticking-out ear whose name Thomas had not asked, and he was not going to ask it now, stood in front of him, legs planted apart, the pickaxe swinging in his hand. The boys were roaring. They looked around. A little way off, the group leader was patrolling the ridge between lake and quarry, he blew his whistle, they were not to stand idle. The group leader swung his arm: they were all to come over to the stone quarry. Good luck, he called, the miners’ greeting, as if they were miners. Like a monster, the crushing plant towered up among the trees. The young men climbed over the terraced stones, along the rails, and down into the pit. Thomas, naked, clambered after them.

They were to break up the roughly hewn stone into smaller pieces. Thomas would have liked to know the size and shape to which they were to reduce the stones. He couldn’t see whether the others knew. For the first few hours Thomas hacked away at the stones, still naked; he was freezing, but he wasn’t going to beg. Day was near dawning. A small stone hit his back, a larger one hit his thigh. His knees almost gave way, but he managed to stay on his feet. Don’t look, he told himself, just don’t look at them. That’s what they want you to do. He heard them cracking jokes behind him, the sweat was not pouring off his back but it tingled, making him restless. Without looking up he turned round as he hacked. If they wanted to hit him, he thought, let them hit his head. A gust of wind rose, blowing sand that stung his eyes. His hair was almost dry. When the group leader made his rounds he grinned happily at Thomas. It was as if he knew why Thomas was working naked. The wind puffed out the group leader’s jacket. He was wearing boots. Thomas had his wet, urine-soaked shoes on and nothing else.

Around ten there was a new assignment. Along with two men, Thomas was to load the trucks. Both men had crosses tattooed on one forearm, with the words Faith — Love — Hope. One man’s cross had rays like the sun, the other was on a hill like a tomb. As soon as a truck was full it was winched up the inclined hoist. Thomas stood on the heap of stones bending and bending until his back hurt. On this first day he was the one to do the bending; he picked up each stone and passed it on to the man with the cross like the sun, who passed it on to his friend with the cross like a tomb, who put it into the truck. After a while Thomas put a hand to his aching back, but the man in front just told him, with a mocking look in his eyes, to get a move on, he’d soon get used to this, work wasn’t for the squeamish, and he held out his arms waiting for Thomas to pass him the next stone.

At twelve the group leader blew his whistle for the midday break. Mess-time. Thomas bent down and carried the next stone to the truck himself, since the two men in his chain were already climbing the steps.

What’s the matter, the group leader asked Thomas, don’t you want to get dressed? Thomas nodded. He was not cold any longer, but he certainly didn’t want to climb out of the pit and go to the hut naked.

Go on, then.

Where are my things?

Ooh, lost your things? What a shame. The group leader bit his lip, rubbed one earlobe and grinned. Not hungry?

Thomas shook his head; in fact he was only thirsty.

Well, no slacking, you’re not here to dawdle about. If you don’t want anything to eat you’d better go on breaking up those stones over there, and he pointed to a heap of roughly quarried stones. As soon as the group leader had disappeared Thomas went looking for his clothes, but he couldn’t find them. So he went on breaking stones; he didn’t want to freeze.

After their midday break the stoneworkers came back smoking cigarettes and joking. They took no notice of Thomas. Sometimes they broke up stones, sometimes they sat on them, smoking. Around three the group leader whistled. Some of the men could knock off work now, the others were to do overtime. Because winter would be coming in a few weeks’ time. The men leaving could go up to their huts. Thomas watched them go. At six the whistle went for the end of the second shift. The remaining men disappeared, leaving only Thomas and the group leader behind.

Cigarette?

Thomas nodded.

Comrade Günter. The group leader offered his hand.

I’m Thomas. He shook hands with Comrade Günter. When he stopped breaking stone the cold crept under his armpit and into every other crook and hollow in his body.

A packet was held out to him. Thomas was about to take a cigarette, but Comrade Günter took it back again. Oh, sorry, don’t have many left. The comrade put one in his mouth and tucked the packet away in his breast pocket. It was windy. The group leader cupped his hands round the match, which didn’t light. The wind was whistling now. Thomas felt a drop fall on his shoulder, then another. It was raining. The group leader took a step aside, turned his shoulder to Thomas, lit his cigarette and blew smoke out quickly. Aren’t you cold?

No, claimed Thomas. The smoke narrowed his pores, he felt a greedy, boundless longing for the bitter-sweet taste, for a warming cigarette.

Comrade Günter drew deeply on his cigarette, blew the smoke in Thomas’s face and stepped towards him; he inspected Thomas, his eyes passing over Thomas’s smooth, bare chest, and he drew on his cigarette again. It was raining harder now. Thomas heard the lighted cigarette hiss softly. He felt Comrade Günter’s breath against his bare collarbone, he heard him begin to say something, then hold his breath, and finally breathe in deeply again. I could help you, said the group leader, and now, with the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he came even closer, so that Thomas couldn’t bend down to hack at the stones. He felt the heat of the cigarette dangerously close. Come on, said the group leader, and he was going to take Thomas’s hand, but Thomas flinched away. The group leader’s hand landed on his hip, slipped down, dug bony fingers into his naked buttock.

No thanks, no. Thomas clutched the handle of the pickaxe in both hands now. From the distant road, another quiet whistle could be heard. Thomas saw a group of people, heard distant sounds mingled with the wind and rain, maybe another group of workers, young labourers and apprentices on their way back to the hostel after their day’s work. The group leader held his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, he blew the smoke straight into Thomas’s face, then salivated noisily and licked Thomas’s face slowly. Thomas hardly trembled, but he held his breath and closed his eyes in shame. The group leader’s tongue passed over his lips, he clearly heard the man gathering saliva in his mouth again, to leave as thick a slimy trace on his face as possible. Taking small steps, Comrade Günter trod from one foot to the other, and thrust his tongue into Thomas’s ear. Thomas heard him salivating, felt the slobbering, it sounded like spitting.

Maybe some other time. The group leader let out a brief, harsh sound, perhaps meant to be laughter. I’m off now, I’m hungry.

The wind blew more strongly, it roared through the tops of the pine trees above the stone quarry and the little poplars, the raindrops were larger now, the poplar leaves rustled and Thomas kept breathing deeply, he didn’t want to shiver. The smell of Comrade Günter’s spit lingered in his nose. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the group leader climbing out of the quarry up the stone steps beside the hoist. The street lights on the road above had come on. Thomas stopped and did not move. He wasn’t going to let the cold get to him. His body was wet, the wind carried not only rain on it but also sand and tiny twigs and leaves that stuck to his skin and flew into his eyes. He was waiting for darkness. He broke stones now to keep from getting even colder. Rain washed the stone, and with the rain the dust disappeared, the air was clear, washed clean, satisfied. It was as if no one had been here breaking stones all day. And why should they? Thomas had stopped asking himself the point of all this. Stones were quarried from the rock of the pit so that up above they could be poured through a funnel into a breaking machine that would crush them with its steel jaws. Maybe they would end up only as ballast and gravel. They were simply broken up small. He could do that now, naked in the rain, he could break them up on his own as darkness fell. No one would see him.

When darkness had fallen over the fallow land here, Thomas climbed up the wet stone.

The boys were playing skat, anyone who won a trick got to drink spirits from a wooden mug painted in the Russian style. Rain beat against the window. And anyone who won a game could drink from the bottle as long as he could without putting it down. Thomas found his clothes in the corner beside the bed; they were sandy, and so was the rubbish bucket they were lying on. The showers behind the manager’s house could be reached only with a key after previous application. Thomas washed at the basin; there was a cold-water tap.

A newspaper cutting was pinned on the wall, Brigitte Bardot with her big breasts, the drawing pin went through her throat.

A second bottle of spirits was opened. Thomas put on his underclothes, trousers and sweater. Ella had found a place in the wardrobe department of the Deutsches Theater. She wanted to learn dressmaking. She had gone to the interview in her Pan costume. She had been asked to make a small bag with neat seams in front of the wardrobe mistress, sew on a button and make a buttonhole. To her own surprise, she had succeeded at the first attempt. There were huge rooms in the theatre, Ella had told him enthusiastically, breathing deeply through her nose with her eyes closed again and again, because she liked the smell there so much. She could prepare for her school-leaving exam at the adult education college, which held evening classes for people with jobs. Thomas would help her study when he was allowed to come home at Christmas. Now he lay down under the blanket with his clothes on and closed his eyes, although the noise the boys made kept him awake. He pulled the blanket over his head. Perhaps you could choke on your own breath? Or at least lose consciousness and go to sleep? The Fatherland calls you. Thomas heard that rallying cry, soldiers came marching up, and a band of wind instruments and drums was drilling him. He couldn’t march, couldn’t get the rhythm of it, he stood still. The soldiers fired their guns, formed a wall around him, came closer, threw their guns his way, he was supposed to take hold of a gun. He couldn’t catch one, he didn’t want to, the guns hit him, their butts struck his bare body. He wanted to escape, he ran but he couldn’t move from the spot, again and again he saw the wall of soldiers in front of him, guns were thrown to him, banners. Fluttering. Drumming. Music blaring. Fanfares. Protect the Fatherland, protect the Socialist Republic! There it was again, loud and clear. What might have been a dream just now reminded Thomas of reality, the hostel, the hut, the room, the bottom bunk bed where he had been trying to sleep. Thomas thought his eyes were encrusted, gummed up. The boys were still talking noisily at the table, bottles clinking, Thomas pressed the blanket to his eyes. Anyone who joined up now could look forward to a place in the Socialist Republic, training, studies. Solidarity and the right role seemed within touching distance. The boys here were determined. They were talking about the women from the prison on the way into the village, high-spirited laughter, skirt-chasers! All the noise circled around the Wasserburg and its female inmates. When Thomas dreamed again, fast asleep, surrounded by silence, he saw Violetta naked as he had never really seen her. Her red hair shone under his hands, he tasted her skin, it was sourish, unpleasant. There was scarcely any encrustation left when Thomas opened his eyes, dim light was coming through the window from a street lamp, it was silent, and he lay sweating under the scratchy blanket. His trousers and sweater were damp with sweat, the hair stuck to the nape of his neck. Thomas heard the boys breathing, snoring. He didn’t want to undress, he wanted to be rid of the blanket. Cautiously he felt the scratchy thing. The blanket too was damp on top, crumbly, it smelled of vomit. Thomas withdrew his hand, he sat up, the metal springs of the bed above him scratched his scalp, he ducked. Head down, he looked at his bed in the faint twilight. Someone had thrown up on his blanket while he was asleep. It smelled of spirits and vomit, it was what Violetta had tasted like in his dream.

You don’t have to show your fins today, said the older boy in the top bunk as Thomas pulled his sweater over his head. You go diving today.

The other boys laughed. Today Thomas would go diving. Take a header. The pit was over twenty metres deep, but the day before the water had been low, Thomas remembered it, the rocky bottom had kept scratching his stomach when he went full length underwater.

Test of courage, said one of the boys, everyone has to take it. Thomas didn’t reply. He heard the voices of the older stoneworkers in the next room. Thomas opened the door. He would join the older men before the boys were out of bed.

The group leader decided who had to load trucks down in the quarry, and who stood on the edge of the pit by the funnel, or spread the stones over the load surface of the big truck with a spade. He positioned Thomas at the foot of the hoist today. Muscles, that was the idea. Anyone with poor muscle tone would build it up, crushing and loading the stones. Fitness training, the group leader said, was the name of the game in this position, and like all new trainees Thomas was assigned to fitness training. In the morning he broke and crushed stones. Only after a good hour did he decide to take a sip from his water bottle. When he opened it, the bottle had a suspect smell; someone had peed in it. Thomas asked all the men working with him, but none of them were prepared to give him a drink from their own bottles.

When Thomas, following the others, went back to the hut for the midday break for the first time, a horrible smell of blood sausage met him. Dead Granny — the boys were delighted. Thomas went to the toilets and drank cold water from the tap until his stomach was taut. Then he washed out his water bottle several times and filled it with fresh water. He couldn’t eat blood sausage. Potatoes were heaped on his tin plate, and afterwards there was semolina with raspberry syrup. The sticky semolina clung to his mouth, he worked the sticky mass with his tongue and palate, it was like sweetened cement.

Days of rain had left the bottom of the stone quarry underwater in parts. One afternoon, when the first sleet was burning the men’s faces and their gloves, shoes and work clothes were drenched, the group leader stationed himself in front of Thomas, his booted legs apart, put his hands on his hips and said: Your turn today. It’s dry in the explosives storeroom. The gallery’s only eight metres deep. You’ll get your kit from the demolition expert up in front. The lads will show you what to do. Thomas obeyed, he propped his pickaxe against the rock and followed the group leader over the terrain. From the demolition expert he got his equipment, a helmet, a box with the explosive in it, a belt to strap the tools on. The demolition expert explained something to him, something about switching on the lamp and the importance of the water. Thomas found it difficult to listen; he was in the clutch of his fear of darkness. Thomas turned at the entrance to the storeroom. The group leader clapped him so hard on the shoulder that it hurt. Just so as you know, not everyone gets to go down, but you do. Whether that was a threat or praise, Thomas couldn’t make out. At the moment he felt he no longer knew anything about people, what they said and the meaning of their words. Good luck, he heard the group leader call out his watchword. Thomas put the helmet on. His hand was trembling so violently that he couldn’t find the eyelet in the strap. No one here could know how much Thomas feared the dark. There was no Ella for miles, an Ella to scrabble about in the low-roofed gallery for him in return for his doing her maths homework, to put on the helmet instead of him. He was shaking, the rigid fingers of his trembling hands sought the eyelet on the strap of the helmet and couldn’t find it.

Want me to help? The group leader laughed, he didn’t mean it, he certainly hadn’t noticed any knocking of Thomas’s knees, however slight; he brought his heavy hand down on Thomas’s shoulder for the second time and gave the demolition expert a sign. Thomas went downhill in cramped darkness, groping his way forward on all fours. What had the group leader said about the lamp, how did you switch it on? Thomas couldn’t remember if he even had the lamp with him, and if so where. Cold darkness surrounded him. He strained all his muscles, fear forced him on, he worked his way forward, legs at an angle and hurting, feet numb, as if the tension in his limbs had sent them to sleep, he could hardly move them. The deeper down he went, the colder it was. How could he know when the gallery came to an end? Eight metres, said a voice in his ear, it couldn’t be long. But he saw no end to it. Nor did it seem to him certain whether eight metres was really the right measurement. The galleries were short, the others had said, they were just below the bottom of the quarry.

He wasn’t getting enough air, he felt that clearly, the weakness, the mist in his head, he could be about to faint. He must pull himself together, how often had he heard that, pull yourself together, no weakness, no fainting, no moment of thoughtlessness. Keep thinking, resist the darkness, the Should and Must of the school of socialism, think of your last German essay before the final exams, the flexibility that he should, could, must show. I was lucky! He had written that because he had to show that he was worthy to live and study in this society. I was able to go to school, and my teachers were people who made real efforts to form the personality of the generation now growing up. With their help I realised that this was the time when I too could give something to our human society, could support it in its struggle for the freedom of mankind. He was hardly struggling himself, his legs like pillars of stone, no more feeling except that his hands hurt when he had to grope his way over the stone with them, he wasn’t free, he knew very well what a look at West Germany would reveal. And I also know only too well the cry of freedom that comes to us from across the border. Over there it means the right of the stronger over the weaker, the right to go hungry, and the right to die a hero’s death in pursuit of foreign goods. . The ins and outs of it were strange, the cold walls of the stone into which he was burrowing as if into the shaft of a tomb, surrounded. What did freedom and goods say, familiar or strange, what could they be to him? But true freedom is insight into necessity — their struggle is the unconquerable will to liberation of the entire nation, to unlimited rights to all the good things of life for everyone who has earned them. What had he earned? Darkness, labouring at the stone. I have come to know life in our Republic, and I have enjoyed all the advantages that can be granted to a young man in this state — I have become what I am now. How often has the term fatherland been misused in the past! The fatherland of a people is where the great mass of it is in the right and is free to choose its fate. Born in this Republic, we owe great obligations to the pioneers of socialism, obligations in the present. But what was it that he should, could and would do? The battle for socialism that will be for the good of all mankind. Although contradictions and doubts sometimes emerge in me, and not in me alone, out of the sad situation of our divided country, yet I hope for the victory of our cause, for which I with all my might will fight and which I will defend! I hope I am not alone in knowing it! He knew how it went, turn away from your own soul, go into silence, endure darkness. No stars shone down here, no icy light from above, deep down in the distance there was a warm glow now, it was no illusion, a light was approaching, taking him into it, he could see his hand, something dazzled him, he closed his eyes, but his own soul was strange to him. Today he knew more about stone and his own being. Perhaps he was dreaming; he was amazed to find that in a dream he could remember his essay, word by word, understand and feel contempt for it.

When he opened his eyes there was no light, no glow. It must have been an optical delusion. He had to lay the explosive, reach the end of the gallery, but symptoms of paralysis were preventing him. Hadn’t the explosives man given him gloves? Where were the gloves, why had he crawled into the gallery bare-handed? He waited where he was. Suddenly he remembered where the lamp that the explosives expert had mentioned was: on his helmet. Thomas cautiously felt for it. Sure enough, his fingers found something round. The tip of his forefinger found and pushed the switch until it clicked. But no light came on. The battery must be finished. How long had he been in the gallery? Was anyone calling to him? He heard words in the distance, a call quite close to him. Someone tugged at his shoes, seized his calves and pulled. Out of here! That was the man calling. But Thomas hadn’t laid the explosive charge yet, hadn’t reached the end of the gallery yet.

His knees creaked, his legs wouldn’t obey him, he was scraping over the rock, the man pulled him backwards up and out of the gallery. Warm light made its way past his eyelashes. Confused voices at the entrance to the chamber. The light was dazzling here. What was wrong with him? the men asked, one of them bent over him in concern. Another was raising his legs and took Thomas’s feet on his shoulders. The beam of a flashlight dazzled his eyes.

Hello? Hello, can you hear me? I’m Kurt, what’s your name?

Thomas moved his lips, which had turned cold and dark; no one could talk with cold lips. The palm of someone’s hand slapped his face. A thousand cells burst, his skin swelled up. He ought to say something, show that he was conscious, that he was all right. Another man took his legs, someone grasped his shoulders, he was carried and put down again, they leaned him up against the steep wall of the stone quarry and shouted at him. He opened his eyes.

Someone took his water bottle off his belt and sprayed his face with water. He had ten minutes to recover, they told him. He smelled blood in his nostrils and kept his sleeve in front of his face, so that no one would see when it began to flow. Putting his head back, he leaned against the rock and felt a fine trickle of blood running down his throat. Be brave, he heard Käthe say, he saw her before him and the glow of hope that she inspired in him.

Eyes closed, he crawled on far into the darkness. Water splashed in his face again. He couldn’t open his eyes, didn’t want to. Had he failed? Was he nothing but a coward to her? Without gloves — there was no missing the indignation in the group leader’s voice. A beginner, said other people. No guts, that’s for sure, some of the others said. Thomas kept his eyes closed, he didn’t want to see their faces. He crawled into the gallery, he tried to turn round but the gallery was narrow, he came up against stone everywhere. As long as he could hear the man behind him, it went on. He saw nothing ahead of him now, not even his own hands, he himself had become the last to cast a shadow. His own shadow pointed into the darkness, no outlines were visible. Thomas was filled with fear. He thought of Ella, who would surely be sitting in a huge workshop flooded with light, in the middle of brightly coloured fabrics, sewing tiny little bags, each prettier than the last. In spite of the gathering cold in the rock, Thomas was sweating, his sweat, wet and cold, ran down under his armpits into the fabric. He crawled on, his eyes were streaming, perhaps only because, even wide open, they couldn’t see any more light.

Someone hit the soles of his shoes, telling Thomas to take his helmet off.

In the distance, Thomas heard an explosion, and jumped.

And don’t take fright, there are explosions all the time, small, harmless detonations. Nothing to worry about, we’re all right here.

Thomas nodded again. He took off his helmet. Someone must have taken the box with the explosive away from him. Presumably another man had been sent into the gallery now, someone who knew his way around. Thomas tried to stand up. He reached for the pickaxe leaning against the rock next to him, which he thought must be his. He tried to take a deep breath of air, but there wasn’t any, or so it seemed to him. He mustn’t turn round, that wouldn’t be any help now, he was staggering. He searched his mind for lines of verse that would let him walk forward, go upright. He wanted to cross the bottom of the quarry. The blaze will die down. Perhaps his fear forced him, wouldn’t let his lungs unfold properly, he breathed and breathed, it tumbles and falls. His ribcage was moving up and down, but that wasn’t air, or not the sort he knew from the world above. He saw the other workers climbing out of the quarry. Come on out! Last call, everyone out of the pit! Only the group leader and the explosives expert were busy at the entrance to the chamber. Thomas turned his back to them. He dragged himself towards the pile of stones at the southern end of the quarry. They were lying loose all over the ground there. Debris. Maybe you could breathe without air. Ella had told him that was how she dived. While he kept his head above water swimming in the lake, breaststroke, crawl, never diving down, she would suddenly come up, and she sometimes disappeared for minutes on end in the cloudy water. She claimed that she breathed without air down there, she moved her ribcage so that it rose and fell — it was wonderful down there, she told him how dark it was and how safe she felt, not like an amphibian, like an embryo, a small child rocking in the bosom of the lake as if inside the Great Mother, weightless, aimless, without any responsibility for a word or a direction in which to go. Thomas felt gooseflesh. What Ella had described to him as beautiful, like a dream, made him feel uneasy, oppressed him, made him afraid. He thought as little of the cold as of the darkness falling, he couldn’t get any air. Detonated rock. Reaching the southern slope of the quarry, he crawled behind the heap of stone, he would find peace here, more peace than up with the workers, in the gallery, or above all in the hut among the rowdy boys, his knees and thighs met stone, sharp points bored into his chest, his hands were rough, paws must feel like that, clumsy, with a blunted sense of touch.

Would he have completed his mission with gloves on? He would rather feel the stones than the dulled, sweaty, leathery inside of gloves that left his hands with an animal smell. He didn’t mind if the stone roughened his skin, he picked up fragments large and small, he collected every stone that came to hand. Did quartzite like this have inclusions? If so, what were they? The fine rain was falling harder. The ground shook. Stone thundered, explosive force discharged the tension of stone in his ear. Thomas lay still on his stomach on the floor of the quarry, his view of the explosives chamber was blocked by the heap of stones, he was safe here. He felt the quivering, the breathing of the stone against his diaphragm. The explosives expert and the group leader had set off the charge. Rain pattered down on Thomas.

More rumbling, the earth around him was shaking, small explosions, nothing dangerous, of course, far, near, the stone preserved him, sand filled the air, gummed up his eyes, his nostrils, he had to cough, he would suffocate on the sand, on the darkness, turn to stone.

Dragonflies glittered under the willow tree, glowing red ones; where the branches bowed down, the sunlight from the Fliess shone up on the slender leaves; a swarm of red and blue, gleaming blue dragonflies; Michael lay beside him, his hair tickled, Michael’s delight laughed in his ear, his hand touched Thomas’s, the sun flashed in their bodies and eyes. I’d like to know, said Michael, his voice becoming one with Thomas’s. His own thought in Michael’s words and mouth, his own curiosity on his friend’s lips.

His chest was burning. His mouth felt rough with sand, he heard his own rare heartbeat in his ear as it lay on the stone, his head motionless; he rolled a small stone fragment out of his mouth with his tongue. From somewhere, desired by all, / A spark kindles the shadow. / The light rises, reaches out. Thirst tormented him. So much that the darkness sank away. He tried to move his toes, and didn’t stop until the tingling in his calves and legs showed him that he was alive; he took slow, shallow breaths. Hadn’t that man been right? All harmless little explosions, nothing would happen here. If he stayed lying where he was weeks could pass before anyone thought of looking for him. How long had he been lying there? Boundless thirst. Beneath him, on his stomach and near the burning pain, he felt something wet in his navel, on his ribs. He knew he hadn’t pissed his trousers, not that. When he could move his arm, he pushed it under his body, felt the moisture and the water bottle. For some reason unknown to him, its contents had poured out between him and the rock. Be brave, hadn’t his mother said that when she noticed his hesitation, fearing failure even before he could fail? The only way to defy the cold and darkness was to move. Now he wiggled his toes and stretched his legs, pushed them forward and back until the tingling died down. The working clothes rubbed his skin, the burning pains were coming from the side of his chest, under his arm, no way of moving forward without pain, pain even in silence. Thomas stopped and waited, motionless, he listened to sounds, distant noises. He heard no voices. The men must have knocked off work by now. Friday evening, many apprentices had gone home. And if home was too far away, they went to the Wasserburg and the secret meeting place among the dunes. Thomas did not want to go for walks, nothing attracted him to the Wasserburg, indeed he was frightened of its female inmates. And on no account did he want to come upon men and girls among the rainy, wet dunes. He spent the weekend in the hut, hoping that when the other lads came back they would have forgotten about the test of courage and the header that he hadn’t yet taken into the shallow lake.