New Lives Page 6
After that time took flight. As if every spot deserved a special sniff, we were let out near the Centre Pompidou, the Arc de Triomphe, the Place de la Concorde, and Les Invalides, although with the exception of the Centre we would have had a better view from the bus.
When we stopped at the Eiffel Tower, at the far end of the field, we set off, en familie, in search of a restroom. On the way back we saw our travel group gather within a matter of seconds at the middle door of the bus and then just as quickly form a queue. Our female copilot was spooning soup into white plastic bowls with an oversize ladle. Robert and I got in line. At last it was our turn, but since neither of us could produce either bowl or spoon, we were told to be patient and wait until some fast eaters, as our copilot put it, could hand over an empty bowl that we could rinse out.
In the course of all this I missed the announcement that, having now been “fortified,” we were supposed to “climb” the tower. The first group was already on its way when I attempted to persuade Mamus and Michaela to join me in a walk. I succeeded only to the extent that Mamus slipped me a few francs—and with that we went our separate ways.
I thought of running after them, even took a few steps—suddenly I was on the verge of tears. The realization that for two hours I would now be freer than I had ever been in my whole life robbed me of my will. I went back to the café where we had made use of the restroom and decided that, protected against all eventualities, I would wait there. Probably because he recognized me, the garçon hurried over to prevent me from entering; he didn’t even make the effort to wave me off with his whole hand, but just flexed his extended fingers in disgust a few times. I pointed to the empty barstools and went for one.
I pronounced coffee with the accent on the second syllable and also ordered a mineralnaya voda, as if it were less embarrassing to speak Russian than German. I then just pointed at one of the two bottles that the woman behind the bar held up under my nose, and noticed too late that it was the other one I wanted, the carbonated one.
Oh, how I wanted to talk with somebody. I watched the waitress fiddle with a huge espresso machine, stared at the clasp of her bra shimmering through her white blouse, and felt totally superfluous.
I was served coffee with foaming milk, made good use of the large sugar shaker, and watched the sugar sink beneath the foam and cling to the rim of the cup.
I had already drunk two or three sips when my nose suddenly picked up the scent of burnt milk. I stirred in another spoonful of sugar, and went on sipping, but the second I set the cup down again, I smelled burnt milk again.
The waitress was peeling a lemon right in front of me. My first thought was that a coworker had taken her place—the hands were so alarmingly old, so wrinkled. I pulled out my wallet, stood there waiting to pay the bill, and forfeited half my francs because I didn’t want to look cheap by leaving only coins behind.
And I hadn’t even finished my coffee. The memory had been too overwhelming, the memory of plastic cups—those green, red, or brown plastic cups40 —brimful with scalded milk, the skin floating on top, which would reappear no matter how often I fished it out and wiped it on my pants or the edge of my plate, then would stick to my lips, leaving me gasping in disgust for air. I left.
Although it was windy and cold, spring seemed to have suddenly arrived on earth. Everything was bathed in a different light. I walked on, as if I could find you in Paris, as if it were possible that at any moment you could be walking toward me. I wanted you here beside me—and with you everything that we knew, that we had seen, that belonged to us, our streets, our world. The concentration, amusement, and delight in all the things we honored and embraced, all the things we craved as brother and sister. The white décolletage of the woman selling cigarettes against the shadows of her little booth. I had to bend at the knee to see into her face. A twenty-five-year-old, who, wrapped in her scarf, turned fifty-two yesterday. I say what I want, she greets me, she repeats my request, she hands me the pack, I pay, she thanks me, I thank her, we say our good-byes.
Like a man gambling, I let my route be decided by each new stoplight. I didn’t know what I should be looking for, the only thing I knew for certain was that I would find you. My first steps of freedom, it kept going through my mind, my first steps of freedom. I wanted to forget my age, my name, my birthplace. All I wanted was to see and to set one foot in front of the other and have you beside me.
Two North Africans asked me something in voices as costly as some heavy glistening fabric. I shrugged and walked on. Awakened to bray its market wares, Paris was offering a sale on spring in early February. I touched fruit crates, metal railings, house walls, door handles. I knew you were near. I didn’t see you, that would have been too much, but I was certain that we were breathing the same air, I could hear you.
I pointed at a portal and said: “The gate for the riders, madame,” and you said, pointing to the next door: “The gate for the pedestrians, monsieur.”41 You were constantly seeing something I did not see, that I didn’t notice until you pointed it out to me: the sign DANGER DE MORT on a blue box wrapped in transparent foil, DANGER DE MORT. I am afraid of losing you. But I dare not let anyone notice. I must decide, I must board the train in two hours—back, back behind the wall, they’ve only let me out for a short time because my book has been published here, because it lies in every bookstore display, and we stroll from window to window. It is still too early, the shops are closed.
At an intersection the letters on the canopies above the Dome and Rotonde and Toscana42 line up in a row. No, I say, no. I don’t want to be without you. I want to see Dresden with you, when the sun has not yet risen above the roofs and the morning star is shining in the pastel pink air, the fog above the Elbe, the various reds that encircle cigarette filters before they are tossed over the curb at a bus stop, the bright lady’s glove on the sidewalk, that everyone avoids, no one picks up, no one steps on, that I take to be a lily that has fallen from your bouquet, DANGER DE MORT.
Suddenly Mamus and Robert were standing right in front of me, Michaela was listening to an older gentleman explain something to her, looked up, and gave me a wave. “Punctual to the minute,” Mamus said, praising me. On my return from the world beyond I was punctual to the minute. It was drizzling.
Michaela gave me a handkerchief, telling me to wipe the sweat off my face. Mamus made me put on her scarf. The wind had wrecked her umbrella.
We followed Robert, walked passed the nearest cafés, and quickly lost our orientation. I was shivering, and at one corner, just as we were walking by, a huge omelet was being served, and I almost died of hunger. Mamus held up her wallet and nodded. Of course we had now landed where no one wants to land. The waiter laid a garish red place mat of washable plastic in front of each of us, as if we were children. Michaela put her school French to use to order and blushed as the waiter departed with a “merci, madame.”
The waiter brought a can of beer and poured it for me while we watched in devotion. No sooner had we whispered our “merci” than Michaela said she had actually just ordered water. I drank the bitter Scandinavian import and in my weariness would have loved to lay my head on the table. I had to squeeze past barrels and sacks lining the narrow hallway to the restroom. From the depths of the building someone was coming toward me and going through the exact same motions. Just before we met we both dodged simultaneously to one side. So then, my doppel-gänger dwells here. My beer proved to be as expensive as my omelet. We wrote a few postcards, one to you.
The whole time we heard music outside, a band that must have been playing nearby. Aware of how much his curiosity pleased Mamus, Robert insisted that we had to move on. He was all the more disappointed then when there was no stage, no audience to be found anywhere, as if the Beatles, Neil Young, and Elton John were just hanging in the Paris air.
A Japanese man was sitting at a corner in the midst of some instruments, with a frame attached to his shoulders to hold his harmonica and a guitar across his knees. It took a moment for
me to realize that we were standing before the answer to our riddle. This Japanese fellow was the real thing, the true Orpheus of Paris. During “Heart of Gold,” when he wasn’t playing his harmonica, a little white cloud of breath formed in the cold air as if he were literally singing his soul out.
We listened in admiration for a while. I gave him what francs I had left, which felt very satisfying. Happiness and indifference seemed interchangeable. We could stay here or leave on the bus, it was all good.
During the final “tour of Paris lights,” which was really just part of the return trip, I fell asleep. I had the feeling I kept waking up every few minutes but without ever letting go of my dream. At one point I have to get back as fast as possible, suddenly my pass reads SL instead of EL.43 I can’t find my uniform anywhere in the apartment. I’m angry because I really didn’t want this leave in the first place and am now sitting without my uniform on a train that stays longer and longer at each station in order to keep to its schedule of arrivals and departures. The sunlight is so dazzling outside that the names of the stations are illegible. No one at the base gate will believe I’m a soldier. Then I remember my short-clipped haircut. I keep tugging at it, practicing how I’ll use it as proof.
Instead of my ticket I pull out currency and hold it as if I’m looking at a pocket watch. It’s a ten-franc bill. Which means I have ten minutes to get back. Although one franc after the other goes by, I’m not worried. I know that I’m dreaming and that I only have to wait a bit and I’ll be able to wake myself up and be in Paris. Once in Paris I’ll sell my watch in order to pay for my stay there. I reach into my pocket. Instead of a watch I keep pulling out ten-franc bills. I calculate how many times I’ll have to do this to be able to stay for a day, a week, a year.
Even though the travelers with whom I share the compartment are behaving more and more like schoolkids on an outing and dazzle one another’s eyes with West German passes, which they hold in the palms of their hands like pocket mirrors, I remain calm because, after all, I have my stuff. I am convinced that I can present my things at least as fast as they can show their passes, because my yo-yo hand is becoming increasingly deft now at catching and tossing brightly colored pieces of fruit as if they were tennis balls. And not just that. I give each piece of fruit a name. How easy French is, I am reading it from a little blackboard that appears with each piece of fruit—I don’t even have to learn vocabulary. Not until I catch the same piece of fruit twice in a row—it shimmers a dull orange and has five syllables—do I realize that my voice changes with each piece of fruit and that for some time now I’ve been singing a melody. To catch the attention of my fellow travelers I have to keep fruit moving in sequence at juggler’s speed, otherwise the music that accompanies my movements will go unnoticed. But in the next moment I regret this new tempo. It is impossible to pronounce polysyllabic words at anything close to full length. The merci fruit flies toward me twice, but both times all I manage is just a mers. Mers, I croak, mers. My voice is gone. No matter in what rich colors the fruit glistens, all I can croak each time is mers, mers, just mers. My fellow travelers make a joke of trying to snatch my fruit away. I am outraged by this. Mamus encourages them, in fact, because she thinks she’s doing precisely what I want. I scream at Mamus, but before I can see her face, the compartment door is flung open. In the same moment all the hand mirrors are flashed in sync at the badge on the border guard’s cap. He nods and is about to close the door again when his glance falls on me. I raise my hand, but only as if to greet him, because even I no longer believe that any fruit will be flying toward me. Everyone groans. Because of me we are being shunted to a sidetrack.
Your Heinrich
Wednesday, Feb. 7, ’90
Dear Jo,
At some point you will get a postcard proving that we were in Paris.
On Monday, the day after our return, we learned purely by chance that Aunt Trockel, the woman who looked after Robert, had died. Just three weeks ago, while we were in Offenburg, she cooked for him and looked after him. She was no longer among the living when we wrote her from Paris. Our last visit with her at New Year’s had been such fun.44
Aunt Trockel was Michaela’s first friend in Altenburg (and maybe her only one too). Michaela claims that Aunt Trockel resembled Virginia Woolf a bit. I disagree. To me it always looked as if she had far too many long, crooked teeth in her mouth. Aunt Trockel avoided smiling or even laughing because then her ivories were bared to the gums. If she laughed anyway, she automatically put a hand to her mouth, which looked like an affectation. Her invitations always terrified me a little, for ever since she stopped working in the variety store, what we were treated to was all the stuff that had run through her mind over the last week. Michaela always showed a patience that often left me flabbergasted, or even angry. But in Michaela’s eyes Aunt Trockel enjoyed total diplomatic immunity. For without Aunt Trockel’s support she might have had to throw in the towel as an actor.
What should I tell you about Paris? It was too late. For me it was like someone who upon his arrival—having longed for the day a thousand times over—learns that the person for whom he has eaten his heart out all his life has just left town.
During the two hours that the family was romping on the Eiffel Tower and I could do whatever I wanted, the wall-demon took possession of me. I panicked, as if I had to decide whether to stay or leave, even though I was in control of my senses the whole time.
Why should articles be an agony for me? In principle they’re just stories. Concrete lead, everyday situation, focus, then pack it full of all the facts you know, maybe a couple of similar cases, finally the closing surprise pirouette that leads you back to the beginning—that at least is how Jörg the engineer describes it. He reads newspapers all day to expand his repertoire of tricks and twists. Jörg has managed to smuggle his way onto the Commission Against Corruption and Abuse of Office as the representative of the New Forum. That will supply him with our future headline stories, free delivery included.
I’m awake between four and five every morning. I’m slowly getting used to it. I listen to the radio or study grammar books. I’m a diligent élève in the office—make coffee, sort what little mail there is, deal with the telephone and the stove, edit as I type, and practice writing news articles. My concluding initials, however, betray me. If I don’t capitalize them, the alien becomes a classical et.45
I’m afraid above all of careless mistakes and the unknown—of some miscalculation or the printer’s vagaries or what will be in the mail. I live here in an oasis. Michaela tells herself that everything’s fine at the theater, but it’s a disaster. My mother gulps down tranquilizers before going to the clinic. And what Robert has to say about school isn’t exactly amusing either. I’m amazed these kids aren’t turning into cynics. You have to love them just for that.
I spent the afternoon today with Larschen, an old farmer who has assured us several times that he’s waited to have a paper like ours to read for more than half his life. He ignored my objection that it doesn’t exist yet. The whole revolution, he claims, would be nothing without people like us, who do something with possibilities. He mumbled the first two syllables of “revolution,” turned the third into a trumpet blast, and swallowed the last. “Do something!” is his battle cry.
He wrote his memoirs for his family, for his three granddaughters, but without any hope of ever being published. When I asked him to take over the “Tips for Garden and Field” column, he just asked about length and deadlines and offered to deliver his text on our manuscript paper—he owns a typewriter.
Fred, who’s supposed to organize sales and always looks as serious as an elector prince painted by Cranach calls Larschen “Snowcap,” because of his towering mass of thick white hair.
Our family is slowly expanding. We’ll have a secretary starting in March, Ilona, who currently helps out only part-time. Her glasses are way too big for her little head, a grandmother who flirts with the line “and I ain’t even forty.” For Ilona men
like Jörg and Georg have a purpose in life, the newspaper, whereas Fred and I, the born peons, should be happy just to lend a hand. Mention a name, and you can be certain Ilona knows the person and has an opinion of them, usually a poor one. No sooner has she made her disparaging remark than she takes a frightened look around and whispers, “Oh m’god, did I really say that?”
For Marion, Jörg’s wife, the pecking order is unclear. She is the only one who addresses me with the formal pronoun, and likes to talk about the sacrifice I’m making. She thinks I abandoned the theater for the sake of the general welfare, says I’ve given up what is best and most beautiful, and then gazes at me very fondly. She’s already been given notice as the librarian at some branch mine of the Brown Coal Combinat, and says she can well understand what it means to turn your back on art. Then she nods and raises her already raised eyebrows even higher as if waiting for me to agree. Ilona thinks Marion looks like Mireille Matheiu. She reminds me more of a silent-film actress whose photo I ran across in a book from Reclam, landscape format as I recall.46 Marion will be working for us half days starting in March. Georg bestowed on her the title of editorial secretary.
Robert, who is on vacation, stops by the office around one o’clock. Then we go together to innkeeper Gallus, who recently granted us the privilege of a reserved table. Of course everyone is welcome, but they won’t find a seat. We have a table for four set aside for us at one p.m. Soup, main course, and dessert cost between two fifty and four marks. The accompanying status, however, can hardly be overestimated. Our innkeeper is in his early sixties, but smooth cheeks and observant eyes constantly darting back and forth lend his face a youthful look. He takes special delight in asking questions like: “Have you protested yet?” None of us knows what he means. “And you call yourselves a newspaper?” We look contrite. “They’re opening the market up to anyone who wants to jump in, that shouldn’t be, should it?” His usual conclusion then is the assertion that the new market economy is going to destroy old established local businesses. “They’re ruining their own people! Am I right, or not?”