New Lives Read online

  By “their own people” he means in particular the illustrious circle with tables reserved for noon. The nooners can choose among three dishes; we have to take whatever’s left. The nooners are Altenburg’s senators, its noblemen of commerce and crafts. These good dozen quaint old gentlemen have apparently chosen a lady to preside over each table—all elderly ladies, who betray their nobility by their stiff posture at table.

  In their eyes we’re parvenus who bear keeping an eye on. Thus far they’ve only approached us in writing, although they’ve been very frugal about it. Our innkeeper is forever handing us the torn-off margins of newspapers or receipts ripped in half, on which there’s often only a name and address, along with an added: “Knows something.”

  On days when these notes are passed along, we’re treated with special attention. Instead of plying us with questions, he gives the shiny table several extra swipes. While he serves, his belly bumps against a shoulder. When we pay the bill he rummages through his change, pulls up short, fully perplexed—even after our second “That’s fine!”—and with wide eyes lets the coins drop back into his change purse. Just as we’re about to stand up, he braces one hand against the table, lowers his head conspiratorially, and slips the note out on the table. “Lend an ear,” he says, “this is quite a case, famous man, Dippel, doesn’t mean anything to you? Dippel! Ran a nursery, major operation. The Botanical Garden, that’s his work, did all the landscaping for Dietrich, sewing machine Dietrich, and around the train station, all Dippel, famous man actually, it was all taken away, had never been a Nazi, all confiscated, totally unfair, put out, tossed out of his own house, pay a visit, be worth your time, definitely.” We promise to follow the lead first thing and thank him for the tip. At which point our innkeeper’s eyes close, his lips pucker with satisfaction. “Knew I could depend on you,” he says, extending his big soft hand as if it were a gift for each of us, including Robert.

  Hugs, Enrico

  PS: Yesterday morning a smiling man in a dark blue dederon smock stopped in. He wanted to place an ad, asked for pen and paper, drew a square box, and began to write. At one point he had to make a call to ask the price of wooden ladders. There was joy in his every word, his every movement. I made a mental note of even his most casual gestures—like the way he shoved the page at me and then rapped it with his pudgy fingers ending in short, black-rimmed nails.

  When I told him the price of the ad (one mark eighty per column millimeter), he whistled through his teeth, then angled to one side to reach under his smock and pull out his wallet, from which several hundreds spilled out over the desk. He would take care of that now, he said, and thumbed four Karl Marxes out onto the desk.

  I said thank you, but he didn’t budge. I said that his ad would appear on February 16th in twenty thousand copies, at ninety pfennigs a copy. When he still showed no signs of departing, I listed our various columns: news, local politics, business, history, art, and sports, and also promised crossword puzzles, a horoscope, and caricatures. He nodded his approval. Unfortunately he didn’t have much time, was going to have to leave. I said that I didn’t want to keep him. “But now,” he said, “I need the receipt.”

  A receipt. I knew nothing about receipts. I began searching and tried to make my motions look purposeful. He said he’d be satisfied with just a normal sheet of paper as long as it was “banged with a seal.” At just that moment I found our Offenburg bag of gewgaws and among them was, in fact, a receipt book, incredibly practical, including carbon paper, and cardboard backing, so that even without instructions I might have managed to fill the thing out.

  Without his amiability flagging in the least, our customer apologized and said it had to be stamped, otherwise that lovely West-style receipt was of no use to him. He asked me to send him a stamped version, he trusted us. He rapped the table once more in farewell.

  Monday, Feb. 12, ’90

  Dear Jo,

  (Maybe what life is about is finding an appropriate layout for yourself.) I never realized what layout actually means. It wasn’t until after I saw how easy it is to calculate the size of an article so that it can be transferred to the page proof that I once again believed we were going to make it. Layout is our map, our constitution, our Lord’s Prayer. Layout (Jörg accents it on the first syllable, Georg on the second) prevents you from being unfair and yielding to your own biases, there’s no showing favor or disfavor, there’s no forgetting. Layout is civilization and law, it’s courtesy and decorum, a taskmaster who grants you your freedom.

  The work itself was an orgy. The fiat to complete the job was larger than our wills, than our energies, and immunized us against exhaustion. It grabbed hold of us like a demon, a three-headed, six-handed monster. A surgery team probably knows something of the same frenzy. Only now can I appreciate what a miracle a newspaper without blank spaces really is.

  The days leading up to it, however, were a nightmare, as if our ship were capsizing at launching. We were drowning in material, but whole pages were still empty. The worst was Georg, who wouldn’t sign off on anything, not even his own articles. The first issue was supposed to be something special.

  When Fred likewise put his two cents in—as head of sales he’d be the one that readers would first vent their anger on—Jörg threw him out of the room.

  Sunday morning the only page in the folder was Jan Steen’s. The other eleven still lay ahead of us. Georg’s wife, Franka, took her boys to church so that Georg could polish his gas-station article in the living room, Jörg did yet another rewrite of his lead article, I paged through dictionaries (I now know how to spell mise en scène) and tended the stove. Fred went to Offenburg to pick up the VW bus. On the evening before he had laid linoleum in the room opposite. It’s to be our second office.

  Around eleven o’clock the doorbell rang. Three men wanted to see Georg and Fred, claimed that they had an appointment, had made his acquaintance at the public market. They hung their long coats on the coatrack, three in a row. The short fellow in charge wrinkled his nose and began snooping about the room, he had to touch everything, pick up everything. His fingers set the postal scales into stormy motion. He patted the stove tiles and the table, gave the wood on the chair arms a once-over with a thumbnail, and told his adjutants to rap the ceiling beams. “Incredible,” was his diagnosis, “truly incredible.”

  His outfit—brown corduroy pants, dark green sport coat, yellow westover47 —had a refined look compared to those of his lackeys, whose taste ran to lilac and burgundy. Once their undersize boss had shaken our hands and taken a seat, he couldn’t hold back, he had to share his impressions of this “legacy of Communism.”

  Jörg went right on hammering away at the “green monster,” snorting like Sviatoslav Richter. Each time their boss paused to catch his breath, the colorful guys jumped in to announce their own observations, calling us enthusiasts, men who were rolling up their sleeves at last.

  When I asked their leader what his profession was, he stood up and with profuse apologies snapped business cards onto the table, as if playing a jack of trumps. Followed instantly by two aces. I was dealing with the “managing director” of the newspaper in Giessen, plus two of his editors.

  While we talked and talked, I fetched our page proofs from their cubbyhole and spread them out over the table. As if decorating a table with gifts, I laid the photographs and articles on my side. To cap it off I picked up our layout design and gazed upon it with the certainty of a magician who has pulled off his trick.

  The managing director bent forward, spread his arms, and exclaimed, “Hot type! You’re working with hot type?” For a moment I mistook the little tufts of hair on his fingers for flies. “You don’t even know what that is,” he barked at his lackeys, smiled at me, passed a hand over the white sheets of paper, and pointed his chin at the layout design. “That’s how it’s going to look?”

  I nodded.

  “Fine, fine,” the managing director said, and began asking me enigmatic questions—for instance, how many poi
nts the headlines and the subhead had—but fortunately each time provided the answer himself: twenty-two, or eighteen, and twelve for the subhead. And the text? Right, eight. And the font? We gazed out over the wide, white sea that lay placidly before us. “I haven’t even asked you,” he said, suddenly spinning around, “for your permission.”

  “But of course,” I said, casting my eyes back to the horizon. Jörg hammered away incessantly at his keyboard.

  The managing director, who had his jacket off by now, stretched imperious arms. His boys hurried over and eagerly undid his cuff links. He meticulously rolled up his sleeves. Suddenly his hands were hovering over the proofs, darting here and there like dragonflies above water, halting briefly, only to begin tracing their invisible pattern.

  He demanded a pencil, typometer, and pocket calculator—“A slip of paper will do too”—stepped back briefly, then set to work.

  What followed was an hour during which for the first time I learned something that might prove useful for earning my daily bread—that is, a craft. And for the first time since leaving school, I solved an equation with an unknown.

  The managing director was not interested in getting rid of nouns and increasing the number of verbs, or in varying sentence structure, while keeping the meaning clear; the managing director asked about the number of characters and lines, about which photo belonged with which article, about what was intended for two or three columns. His hands had now become mice scurrying across the paper.

  My article on Dippel the landscape gardener was six lines too long in both columns. I deleted and was terrified by how easy it was. The managing editor presented me with my next cutting job.

  Life came coursing back into me. The page was finished. The managing director was already planning the next when Georg appeared and invited us all—including our guests from Giessen—to a midday meal. In their hunger the adjutants forgot the purpose of their boss’s outstretched arms. “Cuff links,” he hissed, and both began rummaging in their jacket pockets.

  At first I assumed we would finish by eight that evening. All we had to do was calculate and cut. Ten o’clock came, midnight, then one, then three. Around four we slipped the pages into their folder. The best part was tidying up. Georg cleaned the stove, Jörg his electric typewriter. Finally we found ourselves sitting next to the folder lying there ready to be handed on—as if waiting for our baby to fall asleep.

  Tomorrow we’ll drive over to proofread.

  Hugs, E.

  PS: Vera sends her greetings. She called from Beirut. Her mother-in-law (who bears the lovely name Athena) is ill and is resisting any idea of traveling to Berlin. Nicola is toying with the notion of giving up his shop in Berlin and taking over his dead father’s. The building is in ruins, not one stone left on top of another. But the more expensive fabrics were in the cellar and survived both bombing and plundering. Mother and son see this as a sign and wonder. Apparently no one has any idea what role Vera is to play in these plans, or at least she doesn’t. And since my sister is famous for taking offense if she doesn’t feel as if she’s the center of attention, I try to offer every conceivable declaration of my love. It’s questionable, however, if my letters even reach her. If you want to give it a try—Madame Vera Barakat, Beirut—Starco area—Wadi aboujmil, the building next to Alliance College—4th floor.

  Tuesday, Feb. 13, ’90

  Dear Jo,

  This past week I have had more new, and strange, encounters than ever I used to in a year. The day before yesterday48 I was working over a couple of lines about the new animal shelter (it has yet to become an animal shelter, more like a wild zoo, previously the dog division of the VP).49 I had enough material, and the headline too, but was getting nowhere writing it. Either it sounded too sentimental or too aloof. I needed a thousand five hundred characters, but no more. An hour into it and I still hadn’t put together one reasonable sentence. It was as if I had been bewitched. When I went to add coal to the stove, it had gone out. And I couldn’t get rid of the odor of “wet dog.” I washed my hands, sniffed at the wastepaper basket, checked behind the typewriter, cursed. The moment I put my fingers to the keyboard, there was the “wet dog” again.

  I dreamed the whole night through and felt befuddled all morning. I had appointments the next day in Meuselwitz and Lucka, and in between I collected news in nearby villages and had the secretary in Wintersdorf make me some chamomile tea.

  Back at the office I found some photos in my cubbyhole, including the ones I had made at the animal shelter. There were still hot embers in the stove. This time I stuffed it with briquettes, as if planning to work the night, and sat myself down at the typewriter.

  My eyes hurt. From time to time a shiver went up my back. The cold is leaving my bones, I told myself. The idea comforted me. But then—it sounds more mysterious than it was—I had the vague sense that someone behind me had just carefully set a hat on my head.

  A man was seated at the table—if we haven’t locked the door, no one pays much attention to our hours in any case—someone whom I knew from somewhere, someone I associated with good news of some sort, not some local folklorist.

  “Don’t let me disturb you,” he said very amiably, and by way of greeting offered a hint of a bow. “I shall wait with all due respect, it is solely my fault that we have failed to meet, please, do continue.” That’s more or less how he put it, as if it would be perfectly all right if I ignored him and went on typing. His whole demeanor matched what one imagines a proper older gentleman should be—though he’s forty at most. His choice of words and pronunciation reminded me of Hungarian students studying at Jena, who have learned their German from Rilke and Hoffmannsthal—his rolled “r” fit nicely as well.

  “We had an appointment at twelve,” he said, trying to jog my memory. “I hope that my failure to keep it has not given rise to any difficulties for you. I am at your service, whenever it suits your conveniency.” Conveniency! He used words that he evidently dared to utter only with a bow. I was just about to say that I didn’t recall an appointment, when a sound arose from his direction, a decorous yowl—or how do you describe a dog yawning? So that was it. The dog in the animal shelter photos. And him next to it, clearly in focus, although his glasses had reflected the flash. He had spelled his name for me, but I had forgotten to ask for his address and profession, had been angry at myself for not doing it. So I could make up for it now.

  I had wanted to characterize the dog as “a little wolflike,” above all the muzzle, its build not as powerful as that of a German shepherd, the pelt blackish gray. It’s blind in one eye. Its fate was to be the framework for my article.

  “Everyone will read about your good deed,” I said, walking over and handing him the photos. He looked through them, but before I could sit down again or had time to learn his name, there they were in front of me again, on the edge of the table. What I really wanted was to ask him to repeat the trick—he had tossed the little stack so casually with a flick of the wrist. There was nothing arrogant about it, more an expression of his keeping a sympathetic distance toward himself.

  He bent down to the dog at his side—a singsong, no, a calming lullaby, and in English!

  “I hope I need fear no indiscretions,” he exclaimed with what I discovered was an English accent. “I understand nothing of literature and eternity,” he continued. “My visions are of another sort!” I had no idea why he had said this, and assumed I had missed something.

  He merely wanted to remark, he said, coming to my aid, that it would be better if people who were the subject of an article did not read it in print themselves. He could not help being aware of one thing or another that was publicly reported about him. Often it was the journalists themselves—few who called themselves that deserved the proud title—who compelled him to read such things and then were amazed…he waved me off, and in the next moment was holding a business card between his fingers—“better one too many than none at all”—and slipped it across the table to me.

 
Clemens von Barrista—white lettering on black. Nothing else. But that wasn’t how he had spelled it for me. But it seemed familiar all the same.

  You would of course have no real picture of Barrista were I to leave out a description of his eyes—compared to his glasses, yours are a windowpane. Huge google-eyes, as if he’s peering through a peephole. A dark mustache provides makeshift cover for his harelip and, together with his black hair, makes his acne-scarred face look even more pallid. Evidently he has come to terms with his looks—not a trace of insecurity. He pushed back from the table a little, his white shirt spread taut across his little potbelly.

  The more I lost myself in gazing at him, the less I knew what I was supposed to do. At which point Clemens von Barrista stood up and said something like, “There’s nothing to be done,” and offered his hand in farewell. Where had my mind been?

  “Please do sit down,” I said quickly. “Make yourself comfortable.” He thanked me, looked about the office, and, once he was seated again, fell back into his peculiar German that I can barely reproduce, if at all. He made fun of our hard chairs, or better, he praised a good armchair as the “hallmark” of reason, of reason thirsting for deeds, hungry for deeds, and sang a hymn in praise of luxury, of humankind’s rebirth in a spirit of luxury. His patois culminated in the aphorism: “The beautiful would appear beautiful, the good may be good, but better is better!”