Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

From that moment on everything would be different, that he could promise me.

I asked him why we had to speak in French.

The odd thing was that he sounded pretty sincere, and I let myself be a bit hopeful, that maybe I was in good hands, after all.

He spread his arm apologetically and said that French was the only language we had in common and it was very important that we understood each other well.

I insisted on knowing how he knew I spoke French.

Come on, Comrade Stein, we know everything about you.

When your friend was released from jail, in May 1935, and he confessed to you that the secret police got him to work for them, you neglected to report this very significant fact, didn't you? the two of you left for Paris and returned only after the German occupation, with false passports, on Party instructions, if I'm not mistaken.

That's almost how it happened, except my friend was not recruited by any kind of secret police, and he didn't confess anything to me, consequently I had nothing to report, and we went to Paris because we were out of work, we had nothing to eat.

Let's not waste time on meaningless quibbles, he said, let's get to the point.

It was his solemn duty to convey a request, and it was only a request, nothing more, made by Comrade Stalin himself and addressed directly to Comrade Stein.

It consisted of only six words:

Do not be stubborn, Comrade Stein.

She had to think a long time, because on this third day nothing could happen that would still strike her as improbable; and as she kept looking at the face of this blond young man, she realized that this was the request she'd been waiting for all her life.

If this is truly how things stand, she said, then Maria Stein would like Comrade Stalin to know that in the given circumstances his request cannot be granted.

And the blond young man was not at all surprised by her reply.

He leaned all the way across the table, kept nodding and staring at her for a long time, and then, in a very quiet, very threatening voice, asked if Maria Stein really believed they could find anyone crazy enough to deliver such an impertinent message.

Stars shone brightly in the spring sky; it was getting chilly.

I knew I just had to get up sometime; she also, stood up but didn't stop talking; later, I walked across her room, and she came after me and continued talking.

I walked into the hallway; I already opened the door for you, she said; I looked back at her, and she was still talking and didn't even lower her voice.

I closed the door and began running toward the staircase, still hearing her voice; I ran down the stairs and out of the building, and on the trail continued to run toward the railroad tracks, where just then a well-lit but empty train was screeching terribly as it made its turn.

It was getting late.

The yellowish light of streetlamps cast a soft, festive shine on all that whiteness.

The snow's reflected light made the sky look lighter, yellower, and wider, the softness of the glow toning down every sound; on high, from behind the thinning edges of the dark slow-moving clouds every now and then the moon showed its cold face.

It must have been around midnight when I got back to the flat on Wörther Platz.

In the lobby I shook the snow off my shoes; I didn't turn on the light in the stairwell.

As though anyone, at any time, even at a late hour like this, could demand to know what I was doing here.

First feeling and moving aside the tongue-like lid over the opening, I carefully slipped my key into the lock.

Not to wake him, should he already be asleep.

The door lock snapped back in the dark, that was all the noise I made.

Careful not to make the floor creak, I reached the coatrack almost without a sound, when he called out from the bedroom that he wasn't asleep.

I sensed that he had left the bedroom door open because he wanted to see me.

Yet he didn't want to pretend to be asleep, either; he himself would have been offended by such a pretense.

I hung up my coat and walked in.

It was a pleasant feeling to be bringing in the chill of the snow and the smell of winter.

The bed creaked as he made a move; I could see nothing in the dark, but assumed he was making room for me. I sat down at the edge of his bed.

We were silent, but it was a bad silence, the kind one should never get into, even if the conversation replacing it is forced or trivial.

He finally broke the silence and in a hollow voice said he wanted to apologize for hitting me; he was truly ashamed, and he'd like to explain.

I didn't want his explanation, or, I should say, I didn't feel I was ready for it; I asked him instead what he had thought of the performance.

He couldn't say that he liked it or that he didn't; it just didn't do anything for him, he said.

And Thea?

She wasn't bad, he said vaguely; she was probably the best of the lot, but he couldn't feel sorry for her, or hate her, or admire her; nothing.

I asked him why he had run away.

He didn't run away, he just wanted to come home.

But why did he leave me there, why didn't he wait for me?

He could see we needed each other, she and I; he didn't want to disturb us with his presence.

I couldn't leave her there, I said; Arno had moved out, for good this time, and he didn't leave anything in the apartment, not a pencil, not a handkerchief; but it had nothing to do with me.

He lay silently on his bed, and I sat just as silently in the dark.

And then, as if he had heard nothing of what I told him, or found nothing new in the little that he did hear, an episode in a life that no longer concerned him, he continued where I had interrupted him before; he would like to tell me something, he said, a simple thing, really, but also difficult, he couldn't tell me here, could we go for a walk?

Now, I asked, go for a walk now? in the cold? for I really wanted to skip the explanations.

Yes, now, he said.

The night wasn't even that cold.

We took our time; with slow, leisurely steps we walked all the way to Senefelderplatz and crossed the silent Schönhauserallee, and where Fehrbellinerstrasse touches Zionskircheplatz, we turned and went along Anklammerstrasse and then followed Ackerstrasse, until the street came to an end.

On our nocturnal walks we never chose this route, because we'd find ourselves facing the Wall.

While we were walking, I looked at the streets, stores, and houses with the eyes of a professional, as if all this were only the locale of my invented story and not a place where my own life was unfolding.

I plundered my own time, and wasn't displeased with the looted treasures of an imagined past, for it stopped me from being overwhelmed by the present.

Along this stretch of the street the Wall was also the brick wall of an old cemetery, and beyond it, in a mined, floodlit no-man's-land, stood the burned-out skeleton of a church destroyed during the war, the Versöhnungskirche, the Church of Reconciliation.

It was beautiful how the moon shone through the bare ribs of the bell tower, penetrated the hollow nave, and made some broken pieces of stained glass glimmer in the rose window.

Yes, it was very beautiful.

The two friends were standing next to each other and watched both the church and the moon.

A little farther away, a border guard's footsteps sloshed softly in the wet snow.

They saw the guard; he took four steps in front of his booth, then four steps back; and he noticed them, too.

The whole scene was so strange, I almost forgot Melchior might have something bad to tell me.

Very gently he lowered his arm onto my shoulder; his face was lit by three different lights: the moon, the yellow streetlamp, and the floodlight, but they cast no shadows, for all three sources of light were also reflected by the snow; and still, it wasn't light around us, there was only the glimmering of a many-colored darkness.