Ingo Schulze - One More Story - Thirteen Stories in the Time-Honored Mode

The last stragglers were gathering at the end of the conference table, from where you could look out on Savigny Platz. Now they could finally drink beer.

Sven Schmidt opened two windows, a pleasant breeze flowed in. And Joachim asked what they should do to follow up. “Tonight’s my night out. I’m thinking a party at the very least, what with our heads in the same noose.”

Chris had reserved a table at Dicke Wirtin for ten to eight, in time for the game with Brazil. “Marek has to treat,” he shouted. “Marek needs to be fleeced. I forked out a couple thousand back in my day. An evening in front of the TV can’t hold a candle.”

“I can’t,” Marek said. And above the boos, he shouted, “Somebody’s expecting me!”

They called him names — penny pincher, wet blanket — but it didn’t sound like they meant it, and Marek was relieved.

“And it’s set in stone?” Sven Schmidt asked.

Marek nodded.

“Call and tell them what’s happened. A night like this comes once in a lifetime!”

“No,” Marek said. “It really won’t work. She’s been waiting since six.”

“She! Sex!” Sven Schmidt whistled through his teeth.

“How’s that, Marek, a lady?” Chris asked.

“Yes,” Marek said. And now that he had put it in words Magda no longer seemed to be a dream.

“Marek has a girlfriend!” Karl-Heinz Södering shouted. “Have her come along!”

“Congratulations,” Joachim said. “And? Is she the one?”

“Yes,” Marek said. “She’s the one.”

“Be careful,” Chris said. “Don’t go getting married tomorrow.” They laughed.

“Day after,” Marek said.

“A free night, and then look what happens,” Sven Schmidt said. “But you’re not going to slip away from us this easy, let me tell you. Not this easy.”

Joachim hugged Marek. Marek said his good-byes, shaking hands with the others.

“Can you tell us the name of the lovely lady?” Joachim asked.

“Magda,” Marek said in an almost toneless voice.

“Magda!” Sven Schmidt announced. “And she’s very beautiful?”

Marek nodded.

“Blond, long hair, slender, and with a nice perky pair?” Sven Schmidt held his hands before his chest, rippling his fingers and looking at Marek.

“Believe it or not, yes!” Marek said.

“And she loves you,” Joachim said. “And no night was ever so beautiful as with you?”

“Shut up,” Chris hissed. “Let him go.”

“She loves me and I love her, and no night was ever so beautiful,” Marek said.

“Congratulations,” Karl-Heinz Södering said. “Have a great evening, Mr. Lawyer.”

“Shut your trap!” Chris shouted.

“What’s with ‘Mr. Lawyer’?”

“‘The curious Mr. Lawyer’? Is that her name for it?” Joachim asked.

Marek looked at Chris, then back at Joachim.

“Damn it, Marek,” Joachim said. “It can’t be. You didn’t really fall for her?”

“I don’t know what you guys mean,” Marek said, looking from one to the other. “What do you mean by ‘Mr. Lawyer’?”

“Your dick,” Sven Schmidt said. “Svenya evidently hasn’t come up with anything new.”

“Her name’s not Svenya.”

“You’re right there,” Joachim said. “Her name’s not Svenya, or Johanna — and not Magda either, Marek.”

“Chris?” Marek asked. “Tell me what’s going on here.”

“Your new partners have said it all.” Chris removed his jacket from the back of the chair.

“Now don’t pass out on us,” Sven Schmidt said. “Do you think the old man would send you the news by courier service, when Miss Ruth would only have to take the elevator down a couple of floors? Or that our majestic doorman would let her in?”

“Her name’s not Svenya,” Marek said.

“Only the old man himself knows her name,” Joachim said. “So best leave her be.”

“Baechler?”

“Oh, Marek! Of course Baechler, surprise, surprise! Welcome to the club.”

“Baechler?”

“Do you suppose Miss Ruth does the job for him? A guy who loves it like he does?”

“Damn it, Marek. You Poles have got plenty of hot women, if anybody’s got classy women, then it’s you guys. You don’t have to get mixed up with someone like …” Sven Schmidt said.

“He’s really fallen for her,” Karl-Heinz Södering said. “He still hasn’t caught on.”

“Shut up, will you finally just shut up,” Chris said. “I’m sorry, Marek, but nobody here figured on this.”

Three hours later — the match with Brazil was already over — Marek was still sitting in Dicke Wirtin with Joachim, Karl-Heinz Södering, and Sven Schmidt.

Marek was tired. He was close to letting his head sink to the table. But not to sleep, no, not that. There was simply no room for sleep, not at this table or any other. There would be no spot where he could get some rest, no matter how long he looked. Sleep was out of the question.

When Magda was suddenly standing before him, his first thought was that she was drunk too. Something about her wasn’t right.

“Come,” she said. “Come on.” He was puzzled because she acted as if only he and she existed, as if they were all alone in the room. She knew Sven Schmidt and she knew Joachim, and she even knew Karl-Heinz Södering from Wetzlar, Frau Ruth’s favorite. Why didn’t she greet his colleagues too? They were all easy to recognize. Sitting here in suits — compared with everyone else they looked like a delegation. And then all the Swedes. The city was full of Swedes already. And of lawyers, four of them were sitting right here, four lawyers.

“Come on,” Magda said. “Come with me.”

Marek discovered you had to watch her lips to get what she was saying. Otherwise you could barely make it out. Something wasn’t right about her. He first held one eye closed, then the other. But at this distance that didn’t change anything. Marek saw what everyone saw. She was short, blond, and very, very tired. But maybe she knew some spot where you could sleep.

During that week of September 2000 that Tanya and I spent in Tallinn and Tartu, I was called upon several times to write something about Estonia. In every case I explained that while I was honored by such requests, writing a short story is not a matter of choosing a country and a topic and simply taking off from there. I knew nothing about Estonia, and our experiences of regime change were scarcely comparable. But I was talking to a brick wall. After all, I had written thirty-three stories about St. Petersburg, so surely I could come up with one about Estonia.

For a story set in a foreign country, I said, one needs to sense a certain affinity, a kinship of soul with how things developed there. But the more emphatic my arguments, the more I rubbed my hosts the wrong way. They were too polite to tell me straight-out that they regarded such arguments as mere evasion.

I was a guest of the Writers Union and had been invited to Käsmu, where the union has a guesthouse on the Baltic. Käsmu, as my hosts never wearied of assuring me, was a very special place. It was not only a spot for total relaxation, but it also inspired one to work as never before. What we needed was a trip to Käsmu.

I hope this introduction has not left the impression that we were treated inhospitably. On the contrary, ours was a royal reception. Never before had one of my readings been moderated by the chairman of a writers’ union. He greeted us like old friends and invited us to a café where we could make plans for the reading. On our way there, every few steps someone would block our path to shake the chairman’s hand, a steady stream of people rapped on the café window or stepped inside, until we could hardly exchange two connected sentences. When I inquired about the profession of a tall, handsome man who gave me a most cordial handshake and apologized for having to miss the reading that evening, the chairman said: That was the minister of culture. The minister’s wife — beautiful, young, clever, amiable — interviewed me for television. It was just that they had all studied in Tartu, she said, and were now all working in Tallinn. They couldn’t help knowing one another, right?