Wolfgang Hilbig - 'I'

When W. gave no reply, Cindy said: Because you only want to do it with me, right? You only came because of me, you don’t want to do it with her, you only want me, am I right?

Could be, said W.

All right. . but it’s no good your trying it with me, it’s no good, because Harry’s here now.

How long have you had the baby? asked W., Did you have it in prison?

Sure, in the slammer, that gave me a few days peace and quiet. Why are you asking, you ought to know. .

And who is the father? Is Harry the father?

It’s possible, she said, you could be right about that. Anyway, he’s here now, and so it’s no good your trying tonight. Whether I like it or not. . you’ll have to wait, till later, because Harry’s going back to the slammer soon. It won’t be much longer. .

Does Harry know he’s the father, does he even want to know?

He’s going back to the slammer soon, she said. What does the baby need with a father like that?

Is he a self-reporter, does he have to report again. .? asked W., Isn’t there any way out of this mess?

Yes, he has to report. . and it can happen to me again too any time now. A way out. . no, it’s not like we can hide here. .

Several weeks later W. received a letter from the Town Council, Department of Child and Youth Welfare; it was a summons to a hearing and requested a statement from his place of employment confirming the amount of his most recent annual income. It noted that the unexcused failure to comply with this request could have legal consequences. Unsuspecting, he went there at the appointed time, though without the requested wage statement. An official of indeterminate, eternal middle age — eerily absent, processing, as she was, one case among many, which always ran along the exact same lines and required only a fixed number of phrases, making her adopt a tone of impersonal admonition even when asking for W.’s personal data — advised him that he had been named as the father of a child, male, born on. . (a date followed, this too in a half-indignant, half-resigned tone, carried on out of routine into the mumbling repetition of the syllables typed on the typewriter) by the mother of the child. . now a name followed. W. hadn’t caught the name of the child’s mother. He was herewith called upon to fulfil his obligation to pay the mother a monthly allowance for the child until it came of age, contingent upon his present average annual income. — Now, said the woman, we must determine the legally stipulated sum, which you may voluntarily raise at your discretion for the good of your child.—W. denied everything he had heard, utterly at random, immediately realizing the futility of every word he could possibly say. . I’ve been had, was his only thought, and it was probably written all over him. — You can contest it, said the woman. But if you have any luck, it’ll be a first in my career. — She pulled the sheet of paper out of the typewriter and laid it in front of W. — he didn’t recognize the name under the heading Mother of the Child , but he guessed at once that it was Cindy’s real name he’d stumbled across. — That has to be a mistake! said W., but evidently his own voice was inaudible to him. He was warned that he’d have to face the consequences, that is, bear the costs of the forensic examination, if it should turn out that he was denying his paternity in order to evade his legal obligation to support. . Unfortunately you’re no exception, quite the contrary, said the woman. And you should save yourself the trouble.

Possibly this last remark had come during the second hearing to which he was summoned a short time later. . after the shock of the first one he hadn’t reacted at all, waiting for the mistake to clear itself up. After a brief exchange with the official he was asked into a different office. The room was surprisingly inviting; unlike the previous one, at least, there was no grille with a chest-level writing ledge immediately inside the door, barricading it against petitioners and the subpoenaed. W. was urged to take an armchair diagonally opposite a desk that was bare but for an enormous potted plant and a used coffee cup. Behind it sat a man in a grey suit (W. asked himself whether suits even came in other colours in this country), again between forty and fifty, his temples streaked with grey; he didn’t look like someone who worked for the low-level department in which child-support claims were processed. Breezy, thought W., that’s a good word for this gentleman. .

No, it wasn’t Feuerbach — W. shook his head, lost in thought — the first lieutenant hadn’t appeared until later. . still, this other man embodied an equally ageless type. . Feuerbach could well have appeared at this point, and the other could well have appeared in Berlin. — One time another man in a grey suit, about the same age, came into the room, said two or three words, and left again. . W. wondered whether this was when he first heard the bass voice from the office next to Feuerbach’s (from the back office, from the main office?). — All he could remember with any degree of clarity was the first remarks by the man at the desk: Well, finally I get to see you in person! Actually, you could congratulate me on my birthday, if you like, but I’m afraid the coffee’s all gone. . He waited a little to see the effect these collusively ironic words upon W. . Nonsense, he added then, you have yourself to congratulate!

W. had still harboured the hope that this might at least be a public prosecutor. . though it was improbable that an authority with the final word in child-support cases should make an appearance now. . Who are you? asked W.; he shouldn’t have done that, he knew. What he was told he later found downright implausible: the discussion seemed to labour in a spasm of contradictions; it was a maddening unresolvable error in which both sides persisted in different ways. . later W. had the sense of a nightmare. This sense was heightened by the fact that the issue ostensibly at stake was promptly forgotten. . after the breezy gentleman had summoned him two or three more times (within weeks even the number of these conversations faded from his memory), the whole affair seemed to break off inconclusively. W., with only a very conditional belief in the congruence of his perceptions with reality, came more and more to doubt the accuracy of his memories.

The man in the grey suit had put it to him that they were quite grateful for a few very important pieces of information he’d provided. . such timely assistance had not been anticipated. . W. didn’t feel he was meant, thought he’d been mistaken for someone else. . Who is ‘we’? he asked. — The other didn’t even respond to the question: Concerning that circle where that Harry Falbe kept trying to play his role, unfortunately they were groping in the dark; they were less and less able to keep tabs on these people. . We never hit on the notion that you might provide a valuable link to this circle, said the breezy gentleman, we didn’t even venture the thought. — You didn’t even venture the thought. . repeated W., who is ‘we’?—Another thing. . the gentleman appeared to change the subject. Regarding your child- support obligations for your little son. . surely you’ve noticed that the State is footing the bill. Punctually and in full, every month. . yes, really you can congratulate yourself on that as well. Have you visited the child lately? — There is no child I should have to pay for, said W.; that struck him as the first concrete statement of the conversation — which was evidently why it evaporated without a trace. — He hadn’t even been prepared to state his annual income — well then, they’d found that out for him too. There was no great sum to be paid, not much. . and so it wasn’t much they had in mind by way of a quid pro quo!