Wolfgang Hilbig - 'I'

On the way to the tram, and during the three stops to the S-Bahn station, he thought about Thomas Mann, of whom he’d read in a magazine — a Western magazine; now that he was active in the Scene, such things came his way now and then — that he too had been a man of foreplay . And for this reason the writer of the essay described Thomas Mann as a true artist; Thomas Mann too had always been concerned with the interplay of approach and withdrawal. These thoughts had a comforting effect on W.; he owed them to his landlady.

But soon his anxiety seized him back: about to cross the station hall, he saw, in the crowd spilling from a just-arrived train, a figure who towered more than a head above all the others. He let the crowd wash him to the edge and the lanky guy pass him with the main flow, then followed him out onto the square in front of the station; he saw him lingering by the tram, evidently undecided whether to walk the three stops.—C. circled the longlegs and planted himself in front of him; it took a moment for the tall man to lower his eyes, his face showing neither surprise nor even a hint that he had recognized C., frozen in unchanging displeasure, or rather irreversible resignation.

So you don’t even know me? asked C.; and when the other made no attempt to answer: Where do you think you’re going, what do you think you’re looking for here in Berlin? You wouldn’t be heading to my landlady, by any chance, or who are you supposed to snoop after, you goddamn crooked question mark? Say something already!

Indeed the lanky guy was oddly hunched, but still said not a word, his resigned expression intensifying.

No doubt you’re after a certain Harry Falbe! said C., unconsciously striking a tone Feuerbach sometimes used.

I said right from the start that we’d get caught here! The lanky guy finally found his voice.

What did you say, who did you say that to?

The boss, who else. . it’s the boss I said it to. In Berlin we’re guaranteed to get caught some day. .

So: Who is it you’re looking for, now? C. repeated his question; they moved apparently unthinkingly towards a little park where a few benches stood under trees that still looked bare, their bursting buds just beginning to show.

I’m not looking for Harry, explained the lanky guy, we know we’re not going to find him here. . we can’t find him at all, it’s like in the movies, he just went to ground.

How can anyone go to ground here, said C., if you want to go to ground here in this country, you’ve got to burrow like a mole.

You’ll laugh when I tell you. It was in that old industrial site out of town, you know the place. That’s where he suddenly went to ground, simply vanished, we’d surrounded everything, a whole police unit, and the criminal investigation department, they worked with military precision, I can tell you, and suddenly, I didn’t see it myself, but the boss was there. . it was like he’d dissolved into thin air.

That can’t be hard for Harry Falbe, said C.

The lanky guy was relieved to see that C. was taking it all in good humour. — Yeah, he said, that was one skinny son of a bitch, you could blow him through a window shutter, the boss always used to say, that’s how airy-fairy he is. . but not airy-fairy enough to blow through that cordon of cops. .

And what’s with you, don’t you fit through the window shutter? asked C., How come you were looking for him, anyway?

We always suspected that he wanted to bail out. Anyway that’s what the boss thought, Harry was always just about to flip. Then suddenly he was back again 100 per cent, with the wildest stories up his sleeve. . he always had contacts in Berlin, you see. If you want I can even tap into the intelligence service over there, those were the kinds of big ideas he got. Or he wanted to join Sect. 20, he was always saying. But he just wasn’t reliable, he wasn’t consistent. The boss said, Sometimes you really do think all he wants is to go West, and for that he’ll do anything. That’s probably what got him down, constantly having to run around with the legend about wanting to defect, and then not being allowed to do it. . and so then he overdid it, and people thought, hey, he really does want to bail out. No, he wasn’t reliable, he had too many shady connections to people in custody, no surprise with him. You really couldn’t always tell what side he was actually on. .

The lanky guy had suddenly turned talkative; they were sitting side by side now on a bench under the trees on the station square, and they must have been a strange sight to see; the cool dusk came, but they seemed determined to talk on into the night.

You for example, the lanky guy went on, we knew everything about you from Harry, every word. . only the most important thing, that we didn’t know. .

What was the most important thing? C. asked.

Well, that this kid wasn’t even yours, we didn’t know that, the lanky guy said with a touch of surprise in his voice. It was his kid instead, we didn’t know that.

Since when does the Firm lack access to these sorts of documents?

His girlfriend put you down as the father, back when she was in prison. .

What an honour! said C.

But then it came out, suddenly she claimed not to know any more, or she said she’d made a mistake. And now. . you really don’t know why Harry was a wanted man?

Just say it already!

Because the kid has vanished. . vanished without a trace.

All right, who vanished now, Harry Falbe or his kid? asked C. What kind of nonsense is this, anyway, how can anything vanish in this country, don’t we have a Wall that’s high enough, and isn’t everything under control in this country, or what?

Both of them vanished! But the kid had already vanished back when we were still looking for Harry.

And now you’re not looking for him any more?

We had to hand over the case. .

For a moment C. had an uneasy feeling: Of course he knew nothing about this whole story. . but maybe he should be careful not to let it on. — He had spread out his arms on the back of the bench and stretched his feet out in front of him, his face in shadow (Feuerbach sat on park benches in the same pose, but he was taller and thinner than C.); when he glanced slightly to the side he was looking at the weedy, dark-turtlenecked chest of the lanky guy from A.; it must have looked as though a grotesquely gangling child were nestled in his arm.

And now, the lanky guy went on in an innocent voice, now our idea is that he’s in some embassy somewhere, somewhere in the midst of those embassy occupiers. . we don’t have a lot of information down in our neck of the woods. .

I thought you handed over the case, so why are you still interested? Do you think we wouldn’t know that? said C., pondering how to unravel the snarl of interconnections; of course there were certain uncanny nuances to the whole affair, and he couldn’t figure the lanky guy out. . Suddenly he pulled in his legs and sat up straight on the bench: Now I know what you want from me, longlegs! You want me to tell you if you’re finally rid of Harry Falbe. He’s always been in your way, and now you want me to tell you if he might crop up again, the boss might prefer him to you! Harry simply had a lot more connections, am I right?

Quite astute, said the lanky guy, of course, no wonder. .

So the boss didn’t even send you here from A., you came on your own? You want me to tell you if your competitor’s out of the way, and the whole story about the kid is pure bullshit! — It was a foray which struck C. immediately afterwards as rather haphazard. . hadn’t Feuerbach also been looking for Harry Falbe the whole time?

C. wasn’t surprised that the other man disputed his theory: I didn’t come on my own, no, the boss sent me all right. And he warned me, too: For God’s sake, don’t get yourself caught in Berlin. .