Ingo Schulze - New Lives

After the first few bars I regretted the whole thing, after the first stanza I was desperate. Had I not very wisely kept my distance from such people until now? I could understand Pastor Bodin better and better as he sat there breathing heavily. His pouting lower lip dangled like a trembling reddish blue nozzle through which far too many words had flowed.

While someone from the civil rights movement was speaking, I was passed a note: “Get ready, you’re up soon. Thanks.”

Michaela, who had been greeted with lots of applause at the start, made the mistake of reading the Dresden Resolution with the same flair she had at the theater. I could hear Emilia Galotti. She herself was aware how from one line to the next she was losing energy and how ultimately all that was left was an artificial theatrical pose. Toward the end she spoke faster — a deadly sin for an actor.

“I wasn’t good,” she whispered. I took her cold hand, held it tight for a while. “Doesn’t matter,” I said as the bass player gave his downbeat nod to that rotten orchestra.

Hundreds, thousands of times I had imagined giving a revolutionary speech, as if my life had been aimed toward this moment, this wish, this dream, which I was now damned to turn into reality.

Clutching the little note in my left hand, holding fast to the pulpit with my right, 311I fought back the urge to laugh.

I looked up. Not a cough, not a cleared throat, not a shuffled foot. And into this perfect silence I said, “My name is Enrico Türmer. For a year and a half now I have been living with my wife and son at 104 Georg-Schumann Strasse. I work in the theater and am a member of no party.”

I looked out over the heads of the people and down the center aisle, and began:

“We have made mistakes, we confess we have, we indict ourselves.

“We tied on our pioneer neckerchiefs and sang the song about the dove of peace, while tanks drove through Budapest.

“We wept and laid our hands in our laps as we were being walled in.

“We said nothing while Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring.

“We paid our solidarity dues while workers were being shot and killed in Gdansk.”

The breathless silence lent my words a strength that had nothing to do with me, these were no longer my words.

“On May Day we demonstrated in honor of our unending loyalty to the Soviet Union while its troops murdered people in Afghanistan.

“We cracked jokes about lazy Polacks while the Poles were fighting for free labor unions, and we swore an oath to our flag as the National People’s Army took up its position along the Oder and Neisse.

“In the midst of the graveyard silence that has reigned over Tiananmen Square for months, we still hear Honecker and Krenz clapping their approval.”

I could feel the words whirling about me, felt them rip me from the spot, felt myself being swept away with them.

“We put on our finest clothes when we went to vote.

“We learned to talk about our country without using the word ‘wall.’

“We let ourselves be draped along the curb like living garlands.

“We went to our Youth Consecration and swore loyalty to the state.

“We practiced throwing grenades and shooting air guns while the best of our writers, actors, and musicians were forced to leave the country.

“We congratulated one another on our brand-new apartments while the old centers of our towns were being razed.

“We counted our Olympic gold medals, but the dentist didn’t know where he would get material to fill our teeth.

“We hung flags from our windows, although in Prague and Budapest we were ashamed to be recognized as citizens of the GDR. We rose from our seats for the national anthem, although we would have preferred to sink into the ground.”

I cast my eyes into the distance.

“We do not want to burden ourselves with guilt any longer. Our patience is at an end. We will let them see us, on the streets, in the marketplaces, in churches and theaters, in the Rathaus, in front of the buildings of local government and the State Security’s villas. We have nothing to hide, we will show our faces. There is no reason for us to keep silent, we will speak our names. The time for begging is past. The wall must go, State Security must go, the Socialist Unity Party must go! Bring on free elections, a free media, bring on democracy! We need no one’s permission. We will now take to the streets! This is our country!”

The silence burst open. The whole room was in an uproar — stomps, applause, whistles. If it doesn’t sound too absurd, I stared out into the clamor, clutching the pulpit, dizzy from my own words. People were crowding out the doors. “Super,” the woman with the scar shouted, “really super!” Michaela had crossed her arms, clutching her elbows with her hands. Later she said the pastor had pushed me aside to get to the microphone. But the organ had drowned him out.

The closer we got to the exit the more clearly we could hear the chants.

The demonstration moved past the police station, past the Rathaus, on across Market Square, and turned left at the far end onto Sporen Strasse. We formed the rear guard. Suddenly someone opened the police-station door, two uniformed men raced toward us, and asked where we were headed. How should we know, the long-haired fellow shouted as he started to unroll his banner (FREE ELECTIONS!). The woman with the scar described our probable route for them: past State Security and the District Council and then up the hill to District Administration. They should probably block Zeitzer Strasse and Puschkin Strasse.

As we crossed Ebert Strasse, we heard a concert of whistles that could only be directed at the Stasi villa. “Let’s hope they don’t do anything stupid! Let’s hope, let’s hope,” Michaela whispered.

That night around one thirty, I heard car doors slamming directly below our window, I listened for footsteps, thought I could already hear the doorbell. But then nothing more happened. And that was almost more unnerving.

Your Enrico T.

Pentecost Monday, June 4, ’90

Verotchka,

now I really must write you a letter: 312Mamus was here for two days.

The first evening Michaela invited us over.

Suddenly it was all just like old times, each of us sitting in his chair, and if our friend Barrista hadn’t been running around in his slippers we might have taken him for a guest. Mamus acted as if nothing had happened and ignored the new constellation. Robert is her grandchild and Michaela her daughter-in-law, and now as luck would have it the baron has been added to the mix. Mamus agreed with everything he said and praised Herr von Barrista’s objectivity several times. He kept going on about Dresden and how much he had enjoyed the tour by streetcar and her warm hospitality. That was three weeks ago. 313

It was news to Mamus that Michaela has given notice at the theater. “But why?” she exclaimed. Michaela just went on eating, as if she hadn’t heard the question. And instead her baron began to hold forth for her. First he talked about the state of the world and declared our current situation to be flat out the best this old earth has ever known — strong democracies without rivals and technological progress that increasingly relieves man of his burdens and allows him the freedom to pursue his true calling. Now that the iron curtain has fallen, what lies before us, or so the baron said, is an era of action and deeds, while contemplation and brooding belong to the past. Things change now more in one week than they used to over the course of years, which means that art, be it in the East or the West, is a losing proposition. Life’s experiences are not to be found in the theater nowadays, but in commerce, in the marketplace. The changes we see daily are not only more exciting than Shakespeare, but also can no longer be grasped through Shakespeare.