Ingo Schulze - New Lives

Ah Jo, my dear friend, so many things happen every day. When I got to my parking space, a woman was leaning on my car. She was embarrassed that I spotted her before she saw me. It was the wife of Ralf, the brown-eyed man whom I had sat at the same table with at a New Forum meeting last January. Come July, Herr Ralf will be losing his job as an auto mechanic. “He doesn’t talk, doesn’t sleep, doesn’t eat,” she said. And now I’m supposed to help in some way. We made a date for her and Ralf to drop by and see me. Then I made the mistake of driving her home. “There he sits, behind that window there,” she said as she got out, and begged me to come inside with her.

I’ve never seen anything like it. He glanced up, but didn’t return my greeting, stared off to one side, and let me do the talking. What could I say? I can’t hire him as a sales rep. It was totally pointless. My stopping by had robbed his wife of her last remaining hope. When I promised to look in again in a couple of weeks, she began sobbing.

After that I drove to Referees’ Retreat, but went the long way around on country lanes — with the top down to give myself a good airing out.

And finally some good news: Nikolai, the handsome Armenian, sends his greetings. He’s married to a Yugoslavian girl now. We made a bet on the game. 318Whoever loses has to go visit the other guy…

Hugs, Your. E.

Saturday, June 9, ’90

Dear Nicoletta,

With my speech at the church I had shot my wad, I had done whatever it was in my power to do. I didn’t know what more I could do. I felt a great void. Michaela talked about depression and she was not about to let go of the term, either. I couldn’t blame her. After all, she was the one who had to suffer the most from it.

“They understand only if you rub your fist under their nose,” was my mother’s comment to my “incendiary” speech. And that was the end of the matter as far as she was concerned. Robert was uncertain whether to be proud of me or if my performance at the church was just one more thing for him to be embarrassed about.

Michaela was called out of rehearsal the next day. Together with Anna (the woman with the scar), the long-haired fellow, Pastor Bodin, the man from New Forum, and a couple of women whom we had first met the previous evening, she was invited to the Rathaus for a discussion with the district secretary of the Party. Michaela described the old Rathaus main hall with its inlaid wooden ceiling, the council chamber with its antique furniture, and told how scared she had been when she saw Naumann, the first secretary of the Party. She had never seen him close up before.

He’d crush you without batting an eyelash, she thought. The head of the “bloc” parties sat there with her head lowered and literally cringed whenever Naumann said anything to her. Only the Christian Democrat, whose name she hadn’t registered (Piatkowski), had blatantly checked her over. Whereas the mayor was so agitated that he had spoken far too loudly. Naumann remarked several times how moved he was by our town’s first demonstration — which left her feeling a bit less afraid. The whole time she couldn’t stop thinking about Robert. Piatkowski, however, kept insisting that what they were talking about here was an illegal, unauthorized demonstration that had endangered people’s lives — something he could not reconcile with his Christian conscience. He was talking about the lack of traffic control. To which blue-lipped Pastor Bodin had replied that they should be glad they had people they could talk to. There were some who were no longer willing to engage in conversation, for whom actions spoke louder than words. It wasn’t until she was out on Market Square again that Michaela realized what Bodin had in fact said. It was his way of distancing himself from me — who else could he have meant?

Saturday noon we took Mother to the train. On the drive home Michaela asked if we thought it might be fun to drive to Berlin — she had no performances that weekend. I said yes. Robert thought I was joking. He couldn’t believe I was prepared to give up a free weekend — that is, two days when I could be writing — without a struggle.

After Michaela had organized the reading of the resolution for the weekend performances, all she had to do was notify Thea we were coming.

Michaela had always described Thea’s apartment on Hans Otto Strasse — just a minute from Friedrichshain Park — as grand and bourgeois. And it was, too, compared to our new little apartment. There was plenty of room for the forty people who gathered there that evening.

How I had once been thrilled by the thought of carrying the day at such a gathering, as the man whose book — published in Frankfurt am Main — would be prominently placed on the coffee table beside the art nouveau lamp. But that evening pretzel sticks were set out on it, and sprawled beside it was ***, a tall and gaunt fellow who was held to be the most promising young actor in Berlin and who stuck one pretzel after the other in his mouth, breaking off each protruding stick with a loud crunch.

Michaela sat like the court jester at the foot of the armchair to which Thea had withdrawn, tucking her legs up under her. Plucking at the fleece throw rug that surrounded her like an ice floe, Michaela talked about Leipzig and the seal. Not one word about me. Earlier Thea had pulled me aside in the kitchen and warned me in that caring, confidential way of hers not to do anything stupid, not to play the hero — Micki (as she calls Michaela) was very worried about me. Thea instructed me on the difference between bravado and courage. But all the same she couldn’t help admiring me — and instantly took on that shy girlish expression actresses evidently love to use when they themselves want admiration.

Berlin chitchat was no different from what I knew from Altenburg — except that here big shots were called by their first names, so that I often didn’t know who was meant.

Thea’s husband, the perfect host, was the only person with whom I conversed for more than a few minutes — about their two children, both girls, into whose room Robert had vanished.

It was around eleven o’clock — all I wanted was to get some sleep — before someone finally decided to talk to me. It was Verena, a professional potter. What you first noticed about her was the fresh, smooth skin of her cheeks. There wasn’t much to say about her work, she said, and warded off any further questions with a shake of her head, even as she gazed at the roughened palms of her hands. Her voice took on a downright humble tone when she spoke of “this circle of people” and how she considered herself ennobled when “people like Thea” praised her work.

“Once the wall is gone,” I replied, “everyone here will be like fish stranded on the beach, their eyes bulging. It’ll be a good thing then to have a real profession.” Although I had intended this as encouragement, she pulled back in fright. But it was just really getting started, she said — no censorship, no boundaries, we’d soon be able to do just as we wanted. All the things that had been forbidden were only waiting to be taken out of the drawer. She talked about an “incomparable new start” and “a blossoming like none we’ve ever known.”

“But will anyone still be interested?” I said.

“Why not?” she exclaimed testily. “What would be the reason?”

“Because it’d be just too lovely,” I said evasively, and sensed how ideas fall back on you with their full weight when they’re yours alone.

“Thea can always find a theater anywhere she wants,” Verena said, of that much she was certain.

Perhaps a scene might have been avoided if Thomas hadn’t asked me to come with him to fetch a couple of bottles from the cellar. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Verena sit back down in the circle around Thea.