Ingo Schulze - New Lives

Suddenly I was freezing, my feet felt as if they were shrinking, I was amazed that I didn’t lurch or stumble. It was after one, maybe one thirty, when I started treading in place. Finally I ran a few steps back and forth, picked up a stick, and drew a circle around me, like a child playing a game.

I sneezed, sneezed again and again. I was on the verge of catching a cold, my laughter sounded hoarse. Was something happening, or not?

Was I supposed to take the light breeze or the distant barking of a dog as an answer? I felt like singing nursery rhymes. “The moon arises nightly,” I began, then, a little louder, “the stars they shine so brightly against a velvet sky.” I faltered and then started up again with whatever came to mind. “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.” Then: “Itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout, along came the rain and washed the spider out.” This last one was the only one I knew from start to finish. I repeated it several times. Later I began to count, I could count to the end of my days…

I spun around. No scream, no wolfish howl could have chilled my blood like that chirping had. I was convinced I had heard a cricket, a cricket right next to me in the grass. I listened, snapped for air, listened. The silence was like a lump of amber enclosing that chirping sound.

“Ah,” I sighed, and once again, “ah!” And in that moment I understood what it was I wanted. It was nothing more and nothing less than my life. I wanted my life back, the one that I could barely remember, that I had given away far too soon. Everything I had done — and I had long since known this — had not been a life, but a crude misunderstanding, a muddle, a madness!

I wanted at last to know who I was, if not the person I had thought myself to be for all this time. It didn’t matter what would be revealed to me. I would accept it. I would give anything for a new life, anything!

I reached for the pistol. It was warm. I held it in my hands for a while, then flung it away with every ounce of strength I had. 365It came to me that it was the only thing I could offer in exchange. I didn’t hear it land. Silence pressed down on my shoulders, silence filled my ears.

Then a bark again, longer this time, joined by another, then another, one dog waking a second, then the hush returned — like a blow to the head. The scraping of my shoe soles was horribly loud. Me. Nothing but silence and the void into which I stared wide-eyed.

“What the hell is so bad about that?” What, I asked myself, could be more desirable than to be a void, to be emptied out, to be cleansed of the madness of words and fame, of the beyond and immortality. Wasn’t it splendid to be rid of all that?

What I had taken for illness, was it not in fact healing? Had I not wished for something that would be more than a mere realization? Was I not finally free to do what I wanted? With everything behind me, everything before me!

I was thirsty, I had lost my train of thought. Only the cold — cold within and without.

In sharing so much palpable experience, am I not lying? Such hours in life cannot be grasped, either with the hand or the mind, they are at home alone in the night, which turns us inside out.

I had no idea how long I had stood there. Church bells had stopped ringing the hour. Not a rustle, not a bark anywhere in the distance.

At some point the rumbling began. I wasn’t afraid, it was more like a disturbance. Two points of light appeared, two shining eyes that had opened in the darkness. The rumbling drew ever closer from all sides, it thudded across the fields, through the air. Soon a second pair of shining eyes appeared behind the first, then a third, a fourth. They seemed to be floating above the ground, yet approaching rapidly. Suddenly it all merged as one — blinded, I hid my eyes in the crook of my arm, no longer knowing where the road was, whether I should move forward or backward. And in that same instant, the horn, a ship’s horn, the trumpet at the Last Day. Four semis on their wild ride between autobahn and highway thundered past me, the undertow of air sucked me up, whirled me around, set me tumbling. I staggered a few steps in their wake — and that was enough, the spell was broken. I put one foot in front of the other again and made my way home.

It was noon when I awoke. Had I dreamt it? It was midday, quiet, bright midday. In my room lay mud-caked hiking boots and splash-soiled trousers. That frightened me, but only for a moment.

As always

Your

Enrico Türmer

My poor Jo,

You really are missing something. I had found all the talk about this “very special person” insufferable, but when we in fact met him, Vera and I were taken by him at first glance: his delicate frame, his bright eyes, his fine head, his “accomplished” hands. His manners brought to mind that long-forgotten ideal of the well-educated prince. Despite his advanced age the effect is boyish — not even the wheelchair he is forced to use most of the time can alter that.

The program is built around his own preferences; no one suspected, however, that he would be more interested in a two-bedroom apartment in one of the new complexes in Altenburg Nord than in the castle. He last saw the town in 1935. In comparison to how he treats others—“just call me ‘hereditary prince’”—he is somewhat condescending only to the baron. He responds to all of the baron’s whispers and explanations with barely a nod. He frequently interrupts him by bending forward, extending a hand, and addressing someone nearby in the most cordial fashion.

Andy, Massimo, and the baron take turns pushing his wheelchair, Olimpia (Andy’s wife), Michaela, and Vera are his ladies-in-waiting, although Mother, Cornelia, and I are part of his retinue as well — and, of course, Robert.

No one says it, but I think the hereditary prince is gay, at least he never married, has no children, and appears too gossamer for family life.

Actually, the baron had wanted to prepare him for our coup, but then agreed with me that it would be better if I took the hereditary prince into our confidence myself. Our dilemma is that our paper has to be at the printer by Friday evening if we want it back late Saturday for delivery early Sunday morning. Our report would come out a week late, and others would reap the harvest of our labors. And so we wrote about the events of Saturday — especially the grand reception in the afternoon and the enthronement of the Madonna in the museum — ahead of time.

The hereditary prince responded with an almost roguish smile and asked if he could read our article about the near future in order to do his part at turning prophecy into reality. He noticed that the phrase irritated me, and so he calmed me down with the most cordial words — he would gladly do his best to be of benefit and assistance to us, since he was, to be sure, in our debt. I could have kissed his lovely hands out of sheer gratitude.

We then drove to the castle — at the same hour of the day that the reception is to begin tomorrow — to photograph him in the middle of a crowd: Barrista’s host of attendants, including Proharsky and Recklewitz-Münzer and their families, plus the newspaper staff — without Marion and Pringel, but with Jörg, who is not looking good — and Georg’s family. (Franka in a knockout stylish dress, a gift of the newspaper czarina from Offenburg.) The photo is a four-column spread.

Next came his visit to our offices. He kept that same roguish smile as Schorba and I locked hands to make a seat so that we could carry him up the narrow stairs. He’s as light as a bird. I barely registered his arm draped over my shoulders. Andy and the baron dragged the wheelchair up, while the women stood waiting and applauding at the top. Astrid could barely be restrained. She wagged her tail like crazy and didn’t calm down until she could lay her muzzle on the hereditary prince’s knee.