Ingo Schulze - New Lives

Michaela finally asked what she thought of the articles themselves. “Very good,” Aunt Trockel replied, “really very good, critical I’d say, very critical.” She took a sip of water and kept the glass in her hand.

So she liked the criticism, did she?

Yes, she did, why shouldn’t she, that’s how it was everywhere now. The truth was coming to light.

Both women, it seemed to me, were waiting for the saddle of venison to finally disappear from my plate.

“No!” Michaela screeched when Aunt Trockel brought in two plates with an eighth of a Black Forest cake on each. This launched Aunt Trockel into her story about the whipping cream she had ordered, which despite several assurances to the contrary had not been set aside for her, so that she had gone all the way to the manager, who finally got on the phone and found two bottles for her at the store on Stein Weg. “Two bottles!” Michaela cried. Two bottles of whipping cream was asking too much, she mustn’t do it, she mustn’t fatten us up like that, or herself. When Aunt Trockel set the plate down and then turned right back around again, even Michaela was taken aback by her own outburst. On each piece of cake, a maraschino cherry crowned the highest peak of whipped cream, with syruplike liqueur forming a mountain lake at its base. I was picturing Aunt Trockel leaning her head against the kitchen window, tears streaming down her face, when she appeared with an even larger piece of cake and set it down for herself. Suddenly there was a bottle of fruit brandy in front of me, and three glasses. “Oh, Aunt Trockel!” Michaela exclaimed. I poured the brandy, and we clinked glasses in a toast.

At the first stab of the fork, a purple brook burst from the dammed maraschino mountain lake and spilled through the spotless white. We ate in devout silence.

Then I did something I never failed to do when visiting Aunt Trockel; I went to the bathroom: sparkling fixtures without one water-drop stain to mar their beauty, a toilet bowl whose depths and rim were both a perfect white, a battery of combs without a single hair left behind. With childlike curiosity I always opened her mirrored medicine cabinet, which gave off the decorous odor of venom and liniment. In that bathroom it would never have occurred to me to piss standing up.

Suddenly a remarkable event from my childhood popped into my mind. But at that same moment Aunt Trockel was pounding on the door and calling out my name in an imploring voice. Eyes wide with horror, she ripped two pairs of panties from the clothesline, pressed them to her chest, and fled with her booty.

When I returned, Aunt Trockel was leaning back in her chair, hands at her sides, gazing down over her belly. Michaela already had her purse in her lap. “Have I ever told you about the most important event in my life?” I asked, and, paying no attention to Michaela’s reaction, began to tell them what I had just now recalled.

I was ten or eleven years old when a neighbor boy persuaded me to spend the night with him at his grandmother’s. We would be allowed to watch the Hit Parade and then a movie after that. Besides which we’d have as many banana gumdrops as we could eat. Although to my mind nothing was more horrible than spending a night with strangers without my mother and Vera, I agreed, out of cowardice and for the lack of any good excuse. After the Hit Parade and the movie were over, the banana gumdrops devoured, and I was lying there in the dark in a strange bed, surrounded by strange things and strange odors, I started weeping bitterly into my pillow. Yes, because I was homesick and full of longing and because that’s what I always did in such situations, I sobbed away. After a while I was amazed to realize my crying had stopped. I immediately tried to start blubbering again, but couldn’t.

“Do you know what had happened?” I asked Michaela and Aunt Trockel. Both were looking at me as if I were speaking in Chinese.

“Okay, what happened?” Michaela asked out of boredom.

“I no longer knew why I had been crying,” I exclaimed. “I didn’t understand myself what was supposed to be so awful about my situation.”

“And that occurred to you just now?” Aunt Trockel asked.

“Yes,” I said, “that came to me while I was in the bathroom.”

“Well, fine,” Michaela said, gave Aunt Trockel a nod, and started to get up. But then I asked for a second piece of Black Forest cake. Aunt Trockel bustled off to the kitchen, Michaela fell back into the sofa; resting her head against it, she stared at the ceiling. I refilled our glasses. Aunt Trockel came back from the kitchen giggling and in her excitement got our plates mixed up — I could tell from the traces of maraschino cherry I had left behind on mine. Aunt Trockel kept right up with me. We toasted. I was trying to do Aunt Trockel in, Michaela remarked in outrage. “How’s that?” I asked. “How’s that?” Aunt Trockel echoed with a giggle. “That’s lethal!” Michaela cried, pointing at Aunt Trockel’s plate.

“As far as I know,” I said, “it presents no danger to pregnant women.” Michaela went rigid. Aunt Trockel threw her head back and started laughing for all she was worth, releasing a spray of whipped cream and crumbs.

“You’re both crazy,” Michaela said, picking up her purse and getting to her feet.

But I didn’t want to leave! At least I could see no reason whatever why leaving was any better than staying. On the contrary: I had all the time in the world! I didn’t need to write anymore, or read anymore.

“Shall we finish it off?” I asked once our plates were empty. Aunt Trockel nodded. “It always tastes best fresh anyway.” She picked up our plates and toddled into the kitchen.

Michaela stared at me. “You’re going to stop right now, if you please!” she cried. “You’ve got to stop, you’re going to kill her!” 380

Instead of our plates Aunt Trockel brought in the whole cake under its transparent plastic cover with a red knob in the middle for a handle.

“Just one more drink,” I said.

“Have a great time,” Michaela called out as she opened the apartment door and closed it behind her before either of us could say a word.

Aunt Trockel and I ate the rest of the cake right from the platter, without plates. We tried to work at the same speed, both of us attacking our pieces from the center out.

I don’t know whether you can comprehend it, but as I dived into the remains of the cake along with this potbellied, shriveled-up old woman, I felt liberated in some strange, unexpected way — liberated from all pressure, all stress, all claims on me. A peculiar calm took hold, a peace of mind that I attributed to the influence of alcohol.

I awoke a little before four o’clock out of a deep, dreamless sleep that had left me completely refreshed, taking the last trace of my previous exhaustion with it.

My “good mood” irritated Michaela. I evidently enjoyed tormenting her, she claimed. Whatever I did or said was cause for some rebuke or criticism.

And then it began to snow. It snowed all evening and through the night and on into the next morning. From my window I could see children with sleds. Our neighbor was shoveling snow.

Over the last weeks I had paid no attention at all to the weather, but I was as delighted as a child by this white splendor. I wanted to go out in it, and so I got dressed. Robert yelled that he wanted to come along.

When Michaela, who was lying on the bed memorizing lines, saw we were ready to go, she put on her winter things too.

We were a curious trio. Robert ran on ahead, I chased after him, with Michaela at my heels. As soon as Robert was out of hearing range, she began to lay into me — why was I suddenly so interested in Robert and was I trying to estrange the boy from her. “Why are you like this? What have I ever done to you? Why are you like this?” she kept shouting.