Ingo Schulze - New Lives

At first I assumed we would finish by eight that evening. All we had to do was calculate and cut. Ten o’clock came, midnight, then one, then three. Around four we slipped the pages into their folder. The best part was tidying up. Georg cleaned the stove, Jörg his electric typewriter. Finally we found ourselves sitting next to the folder lying there ready to be handed on — as if waiting for our baby to fall asleep.

Tomorrow we’ll drive over to proofread.

Hugs, E.

PS: Vera sends her greetings. She called from Beirut. Her mother-in-law (who bears the lovely name Athena) is ill and is resisting any idea of traveling to Berlin. Nicola is toying with the notion of giving up his shop in Berlin and taking over his dead father’s. The building is in ruins, not one stone left on top of another. But the more expensive fabrics were in the cellar and survived both bombing and plundering. Mother and son see this as a sign and wonder. Apparently no one has any idea what role Vera is to play in these plans, or at least she doesn’t. And since my sister is famous for taking offense if she doesn’t feel as if she’s the center of attention, I try to offer every conceivable declaration of my love. It’s questionable, however, if my letters even reach her. If you want to give it a try — Madame Vera Barakat, Beirut — Starco area — Wadi aboujmil, the building next to Alliance College—4th floor.

Dear Jo,

This past week I have had more new, and strange, encounters than ever I used to in a year. The day before yesterday 48I was working over a couple of lines about the new animal shelter (it has yet to become an animal shelter, more like a wild zoo, previously the dog division of the VP). 49I had enough material, and the headline too, but was getting nowhere writing it. Either it sounded too sentimental or too aloof. I needed a thousand five hundred characters, but no more. An hour into it and I still hadn’t put together one reasonable sentence. It was as if I had been bewitched. When I went to add coal to the stove, it had gone out. And I couldn’t get rid of the odor of “wet dog.” I washed my hands, sniffed at the wastepaper basket, checked behind the typewriter, cursed. The moment I put my fingers to the keyboard, there was the “wet dog” again.

I dreamed the whole night through and felt befuddled all morning. I had appointments the next day in Meuselwitz and Lucka, and in between I collected news in nearby villages and had the secretary in Wintersdorf make me some chamomile tea.

Back at the office I found some photos in my cubbyhole, including the ones I had made at the animal shelter. There were still hot embers in the stove. This time I stuffed it with briquettes, as if planning to work the night, and sat myself down at the typewriter.

My eyes hurt. From time to time a shiver went up my back. The cold is leaving my bones, I told myself. The idea comforted me. But then — it sounds more mysterious than it was — I had the vague sense that someone behind me had just carefully set a hat on my head.

A man was seated at the table — if we haven’t locked the door, no one pays much attention to our hours in any case — someone whom I knew from somewhere, someone I associated with good news of some sort, not some local folklorist.

“Don’t let me disturb you,” he said very amiably, and by way of greeting offered a hint of a bow. “I shall wait with all due respect, it is solely my fault that we have failed to meet, please, do continue.” That’s more or less how he put it, as if it would be perfectly all right if I ignored him and went on typing. His whole demeanor matched what one imagines a proper older gentleman should be — though he’s forty at most. His choice of words and pronunciation reminded me of Hungarian students studying at Jena, who have learned their German from Rilke and Hoffmannsthal — his rolled “r” fit nicely as well.

“We had an appointment at twelve,” he said, trying to jog my memory. “I hope that my failure to keep it has not given rise to any difficulties for you. I am at your service, whenever it suits your conveniency.” Conveniency! He used words that he evidently dared to utter only with a bow. I was just about to say that I didn’t recall an appointment, when a sound arose from his direction, a decorous yowl — or how do you describe a dog yawning? So that was it. The dog in the animal shelter photos. And him next to it, clearly in focus, although his glasses had reflected the flash. He had spelled his name for me, but I had forgotten to ask for his address and profession, had been angry at myself for not doing it. So I could make up for it now.

I had wanted to characterize the dog as “a little wolflike,” above all the muzzle, its build not as powerful as that of a German shepherd, the pelt blackish gray. It’s blind in one eye. Its fate was to be the framework for my article.

“Everyone will read about your good deed,” I said, walking over and handing him the photos. He looked through them, but before I could sit down again or had time to learn his name, there they were in front of me again, on the edge of the table. What I really wanted was to ask him to repeat the trick — he had tossed the little stack so casually with a flick of the wrist. There was nothing arrogant about it, more an expression of his keeping a sympathetic distance toward himself.

He bent down to the dog at his side — a singsong, no, a calming lullaby, and in English!

“I hope I need fear no indiscretions,” he exclaimed with what I discovered was an English accent. “I understand nothing of literature and eternity,” he continued. “My visions are of another sort!” I had no idea why he had said this, and assumed I had missed something.

He merely wanted to remark, he said, coming to my aid, that it would be better if people who were the subject of an article did not read it in print themselves. He could not help being aware of one thing or another that was publicly reported about him. Often it was the journalists themselves — few who called themselves that deserved the proud title — who compelled him to read such things and then were amazed…he waved me off, and in the next moment was holding a business card between his fingers—“better one too many than none at all”—and slipped it across the table to me.

Clemens von Barrista — white lettering on black. Nothing else. But that wasn’t how he had spelled it for me. But it seemed familiar all the same.

You would of course have no real picture of Barrista were I to leave out a description of his eyes — compared to his glasses, yours are a windowpane. Huge google-eyes, as if he’s peering through a peephole. A dark mustache provides makeshift cover for his harelip and, together with his black hair, makes his acne-scarred face look even more pallid. Evidently he has come to terms with his looks — not a trace of insecurity. He pushed back from the table a little, his white shirt spread taut across his little potbelly.

The more I lost myself in gazing at him, the less I knew what I was supposed to do. At which point Clemens von Barrista stood up and said something like, “There’s nothing to be done,” and offered his hand in farewell. Where had my mind been?

“Please do sit down,” I said quickly. “Make yourself comfortable.” He thanked me, looked about the office, and, once he was seated again, fell back into his peculiar German that I can barely reproduce, if at all. He made fun of our hard chairs, or better, he praised a good armchair as the “hallmark” of reason, of reason thirsting for deeds, hungry for deeds, and sang a hymn in praise of luxury, of humankind’s rebirth in a spirit of luxury. His patois culminated in the aphorism: “The beautiful would appear beautiful, the good may be good, but better is better!”