Ingo Schulze - New Lives

Was Petersen alluding to him, to the conflict between statements and the law? With every word Petersen spoke, the emptiness inside Titus expanded. It was close to a miracle that the three typed pages lay within reach at the same moment Titus heard his name called. As he stood up he fumbled to check if his shirt tail was hanging out.

He still had time to make a decision. As he took his place at the front of the class he was suddenly aware of his knees. They were trembling, shaking — he had always thought that was just a turn of phrase. He paid it no further attention, because he was visible only from the waist up. Titus was amazed to discover how totally unprepared he was for this ordeal. No one would believe him. All his torments had been pointless, utterly pointless. Each moment erased the previous one. Titus sorted the three pages, he hadn’t even managed that — and laid them down in front of him for fear his hands might begin to tremble.

He groped through the first sentence word by word. He exerted all his energies, but just sounds burbled up, sounds outside the human realm, gibberish that provoked giggles, laughter, and snorts. Titus was terrified, they were laughing at him. Except for Joachim and Petersen — they were glowering at him. He choked on each syllable, his tongue performed wondrous feats, but his vocal cords remained out of control. More laughter. Only now did the first sentence start to form.

Petersen bellowed. Titus didn’t understand why. It wasn’t him, it was the class that was laughing. What fault was that of his?

The class fell silent, went rigid, Joachim tipped his chair back. Petersen was standing in front of Titus, and Titus watched as words distorted Petersen’s mouth.

From somewhere far away, like the bell now ringing in the distance, Titus felt an inkling of something that, as it grew clearer and clearer, erased all the tension from his face, revealing the trace of a smile, a very delicate smile. Gradually Titus realized why Petersen was raging like that. And with this realization came another that he had no name for, but that was bright and buoyant and drove the black shadows from his soul.

Petersen was still talking. A dribble of spit reached his chin. Titus put his arms behind his back. His body felt light and relaxed, no effort could exhaust him now. He would sing, he would sing a duet with Maestro Sanddorn. And he would model for Gunda Lapin, listen to her talk, tell her things.

Titus saw the clouds, lopsided in the wind, whitish yellow and a dark blue gray. When he recalled how his knees had shaken, he laughed out loud. He would tell Bernadette about his shaking knees, that would cheer her up. And from the way he would talk about himself and laugh, she would understand what he had come to understand just now.

Titus laid the three pages together, carefully folded them, and, as Petersen now demanded, returned to his seat.

It was long past midnight, but Corporal Türmer couldn’t sleep. Bracing himself against the steering wheel, he stared at the thermostat of his APC. The pointer was almost at the red zone. Corporal Türmer asked himself if he would ever have the courage to be a partisan in resistance, an agent, a man rigorously opposed to all wars, who would let the motor of his APC run so hot that its cylinders locked. But each time the pointer crossed into the red, Corporal Türmer would crank open the louvers above the motor. And each time the temperature fell immediately and the pointer went back to vertical.

In the first weeks after induction Corporal Türmer — just Private Türmer back then — had upbraided himself for not finding the soldier’s life all that awful. He hadn’t had to put up with anything horrible. And as soon as he slid behind the steering wheel of an APC, he was actually happy. He liked driving it. He loved his vehicle, his hippopotamus, for which no road was too steep or sandy and in which he could even swim across the Elbe.

Corporal Türmer couldn’t get to sleep. His hands lay folded in his lap, his right foot resting on its heel at the gas pedal, his left leg pulled up — just like always when he was waiting. Most of his year-and-a-half hitch had been spent waiting. But this was his last night of camping out on maneuvers. Tomorrow they would drive back to their regiment — back home, so to speak — and then it was less than two weeks until his discharge. He wasn’t surprised that the thought made him feel melancholy. He would have liked to talk with somebody. He loved standing around with the other drivers, smoking and shooting the bull, while the company had to spread out across the fields.

Corporal Türmer stretched. The back of his seat had an indentation on the left side. Other drivers called it the “cripple seat.” Corporal Türmer had grown comfortably used to the driver’s seat and over time had helped hollow out the indentation. The backrest had become his backrest, just like the hood of his vehicle was his hood. When all was said and done, he felt cozy in his APC.

Corporal Türmer could hear the breathing of his squad as they lay like one big family on the metal flooring or sat angled on the front bench or wedged on the floor under the first gunner’s seat. Fast asleep in the seat beside Corporal Türmer sat noncom Thomas, his squad leader, his helmeted head resting against the wall. If the motor was ruined, it would be his responsibility and he’d be thrown into military prison at Schwedt. Because as a noncom officer, Thomas should have forbidden Corporal Türmer to let the motor run, no matter how the squad might freeze — and in mid-April the nights were still chilly, at least out in the forest. Of a morning the puddles in the ruts were covered with a thin layer of ice. And no driver let his men freeze.

The pointer was in the middle of the red zone. Corporal Türmer’s ran his hands down over the steering wheel until they touched just above his lap. He rested his right hand against the center of the steering wheel and almost honked the horn. How often had he had to warn the driver ahead when he drifted off the road. He himself relied on the driver behind him to make sure he didn’t drop off to sleep. Because you got hypnotized by gazing for hours at red taillights as your only point of orientation. He had hallucinated railroad crossings or dump heaps big as houses — and then let the hatch above him fly open, so that the cold could shake him awake, had cursed himself and slapped his face. All the same, all he wanted was to be a driver. Only drivers watched through endless nights while the others slept, lulled by the rattle and warmth of the engine. Corporal Türmer was amazed, yes, truly touched by how the others had trusted him from the start, as if it were perfectly self-evident that he would steer this dancing, rocking ship safely through the night. That was the origin of every driver’s pride. They were like fathers to their families. They, the drivers, were the ones who gave the company its sense of security.

Corporal Türmer didn’t have to turn around to look at them. The gentle snore was Private Sommer, the whimper was Corporal Kapaun, a whimper that absolutely refused to match his bearish body and laugh. Private Petka, who had a rumpled face that made him look like a mushroom in his helmet, sometimes laughed in his sleep. No, he would

[Letter of July 11, 1990]

never be able to bring himself to betray them by harming the army. Not because he had sworn it, that would be ridiculous. No, Corporal Türmer was grateful because — whether you wanted to believe it or not — everything had its place in the army. Corporal Türmer had to take a piss. He cranked open the louvers above the motor. Gave the switch a slap, silencing the engine. He pulled on the new boots the staff sergeant had finagled for him. They were a little too big, but only one or two sizes. So it didn’t matter.