Ingo Schulze - New Lives

We had mutz roast. 62It was so tender and so well seasoned that I would have loved to place a second order.

Barrista was in his element. I told him how we had all gathered to count the take from our first issue, had rolled the coins, and been halfway satisfied with the results — until it occurred to Georg that the currency was still in the safe. Barrista couldn’t get enough of such stories.

I kept my eye on the innkeeper the whole time. There was something unusual about him. It came as something of a relief to realize that it was just that he had no eyelashes.

Let me hear from you! E.

Wednesday, Feb. 28, ’90

Dear Frau Hansen,

Here is a little scene on the topic of art that might interest you: I was on the telephone this morning, when a man with fire in his eyes entered the office, doffed his seaman’s cap, pulled over a chair, and slipped a well-worn wallet from his hip pocket. My hunch told me he wanted to buy an ad.

“May I speak?” the man asked, even though he saw that I still hadn’t hung up.

“Does this mean anything to you?” he asked, thrusting both arms up high and tucking his head between his shoulders. “Doesn’t this mean anything to you?” He repeated the gesture. “We’ve got to get rid of them — our monuments to the cult of the proles!” We as the “new media” had to take up the issue. “Communist art belongs on the junk heap!” He offered to write a letter to the editor.

You would probably have grasped more quickly than I what he wanted, and been quicker at showing him the door. He wants to tear down your favorite statue 63outside the museum. He crammed his wallet back into his hip pocket and departed with a promise to finally bring the West German tabloid Bild to Altenburg.

We’re still waiting for our Golden Age of art. But as for what lies hidden in our desk drawers, which is the hot topic at the moment — you can forget it. Who’s still interested in that? Our experiences are as much use to us now as a medical education from the last century.

All the mistrust with which people such as ourselves 64have been regarded for thousands of years was far more justified than any respect or admiration. 65No, I no longer have any part in it, thank God that’s behind me. It wasn’t easy. You think you have talent, and then you screw up your life with it.

It’s a new experience to be living without a future, in a world where a D-mark will get you anything you want, but with no prospect of redemption. But I far prefer this present state of affairs to that of the past. Even the loveliest memories seem obscene now. 66

I’d like to tell you about Johann, a friend of mine. He is too clever not to realize that not one stone will be left on another, but too in love with himself not to keep on going just as before all the same. Johann studied — although not quite voluntarily — theology in Naumburg and this summer will have to report as a pastor to a village in the Ore Mountains. In Dresden, however, he’s known as an underground poet and musician. Besides which, his wife has a last name that counts for something even outside of Weisser Hirsch (the neighborhood for bigwigs that looks down over the city) and the city of Dresden. He’s trying to save himself by going into politics. Even if he should get elected, he will quickly sense that as an ersatz drug it’s too weak. 67

I don’t know whether this is of any interest to you at all. I simply wanted to send you greetings that, even if they may not quite read that way, are sent with the warmest intentions.

Your Enrico T.

Thursday, March 1, ’90

Dear Frau Hansen,

Had the letter not been in your handwriting, I wouldn’t have believed it could possibly have come from you. Please don’t let this be your final word.

I shall never forget how you came bounding down the broad stairs of the museum and did not look up until I greeted you. And your confusion, because you thought we knew each other, and hesitated to go on your way. You didn’t belong in Altenburg, anyone could see that. But in that moment what I lacked was more than courage — I had no notion what to ask you, how to address you.

I had decided during the press conference in the museum to invite you to join me somewhere — if good fortune should give me a second chance.

And that is why I regarded our second meeting as a special dispensation. I don’t want to make excuses by appealing to unlucky chance, but your friend, your colleague, was directly blocking our line of sight. And to be quite honest, I noticed your reaction and had no objection, because I was afraid that I would betray myself too soon otherwise. You can accuse me of that. But only of that!

The way you leaned against the windowsill, camera in hand — I was happy to be in the same room with you, and tried hard not to stare too often, forced myself, that is, to look only rarely in your direction. But my looks could not have been taken wrong […]

Why did you follow me into the garden? And why these accusations now? Why didn’t Frau *** complain to you then and there? I don’t understand any of it. 68

To be candid, when you both had gone, I said: This woman is dangerous, and of course everyone knew whom I had in mind. I meant it in a general, impersonal sense — I can’t help thinking of that now.

Hadn’t the interview turned into a cross-examination long before that? Without your remark to rescue him, Georg would have ended up accused of being lost forever in “the good old days.” We aren’t children. I won’t even mention the microphone insistently shoved under his nose. And I won’t carp about the sharp tone of voice in which he was presented with one well-formulated written question after the other. And unless you’re given time to think things over, how can you ever reply at that same level?

What Georg called “real life” became “existential” for her. She quoted him as saying the end of the wall was “secondary,” when he had called it a “logical consequence.” She left him no choice but constantly to justify himself.

Your interjection: “But after all, a person has to see the Mediterranean!” is the most beautiful sentence I’ve ever heard. It was a kind of redemption. Yes, I do want to see the Mediterranean.

I haven’t forgotten one word of everything you said. The way you spoke about how lucky we are to live in a place like this, a home to such splendor, and how every road to Italy has to lead through Altenburg — yes, I know, you were talking about the museum’s collection…But for me it was a metaphor, a promise, and to be able to stand that close to you was already its fulfillment.

I can still see those bright pale blue streaks along the horizon, and towering into them the cones 69at Ronneburg, which you called pyramids, and above us the heavy blackish gray blanket of clouds that had already brought the streetlamps on, so that we looked out over the town as if gazing out of a window. And then how we broke off in midconversation because the streaks of cloud had turned bright orange […] I want to remind you of nothing more than that.

Your Enrico Türmer

Monday, March 5, ’90

Dear Jo!

What do you think of our newspaper? Robert and I got rid of another thousand copies last Thursday. Michaela, however, is beside herself. She had convinced the general manager to remount Julie, 70 after almost a year and a half. Flieder 71was here only very briefly. He has a brain tumor and is to be operated on in Berlin this week. So even without Sluminski 72interfering, there is no way he’ll be considered for new head director. Yesterday’s performance, the second premiere so to speak — which Michaela had such hopes for — was a disaster, only 32 tickets sold. Despite our having promoted it well, thanks to Marion.