Ingo Schulze - New Lives

With almost half a sketchbook filled with the adventures of my soul, I experienced our arrival in Dresden as a triumph. Only three weeks before I had left the city as a foolish boy who had known nothing about himself and the world or his calling in it. I returned as a young writer who would soon be famous.

You will take this for childishness, Nicoletta. For me it was the beginning of the path that led me astray. I shall probably hear what you have to say about all this.

Thinking only of you, Your Enrico T.

Dear Jo,

I had a car accident, and a madman who as good as forced us off the road was at fault. I have a slight concussion and pulled a couple of muscles in my neck, but that’s really all. We 98were lucky. Suddenly we came to a halt — with a shattered windshield — midway between two trees.

Without a car I feel like an amputee, everything’s a mess at the moment, and it’s downright depressing too. There was a time when I just had to look at Jimmy 99and I felt better. The cost of repairs will probably be so high that it’s not worth it. It was Michaela’s late father’s car, that he fussed over and took such good care of — and for her mother it was the chief reminder of better days. Worse still, she’s now going to find out that we never took out collision coverage.

I’ll be back at the office starting tomorrow and will try to call you from there. I’m glad I’ll be back among people. Just lying around here is not living.

I’ve had plenty of visitors. Old Larschen walked all the way here, his backpack full of homegrown apples — each wrapped individually in rustling tissue paper — that he now placed one by one on the table like precious jewels. The apple, he informed Michaela and me, belonged to the rose family, to which Michaela replied that it had been a long time since she’d received such lovely roses. The two were instant friends. She’s even allowed to read his memoirs manuscript. We invited him to share supper with us. When we sat down at the table, Larschen broke off his excurses on the juniper, lowered his chin to his chest, and prayed silently. Robert witnessed this for probably the first time in his life. We looked at each other, but didn’t dare smile. Larschen raised his head, saying, “The juniper can grow to be five hundred years old, the broad-leafed linden can reach a thousand.” And we were in motion again now too, as if the film had just stuttered briefly. After Larschen left, something of his odor lingered in the apartment. But there was also the fragrance of apples.

Jörg thought he would need to console me, since we’re selling only seventeen thousand copies or fewer. The election will help us, and Jörg is still following leads for a couple of stories from his Commission Against Corruption and Abuse of Office. He’s the only untainted person on it, and so has an easy time of it.

Today Wolfgang the Hulk appeared at the door, along with his equally hulking wife. He hadn’t heard about the accident and they had come to invite us to dinner. When we bought our pots in Offenburg, he had promised to cook for us. (So far we haven’t dared use our pots.) He’s working for Jan Steen now, drives a company car, and is evidently earning such a pile of D-marks that he’s embarrassed to talk about it. Jan Steen, Wolfgang says, reads every word in our paper. He’s interested in everything. When I asked what he himself thinks of it, he gave a tentative laugh. A little more pepper wouldn’t hurt, he said. I reacted somewhat angrily, after all you can’t have a scandal like the Council Library 100every week (and even there everything is said to have been on the up-and-up) or some incident in the schools. 101He responded to my question about his old job as if I were giving tit for tat, though I had asked it more out of discomfiture. From his wife’s hints, I concluded the decision still bothered him. But as for Jan Steen, he didn’t want to hear 102—“a word said against him,” was what I was about to write. It’s almost midnight. Barrista was suddenly standing at the door. He’s incredible. The bouquet was so big that I couldn’t tell who was standing there in front of me. There’s no one I’d have been more surprised to see. He, on the other hand, seemed astonished to find me in “such fine fettle.”

Robert was greeted with the same bow that I received. Barrista spoke to him as if to an adult and expressed his “appreciation”—he knew what it meant to stand all on your own in the marketplace, and told him how very lucky he was to be so young in these times, to be able to learn everything, to begin everything anew. Barrista’s sermon had thwarted Robert’s attempt at flight. Without being asked Robert looked after Astrid the wolf while I laid out napkins for our light supper, adding a bottle of cabernet and a serving fork for the cold cuts, which Robert accepted as concessions made for a guest. (Michaela was onstage, she’s still having to work as the backup in Rusalka. ) 103

Barrista buttered his bread with a meticulousness that I’ve never seen anyone except you apply and positioned his slices of cold cuts with such precision that the curves of bread and sausage were nearly congruent.

As I was about to pour him some wine, he declined it and stared at me through bulletproof glass. Would I be willing and able to drive him to the train station in half an hour? The situation was as follows — and then he explained in great detail and at great length why it was better for him to take the train, in a sleeping car of course, to Stuttgart (or was it Frankfurt am Main?), and ended by asking if he could leave his LeBaron in my care.

Of course I should drive it, he would very much like that, indeed he took joy in the idea. Laying his hand imploringly to his heart, he repeated how happy it made him to think of me driving his car and that he wished in this fashion to be of some assistance to me in the wake of my accident. Of course he had, as always, selfish motives. He couldn’t leave his car here parked in the same spot for several days. “Please don’t misunderstand me, my dear Herr Türmer,” it wasn’t that he’d had any bad experiences here with such things, but one need not provoke an incident, either. If he absolutely could not persuade me, I should at least obey his maxim that one ought never present the state an unnecessary gift — after all the taxes and insurance were paid in full, the car was parked out front with a full tank.

There was just enough time left to make him some coffee. While Barrista excused himself to wash his hands, we slathered a few sandwiches, piling them high with what cold cuts were left, and Robert came up with the idea of sending him off with a thermos of hot coffee. The baron was touched.

I was the one who drove the car to the station. I was afraid that in return we’d be required to take care of the wolf, which sat beside Robert in the backseat. The baron and Robert talked about music, or what Robert calls music. The baron knew most of the bands and even some gossip about Milli Vanilli and their ilk. The source of his knowledge was in the trunk, a stack of Bravo magazines that he bequeathed to Robert. He had already read them himself — it’s required reading, a way of getting some idea of what young people are up to. Which brought him around to his own two children, whom he’s allowed to see far too infrequently. There wasn’t time for more questions. At his urging I tested putting the top up and down — since spring is on its way, after all — and was handed the registration. A can of dog food, a big plastic ashtray (a Stuyvesant cigarette promotion) for a bowl, and his attaché case was all the baggage he had.

He lifted the wolf onto the train, said a quick good-bye, and pulled the door closed behind him. Robert and I followed him down the platform, moving from window to window, watched as he took a seat, opened his attaché case, and extracted a pile of papers. As he read he rested his head against the windowpane, as if dozing. In that moment I think I gained some understanding of why he always has the wolf at his side.