Ingo Schulze - New Lives

Do you know the series with David Hasselhoff and his talking car? 104This LeBaron looks a lot like it. You steer more from a prone position than sitting upright. And that was how I watched people streaming out of the theater as we drove by. I felt like a reptile gliding quietly through the water. Almost in shock, people turned to watch us pass.

Michaela got in without so much as a comment, that’s how despondent she was. She didn’t even say anything about Robert, who should have been in bed by eight. “Just get us away from here,” she said, which I took as a request for a little jaunt.

All the same she enjoyed the ride and smiled when we hit a hundred and sixty on the long straight stretch on the other side of Rositz. When we got home I thought Michaela and Robert had fallen asleep, but actually they just didn’t want to get out of the car.

Once in the living room we pounced on Barrista’s box of candy — chocolates that melted on your tongue. Michaela took one of each sort and, sitting down where Barrista had just sat, laid them on his plate, assuming it was clean. I managed three, Robert two, Michaela ate them like cherries, and took the rest with her when she sat down in front of the television — where she still is, listening to oracles about the upcoming election.

Dear Jo, I find it hard to say anything about your latest work. 105All that seems so far away now. Invented stories no longer interest me. That’s no argument, of course, and certainly no criterion for measuring quality. The new literature, if it does come about, will be literature about work, about business deals, about money. Just look around you! People in the West don’t do anything but work. It will be no different with us.

Say hello to your wife and daughter for me, hugs, E.

[Thursday, March 15, ’90]

Nicoletta, what happened? 106I’m practically numb. I heard about it just in passing from Jörg. But don’t know anything else about it. Why should you care about Barrista? When I think about how I was lying in bed at precisely the same moment, counting the minutes until your departure — and now I know. I suspected something of the sort, something disastrous. But Barrista? What does he have to do with us? When it comes to us, he doesn’t exist. What are you accusing him of? Or me? Why is he important at all? Isn’t he a person who ought to arouse our sympathy, or forbearance? As a man who has to compensate for so much? But none of that matters. Why are you making me atone for what he did? How else am I supposed to understand your silence? At first glance B. seems an odd duck. I have no idea where he gets his strange manners and attitudes. Do they have any purpose other than to draw attention away from his looks? People here make fun of his pointy boots with their out-of-whack heels. Ultimately I can’t tell you anything about B., other than that he approached the newspaper with his unusual request. The explanations he gave for it are flattering. Is there any reason why we shouldn’t cooperate with him?

Where do you know him from? Or was he — I don’t dare put it in words — impolite or otherwise crude? Believe me, it would take no more than a hint of something of the sort — and he can go to wherever!

B. has left, no one knows when he’ll be back.

Please drop me just a couple of lines, I beg you.

With all my heart,

Your Enrico

Monday, March 19, ’90

Dear Nicoletta,

Up until the very last minute I was certain you’d appear at the office, as if there were some natural rhythm that would necessarily bring you back to Altenburg. Sometimes I’m seized with the fear that you might be ill, that something’s wrong, maybe in aftermath of the accident. Have you had X-rays taken?

My desire to see you was so strong that I believed it might conjure up your presence. That’s also why I came to the office early — and thought I had been rewarded. I ran into Georg in the vestibule, and he promised me a visitor, in fact someone was waiting for me. Georg’s smile was so broad I had no doubts whatever.

But I played the innocent — yes, I blame myself for that now, as if my foolishness had driven you away — shrugged, as if I couldn’t imagine who it might be, and asked Georg what needed to be done, hoping you would hear my voice. Of course I had nothing against his going right back upstairs. Ah, Nicoletta, those few moments of promise!

Three men from the newspaper in Giessen sat sipping coffee, happy to have new playmates. I recognized one of them from his lilac-colored jacket.

My responses were mechanical. My thoughts were racing here and there, but at some point I calmed myself with the realization that there was lots of time left, that the day had just begun, so everything still lay ahead of me, a day with lots of hours with lots of minutes — and you might arrive at any one of them. With astounding speed the familiar happiness that comes with such an expectation reasserted itself. The soft light of a spring day too warm for this early in the year could only be your harbinger.

The men from Giessen had been out watching polling stations open and had retreated to our office as if to a pub. They didn’t believe me when I told them I’d been up for only an hour instead of doing research since the crack of dawn. But after I asked them to pass on their article on the general mood, they set their misgivings aside. I laid out the page proofs and started in. I wanted to earn your appearance, Nicoletta, and be finished early.

Each time the door opened it seemed more and more likely that you would appear.

The fellows from Giessen deployed their forces one by one, but were never gone for long. Their favorite story was about how Hans Schönemann, the former “district secretary for ideology and propaganda,” was now a candidate of the German Social Union. Although I told them right off that there were two people who went by that name, the guy with the hedgehog haircut kept telling the story over and over, and left it to me to correct him. Then he would smile as if to say: Are you sure of that?

Around two I stuffed myself with pastries and was afraid you’d catch me with my mouth full. I expected you by five, or five thirty at the latest, at any rate before the polls closed. I was as convinced of that as if you had just told me so over the phone.

Around four I had finished up with everything and would have been done even earlier if I hadn’t had to play host the whole time, as well as putting off calculating the last article. I wanted you to find me hard at work.

Franka had some folding chairs that were usually set out halfway up the back garden — the white paint was flaking and stuck to your trouser seat. We had put the newspaper to bed and had shoved the table’s extensions back in. There hadn’t been that many people in our parlor the day of our first issue. I hadn’t seen many of them since last October or November. Georg announced that he had figured out that anyone born after 1912 had never taken part in a genuine election.

When the clock struck the hour, the sixth stroke caught me unawares. I thought I had counted wrong, but the portable radio also announced six p.m. Squeezed in among the crowd, it seemed to me other people were holding their breath too — utter silence. Until Jörg laughed out loud. Others joined in. Suddenly everyone was shouting something — the prognosticators were vilified and mocked. 107I fought my way outside and climbed up the garden slope.

The fellows from Giessen and a few of our delivery people were still there an hour later. They were sitting around the table where the radio stood — silence reigned. At any given point at least one of them was shaking his head. The fellows from Giessen drew the harshest conclusions, talked about betrayal, betrayal of the ideals of last autumn, and even abandoned their story about Hans Schönemann.