Ingo Schulze - New Lives

With that, I left the classroom to wash my hands.

When I returned Geronimo was encircled by our classmates. They stood so close to one another that I couldn’t even see him. And so we parted without saying good-bye.

Suddenly I shuddered at the thought of transforming this scene into literature, either immediately or in the future — of turning my greasy hand into a metaphor. Because I have never succeeded in doing so, my recollections of that day are still very clear. 134

Saturday, March 31, ’90

Dear Jo,

Events have come tumbling one after the other over the last few days, and I’d give a pretty penny to know how we come off once you’ve read this.

Friday we were all sitting together in the office — Georg, Jörg, Marion, and I. We needed to decide whether to publish an article submitted by the local Library on the Environment. It’s not about Altenburg, but about Neustadt an der Orla, a town in the loveliest part of the Thuringian Forest, where a farm factory for fattening two hundred thousand hogs was built in the midseventies. Children in the area were having asthma attacks, pollution of well water was ten times above allowable limits, villages were getting water only from tank trucks, and so on. Pipping Windows, which places ads with us, wants to buy into property there. The crucial issue is that they also want to take over management of the hog farm. But the farm belongs to Schalck-Golodkowski. Eighty percent of the hogs were for export. All of which prompted an environmentalist to write an open letter to Herr Pipping, whereupon several of the comrades she mentions in it filed suit against her. You’ll get to read about the whole thing.

Georg, who usually keeps meticulous minutes, sat there propped on his elbows, deep creases between his eyebrows, hands covering nose and mouth, while he listened to Jörg read the article. If we publish it we’ll lose the account of the Altenburg subsidiary of Pipping Windows — and at two columns/sixty, on a weekly basis (one-year contract), with 50 percent surcharge for the last page, that loss comes to 10,870 marks, more than half of it paid in D-marks. And what’s more, we can’t check the accuracy of the article, nor can we know the legal ramifications of publishing it. It’s a head-on attack, based solely on our confidence in the environmentalists. On the other hand there’s no one we trust more than Anna, the Jeanne d’Arc of last fall. Other papers had squirmed out of it. Pro and contra cancel each other out. But there came a point when there was no ignoring Georg’s silence.

“I’d like to propose to you,” Georg said with a smile, tucking his head between his shoulders, “that we shut down the paper.” As he went on talking his forehead shifted swiftly back and forth between a smooth surface and deep furrows. We should hold out until local elections, 135and with that our job would be done.

There suddenly came a moment when I could no longer endure his smile. I despised him. There was nothing left to mull over. He wanted to rob us of our daily bread and drive us out of the same office into which he had lured us with his promises in the first place. I despised him for his arrogance — an arrogance at odds with the world because it is what it is — for running off in pursuit of this idea or that, of essential, philosophical ideas, instead of holding one’s own in the everyday world. All his qualities, some of which I admired, others merely respected — his deliberate meticulousness, his honesty, his doubts and self-inflicted agony at being unable to write even a few normal sentences — all that suddenly seemed childish and despicable because he let himself defeat himself, because he was not willing to do battle with himself, because, to put it succinctly, he acted irresponsibly.

“And what are we supposed to do?” Jörg asked as calmly and amiably as a radio moderator.

Georg — I don’t know what else he expected — seemed to be in torment at having to say anything more than the remarks he had evidently prepared.

“We’ve failed,” he repeated, “we didn’t take our job seriously enough.”

Jörg wanted to know what job it was he meant. Flaring up and gazing at me for the first time, Georg replied that that was surely clear to each of us.

I told him to answer Jörg’s question, after all we’d all burned our bridges behind us. 136

“The world lies open before us,” Georg said. “Let’s not forget that!”

Jörg had leaned back and kept pressing his pencil with the tip of one finger, as if playing Pik-Up Stiks. Marion followed Georg’s lead and said that, yes, she was in full agreement with him, but chose to draw another conclusion — that from now on we should do everything different and better.

At which we all fell silent.

There was the sound of footsteps outside, but Jörg and Georg didn’t stir. I heard a resigned laugh from Ilona, who had been told that we were not to be disturbed. Then the baron entered, our most recent issue in hand. Had we been waiting long for him? He apologized and took off his coat. Ilona brought some fresh water for the wolf.

Georg virtually turned to stone. Jörg requested that Barrista leave us alone — the future of the paper was on the line here. Then the only sound to be heard was the wolf lapping water, and then, as if the animal were bothered by the silence, even that stopped.

“Most regrettable,” was Barrista’s initial remark. He should have been informed before now. Scheduled for today was the first discussion of preparations for His Highness’s visit, a summary of which lay in triplicate before us. He had the welcoming statement with him and a letter for us written in the hereditary prince’s own hand. Most regrettable, but under such circumstances he had no choice but to arm himself with patience, most regrettable as well because the number of letters in reply to his ad had far exceeded all expectation, which meant nothing less than that our little newspaper was indeed being read by, was of uncommon interest to, businesspeople.

Her face drained of blood, Ilona was standing beside the stove. “But you’re not really going to do that, right?” Her pleading eyes wandered from one of us to the other. “I don’t even have a contract yet…” She sobbed.

It would be helpful to be immediately informed of our decision, the baron continued coolly, since the prince’s visit dared not in any way be put in jeopardy. He led Ilona out, the wolf trotting behind them. The door was left ajar, so that Barrista’s attempts to console her were still audible — and sounded like the same English singsong I had heard on the first evening we met.

“We’re going ahead,” Jörg said, turning to Marion. And then to me: “Right, Enrico, we’re going ahead? No matter what, we’re going to keep going!”

Then Jörg turned to Georg and asked him — warily, as if inquiring of a patient — how long he was willing to grant us the right to stay in his home, whether Georg was agreeable to providing us asylum until early or mid-May, presuming we couldn’t find a space before then, whether Georg — Jörg kept addressing him by name more often than was necessary — could keep the rent at its current level, and whether Georg had any suggestions of how we should deal with the telephone bill. “But of course, but of course”—it came from Georg in a stream. Jörg proposed we keep Georg on salary until the end of July, paid in D-marks, and asked if that would cover the transitional period.

But of course, that was very generous, Georg said, but it wasn’t necessary. Jörg thought it was, and asked if we could count on Georg until the end of the month. But of course, but of course! Jörg proposed that we publish the hog farm article.

I found it a bit much when Georg and Jörg extended hands across the table and Georg then held out his hand to Marion and me as well. Eyes glistening, he departed. Hardly a moment later, Ilona was standing before us. Fred appeared just behind her.