Ingo Schulze - New Lives

In October 1980—I was in the twelfth grade — I received a telegram. Geronimo asked if he could spend the night at our place that coming Saturday, and noted his time of arrival. It’s not as if I had expected a visit from Geronimo, but I wasn’t surprised either.

Geronimo had definitely grown, he was clearly taller than I, his hair fell down over his shoulders and was so greasy it glistened, so that my mother asked if it was raining.

When we sat down to coffee, he polished off our weekend supply of rolls and scraped the last bit of honey from the jar. My mother covered her faux pas with a steady barrage of questions. Each began with “Johann,” as if she were calling on him in class.

After he had eaten his fill, we retreated to my room, about which he had no comment, not a single syllable, in fact he didn’t even seem to notice the splendor of my books and pictures (the latter on loan from Vera). I asked who he planned to visit in Dresden — no one except me. Was there a concert or a play he wanted to attend — not that he knew. He answered every question with monosyllables. If I fell silent, he remained mute too. I didn’t know what to do with him. My question about where he intended to study theology 154arose from the same awkwardness as the rest of my inquiries.

I assumed he was fed up with my queries and that that was the reason he was staring at me so angrily. And then Geronimo began his monologue. The sentences were declarative, but their intonation was that of questions, as if he expected to be contradicted. Life wasn’t worth anything if death was the final station. “Without eternity,” he said, “our life is meaningless.”

Geronimo went on and on and seemed somehow furious with me. What was he getting at? I saw only his desperation, which culminated in his assertion that it didn’t matter to him if he went on sitting in his chair or threw himself out the window. I realized that for him God and the meaning of life were still one and the same thing.

My shrugs only increased his rage. He pressed his lips together and stared at me as if my silence were the same silence into which he used to maneuver me three years before. What did he want from me? So I did exactly what I had been prepared to do.

I opened my desk drawer and took my treasure from its hideaway. I was scarcely still capable of listening to Geronimo. My fingertips tapped the pages into place. I barely cast him a glance as I said that this stuff was what held me above water. I handed my work to him, to my important reader — and slipped out into the kitchen.

When I returned to my room with two glasses, Geronimo was sitting there just as before. Finally he raised his head. He wouldn’t have had to say a single word, and certainly not a string of adjectives, all he had to do was to look at me like that, shaking his head in disbelief. It wasn’t a success — it was a triumph!

It wasn’t Vera and her entourage who made a poet of me, it was Geronimo. I believed him. He said things that it would be ridiculous to repeat today, but at the time were tantamount to my consecration — and his subjugation. That he was able to offer me such praise surely came from the fact that he himself had lost his footing.

The whole evening Geronimo talked about nothing except my poems, as if it were up to him to convince me how extraordinary they were. And I made every effort to reciprocate his pathos as best I could. I could tell him now just how overwhelming my response to him had been at one time, how much I had longed for him to be my friend.

There is a kind of openness that finds every trace of distance to be a blemish. After Sunday breakfast, my mother asked me if Johann had been crying.

We talked and talked without letup, but neither was there any letup in my fear — that with one false word, one nod given too quickly, our euphoria would be transformed into a will-o’-the-wisp. As the conductor flung the door closed behind him, I felt almost as if I had been redeemed, as if only now was his praise irrevocable.

Although that weekend might be regarded as the date of the true founding of our friendship, out of tact I also never reminded Geronimo of that evening.

When I got back home I sat down at my typewriter and began my first letter to him. “Dear Johann,” I typed, left one line blank, and placed my fingers on the keyboard the way I had been taught in typing class. “Darling Johann,” I said softly. “My darling Johann.” 155

Trusting that you’ll continue to listen to me, I send warmest greetings,

Your Enrico T.

Dear Jo,

The weekend was a nightmare! Now that the panic is over, even I can see that I looked somewhat ridiculous. But first the good news: We’ve found a new — admittedly ramshackle, if not to say dilapidated — domicile for our headquarters. It’s a miracle! After even Fred’s connections as a hometown lad proved futile and except for innkeeper Gallus — whose job it is to keep his guests in good spirits — no one even dared try to keep our hopes up, it was once again the baron who helped out. I’m gradually getting used to it.

When, he declared, would we finally understand what a newspaper is for: ads and local news! He would, needless to say, put at our disposal all replies he had received to his real estate ads. Unfortunately only one was worth our consideration. It sounded to us like music of the spheres. The baron came just short of apologizing for having rented a splendid villa for himself without having first offered it to us.

Once we heard his proposal, it took us barely half an hour to find our way to Moskauer Strasse 47, 156which runs between the Weiber Market and Jüden Gasse. As we waited for the owner, we were like children waiting to open their gifts — and got a nasty surprise. Who showed up? Piatkowski! Him and a long drink of water.

Piatkowski was panting as if he had had to drag the long drink of water the whole way all by himself. Even after Piatkowski and the baron shook hands we still didn’t want to believe that this was the person we had been waiting for.

Supple with the joy of enterprise, the baron gave his hips a roll and asked Piatkowski to lead the way. The first issue was whether the building pleased his clients, and then we’d see what we would see. The long drink of water shouted that he and Herr Piatkowski had already come to an agreement. We were to keep that in mind, please.

The long drink of water had a trained voice that carried very well. One after the other the heads of a father, mother, and daughter appeared in the display window of the private hardware store located on the ground floor. They watched the proceedings without returning my greeting. Passersby slowed their steps.

The baron paid no attention to anyone — neither to Fred’s babbling about urgency and being a local, nor to the other fellow’s booming voice. He gave Piatkowski a smile.

Unable to shake us off, the long drink of water stuck close to Piatkowski’s side, amiably and politely bending his ear, but he was the first to slip into the darkness that now opened up behind one panel of the wooden door. His voice echoed as he praised the ancient plaster. “Fantastic!” he exclaimed. “Fantastic!” His footsteps faded, but then quickly returned. “What’s wrong?” he asked Piatkowski. “Aren’t you coming in?”

The baron had come to a halt in front of Piatkowski and stared at him before admonishing us: “Keep your eyes peeled. If you see any shortcomings, we’ll ask for the rent to be reduced.”

The building is nothing but shortcomings. The long drink of water, however, found it all fascinating, enchanting, and “an exciting opportunity”: the smithy in the rear courtyard, which along with roof tiles, dust, and cat shit contains an anvil on a massive wooden base; the half-timbering — absolutely worth keeping! — and then there was the plaster, over and over, and at every mention it aged a couple of hundred years.