Ingo Schulze - New Lives

There were always two or three waiters tending to our needs, young fellows who marched through the dining room with shouldered trays and, as they served up plates at breathtaking speed, removed the domed silver covers with a coordinated grand gesture as if on command. One of them would then solemnly announce the name of the dish.

Twice, without any consideration shown to other guests, the lights were turned off. The first time flames danced above the shoulders of our waiters, the second time the spray of sparklers glittered, followed by noisy minifireworks at the table. It couldn’t have been more spectacular. Michaela applauded like a child each time.

We would barely take one sip of wine and the baron would refill our glasses. He was pleased with himself and the world and led the conversation with a sure hand on the reins.

He revealed to us a few of his habits. He sleeps till nine, likes to take long walks out of fondness for the wolf, spends several hours in the city archives, and then rewards himself with an hour in the museum. Granted, whenever he and the hereditary prince had talked about his visit, the prince had insisted that he, the baron, seek out the museum, but had never been able to give the baron a true conception of what he had missed in life until now — nothing less than the key to happiness! We really should have our ears tweaked. Why had we not taken him by the hand on that very first day and led him to the museum, for it would have spared him many a gloomy hour of helpless brooding over the fate of the town. “What you have here,” he said, “is a Louvre en miniature, don’t you know that?” And segued at once to his Madonna again, which is slowly becoming an obsession with him.

As if to spare us further reproach, Jörg began to talk about Nietzsche’s father, who had been a teacher at the castle. Jörg didn’t get very far, however, before the baron interrupted him. Out of the blue he offered to write an article for our local pages. From the attaché case so familiar to us all he extracted a couple of photographs that he first showed to Michaela and Marion. He wouldn’t have had to say another word. Marion tried to shy away, Michaela stared at me, as if comparing the picture with me. The baron explained in a chatty voice that they were taken in February ’41. On Altenburg’s Market Square — the savings bank and the steam-driven Winkler Wurst Factory could be made out in the background — a woman’s hair was being lopped off before an assembled horde. Another photo showed her seated on a horse-drawn wagon, surrounded by a crowd of about two to three hundred spectators, maybe more. In the second picture she still had a headscarf on, and her chin was resting on a sign: I HAVE BEEN EXPELLED FROM THE PEOPLE’S COMMUNITY. A third photo showed her and an older man, with a hat and glasses, who was cutting her hair, after having first bound a traditional white cloth around her shoulders. The fourth also showed him “hard at work.” In the fifth her head had been shaved bare. The sixth picture was of her walking through the town. She was accused of having had intimate relations with a Pole; her husband was a soldier.

What he’d like to find out, the baron said, was where she had lived, whether there were still relatives. Photo in hand, he had visited the spot today where it had taken place.

It shouldn’t be difficult to find out the name of the barber or the circumstantial details of these — yes, you only had to look at the happy faces — these revels. What did we think? Shouldn’t we search for witnesses and question the townsfolk? If the photograph were enlarged, people could be recognized more easily. Promising to write an article, he gathered up his pictures again and carefully stowed them away.

“Local news with a twist,” Michaela said, raising her glass to the baron. She drank a lot, in fact.

Suddenly the baron leaned across the table. “Look there,” he whispered, pointing his head in the direction of the entrance. I didn’t know who he meant, since there were several parties standing there looking around for a table. A tall gaunt woman with an angular face and black hair made a beeline for our table. The man preceding her barely came up to her breasts. “Caesar and Cleopatra,” the baron said sotto voce. There really was something Egyptian about the woman’s hairdo. In the next moment the short man grabbed the back of one of the empty chairs at our table and was about to launch his question with a smile, when Marion and Michaela erupted into laughter. I couldn’t contain myself, either.

“I’m sorry,” the baron exclaimed. “We’re still expecting more guests.” The mismatched pair stood there as if searching for some explanation for our bad manners. Jörg, who had held out the longest, was now leaning forward, bracing himself against the table with one hand and covering his eyes with the other. His shoulders were bobbing. Marion and Michaela took turns chortling. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth.

“I’m so very sorry,” the baron repeated.

“Well, enjoy your evening,” the short man replied, less angry than confused, which set Michaela into a new round of laughter, and the rest of us with her. My laughter was so out of control that the harder I struggled against it the more violently I shook. I have no idea what had got hold of us. There was absolutely no reason for us to carry on like that.

The baron tried several times to make some remark, but was so helpless against the demon that had seized us that he testily excused himself and left the table. As soon as he was just a few steps away, we fell silent. We stared at one another, each waiting for the other — and nothing happened.

I felt wretched, compromised. We just sat there speechless — excruciating doesn’t come close to describing it. It was as if the baron had annulled all words, gathering them up like playing cards from the table. And we had no choice but to wait for his return, for him to deal them again.

In those few minutes we seemed to destroy everything that held us together. The silence devoured everything we had ever felt for one another, it wolfed down respect, dignity, trust, affection, love. Had someone compelled us to disband at that moment, it would have been forever.

All of a sudden the baron reappeared. As he was about to resume his seat, Michaela said, “We’ve calmed down, do forgive us.” He took her hand and kissed it.

But now, just when the opportunity presented itself for us to forget the matter, the next catastrophe followed immediately on its heels.

Michaela suddenly raised her arm as if to signal a waiter, which was an instant alarm for the baron. “Something you need?”

I turned around. Standing in the path of the advancing phalanx of waiters were Wolfgang the Hulk, his wife, and Jan Steen. The three stepped aside, but as their eyes followed the waiters, they discovered us.

Wolfgang and his wife came over to greet us. The baron, to whom Michaela was about to introduce the pair, did not even put down his knife and fork, and turned away from her to speak to the waiter.

In order to salvage whatever could be salvaged, I joined Wolfgang as he walked back to Steen. In that same moment a new dish was solemnly unveiled. Steen asked who the silly ass was that we were sitting with, and insisted we join him at his table. There were several things he wanted to talk over.

I begged his pardon, asking him to understand our situation — whereupon in midsentence Steen lost all interest in me, sat down, and picked up a menu. The baron, on the other hand, chided us, muttering something about the quality of the cuisine losing every bit of subtlety once it had turned cold.

Whether by chance or on purpose, the courses now followed one another without the least pause — until the lights were doused again. For Steen that was the last straw. He, along with Wolfgang and his wife, departed then and there, without so much as a glance our way.