Ingo Schulze - New Lives

“But what do you mean you were waiting?” I asked. He moved the glass he had been about to drink from away from his lips, raised it, and said, “I would have confirmed your account, would have said that we’d talked about it before and that you had told me about writing a story…” His upper lip twitched. “I felt sorry for you,” he went on, “but given how stupidly you acted — a person could almost believe you wanted it that way.” He didn’t respond to my laugh. Then he gazed at me — arrogant, sad, wise, prepared for any deed, and ready to meet his fate. Compared to him, Geronimo was a crude child.

Our food arrived, and Nikolai began to talk about other things. He wasn’t going to be a driver, but was taking over the job of poster painter, which had just opened up, with his own workshop and the whole she-bang. He invited me to visit him the next day, or whenever I wanted, to visit him in his studio. But my decision had already been made: I was not going to tolerate him in my presence anymore.

Enrico

Wednesday, April 25, ’90

Dear Jo,

We’ve moved, and I’m living on the high seas! The floor covering they nailed over the planks was a remnant out of Fred’s treasure trove, and its waves roll higher and higher each day and have turned the oil radiator into a boat that dances up and down whenever I move it around the desk from my feet to my back. That’s the price for my medieval view.

Our would-be visitors often find themselves before a locked house door, because the old couple above us — they’ve allegedly lived together unmarried for forty years now — can’t be convinced not to lock up whenever they leave or enter the building. She in particular, Frau Käfer — everyone calls her Käferchen 184—is a busy little key beaver. Ilona has developed a knack — even in the middle of a conversation and with the windows closed — for hearing someone rattling the door. Whoever does finally risk the stairs up to our office finds himself in a bright reception room — with plants everywhere, which are supposed to distract attention from the shabby Stasi furniture.

Fred has had signs painted on the doors, SALES OFFICE, for example, and written up a list of rules for each room. In my room, I am to note the following: “No more than two people at a time! No jumping, no stomping! Oil radiator, maximum level 2! Upon leaving: turn off lights, unplug all plugs! Close windows!” His final instruction: “No smoking!”—to which he added a handwritten “at least try”—“Danger of fire!”

Yesterday when I joined Fred in a visit to speak with the man from the hardware store — we have to install a new circuit in my room — and asked him to show us the back rooms, they saw my request as the transparent pretext of a spy. “We ain’t got nothin’ to hide,” the boss exclaimed, “if you want to…please…do whatever you want…” And dashed ahead of us. My courtesy didn’t help counter his suspicion. Just the opposite. Each of my questions seemed highly open to misunderstanding, even to me. Finally, as we were leaving the storeroom, his wife blocked the way. There were tears in her eyes as she announced that she wanted “to get some things straight here,” because I probably didn’t know how long they had been running this store, how difficult it had been to put all this together, to build up a business and keep it going. “It didn’t do no good! He’s ruined his health, his health!” Her husband accompanied each word with a sound like a muted tuba. Toward the end of her aria of desperation he chimed in for a duet, which consisted of nothing more than: “We can’t do nothin’ about it, nothin’! Can’t do nothin’!”

“And now you can leave!” his wife said, halting in front of me. Her tears had dried. I invited her to visit our office, told her about the paper—“Yes,” she responded, and it sounded bitter, “we know your paper!”—and offered to run an ad for them free of charge. “Why should we do that?” he asked. “Ev’rybody round here knows us, why would we ever wanna do that?” The daughter, a beanpole of a woman, didn’t even return our good-bye, and instead snorted incredibly loud into her handkerchief as we left the store.

The day before yesterday I had just found the right headline for an article (“The Captains Abandon Ship First”) when Ilona announced three journalists from Giessen. We had spent election Sunday with two of them. Rejoicing in reunion, they raised their arms as if they were going to embrace me. Right behind them came their managing director, whom I’d watched compose page proofs. His air was earnest and reserved. I led them through the newsroom as far as my door, but they climbed with me up to where Jörg, Marion, and Pringel share two large rooms. Once again the guests from Giessen found it all very “exciting,” as if they were expecting some dramatic turn of events at any moment. I asked them about their own article on the election. They acted amazed and were inconsolable that it hadn’t found its way to us. As we sat drinking coffee we lied about our circulation numbers, basked in their admiration — for Jörg’s article and our scandal issue — and listened to remarks about the “strong ad market” that was developing here. After a half hour they departed, with a promise to send the article.

Around six o’clock the managing director reappeared and halted in the middle of the room. I was on the telephone, sitting in Ilona’s chair and waiting for the baron, who had promised to stop by with his lawyer and a surprise. “You were lucky,” I said, “that the front door was open.”

It might well be, he said, that luck was on our side, we were lucky that he had gone to the trouble of looking in on us again. He took a seat in the chair set aside for ad clients.

He wanted to speak with me quite candidly, and hoped we knew how much that meant and would recognize our moment of opportunity. His newspaper had decided to launch a daily in Altenburg — latest printing technology, professional journalism — the jacket section (that is, everything except local stuff) would be managed from Giessen. We should, however, give consideration to the idea of a cooperative effort, which would mean that they would buy us out, but certainly it was within the realm of possibility that “one of you might take over as manager here…”

I interrupted him and walked upstairs. I spoke very calmly, which is why Jörg didn’t react at all at first. “No,” I said, “I’m not crazy. He is sitting downstairs waiting.”

The managing director had to repeat the whole thing, which obviously didn’t improve his mood. Just so we knew the lay of the land, he couldn’t give us any time to mull it over. At nine on the dot the next morning, there would be a meeting to arrive at a decision based on what he took away from here this evening.

Jörg exploded. With Georg he had been cool and methodical, but now he was out of control.

“Of course we can do this,” the man from Giessen cooed, and you could tell just how at ease he felt by the way he stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. What did he, Jörg, expect? A couple of rooms, electricity, telephone — we knew how it’s done. If things had been done by standard operating procedure, it wouldn’t be us sitting in this palace here now anyway, but very different people — and the managing director pointed at himself. Even if one had allowed the locals a head start, that didn’t mean that one intended to leave things that way forever.

Jörg, who for some inexplicable reason was holding his beret in his hands and flailing it about, attempted a laugh. “And who’ll be doing the writing?”

That was up to us. At any rate they had enough pros—“young, ambitious, well-trained people”—who were just waiting for a chance to prove themselves. And there was no lack of local talent either. In response to a tiny ad in the Leipzig paper — the tininess dwindled to next to nothing between his thumb and forefinger — over thirty applications had been sent in, from which they had already invited seven people for a first interview. He didn’t expect any headaches there. And his young friends, who — and we should have no doubt of it — always spoke about us everywhere they went with the greatest respect and admiration, had long since been hard at work preparing the first issues. “They’ve already taken up residence.”