Ingo Schulze - New Lives

No sooner had the lieutenant, an introverted computer science student, announced the results than a “storm of indignation” burst, derisive laughter and lots of catcalls. Gorbachev had been in power for a few weeks.

During the pause I was summoned by an officer, a colonel, who taught plastics in civilian life, who knew me by my first name, used the familiar pronoun, and did everything he could to “appeal to my conscience.” I was told I shouldn’t ruin my career for the sake of a few stupid remarks. He called me naive, accused me of a “running-your-head-into-the-wall” attitude. I should make compromises and so on. I replied like some simpleton that I was merely expressing my opinion, just as was always expected of us.

“It isn’t worth it, Enrico,” he shouted, “it really isn’t.” Resignation now dragged his voice down to a low, trust-inspiring register. I let him talk and gazed at the thin smile of a Honecker portrait against a blue background. And from one moment to the next I no longer felt like a castaway, but was once again the captain of my ship, the only honest man still standing, who was not going to let himself be infected with this general depravity.

I answered the poor lieutenant’s question about where I had been — I was late getting back to the seminar room — with a smart-aleck “Where do you suppose?” which I regarded as a strong gambit.

Within the hour I might very well be dismissed from the university. This sad sack of a lieutenant, this tool of fate, didn’t know himself which end was up — at least the red splotches on his neck seemed to indicate as much — but was able, strangely enough, to hold to his guidelines. And so inside of a few minutes he would have me on his conscience for the rest of his life.

I let question after question go by without volunteering an answer. But while I lay in resolute ambush, something happened that you might call either touching or dreadful: my chess partner from several desks away passed along a note with the “right answer.” One after the other they stood up and answered; some were given two, even three tries.

When I finally raised my arm, all the other arms dropped. They were directing the poor lieutenant’s attention to me. But it wasn’t me who was called on, it was my neighbor.

Before I could raise my arm again, I heard my last name, and a drum-roll inside my head. I asked the poor lieutenant to repeat the question.

I answered hesitantly, as if struggling with myself, wrestling for the truth, this time I added the adjectives “stupid” and “inhuman.” I hope, I concluded, that I’ve expressed myself clearly this time. From both the silence in the room and the look on the lieutenant’s face I assumed that that was that.

Everyone had “passed” the test. The lieutenant announced this at the end of the hour almost casually and left the room without another word. They celebrated me as the victor, wildly clapping me on the shoulder and back. The fact that I stood there turned to stone was taken as baffled happiness. “I never believed,” the jock from the bunk below me confessed solemnly, taking me in from head to toe, “that you belonged to the firm.” 205

On the evening of a day that began with a whistle to wake up and calisthenics, I found myself in Prague, a beautiful woman from Salzburg in my embrace.

I had spotted Nadja on the milk train as it pulled in (as I recall it was coming from Linz), and was standing directly in front of her as she set her foot on the platform. She pushed me away, dropped her plastic bags and suitcase, and threw her arms around my neck. As if playing peek-aboo, from over her shoulder I watched the other passengers detrain.

“Let me have a look at you,” Nadja exclaimed, as if she had finally thought of the right thing to say. She was wearing the same brown suit she had on when we had said our good-byes in Dresden. Suddenly she pressed her lips to mine, thrusting her tongue deep.

We took a taxi to the bed-and-breakfast, which was in Vinohrady, a neighborhood of villas. It was all a little dilapidated, but neither the rotting fence nor the rust-eaten garden gate with mailboxes dangling from its chicken wire could diminish the elegance of the house. Walking between tulip beds and fruit trees, their fragrance heavy in the air, we approached the front door, where Frau Zoubková awaited us. She was holding Dora — a bitch both black as hell and somehow weary of life — by her collar. Frau Zoubková’s felt slippers made it appear that she shuffled around in them all day just so she could polish the linoleum. Most of the time she moved along close to the wall, and would wait until one of her guests left the kitchen table and made a beeline for the door, only to follow after and erase the trail.

Frau Zoubková occupied the two top floors, living in two rooms adjoining the kitchen on the second, and renting out rooms on the third, each designated with a symbol on the door: sun, stars, moon.

Do I even need to mention that we were given the sun room? The high windows faced south, where we saw, if not the city itself, the suggestion of it just beyond white treetops. The splash of a fountain and the chirping of birds were the only sounds.

I didn’t even know the names of some of the fruit that we rinsed off late that evening — under Dora’s mournful gaze. More astonishing still: grapes at the end of April — sort of like Christmas cookies at Easter. Nadja liked such comparisons. She gave me a sample of each fruit, and I had to say what it tasted like and reminded me of. Meanwhile I watched Nadja’s hands redden under the cold water as they peeled and sliced and constantly shoved things into my mouth, until I couldn’t chew and speak at the same time, which set her laughing, and the more she laughed the more nimble her fingers became, the more lively the play of tendons on the backs of her hands…Suddenly I firmly grasped her forearm — not to make Nadja stop, but because it was all so unbelievably beautiful.

I licked the drops from the palm of her hand, let my tongue wander a second time, starting at the wrist and following her lifeline just to make sure I had found them all, and I thought the dry sweetness tasted like grapefruit. Scraps of fruit waved like little pennants from Nadja’s fingernails — green, red, white. She shoved fingertip after fingertip into my mouth, brushing them against my teeth. Like a blind woman, she groped across my face, up and down my nose, tracing my eyebrows and lips, while I opened her blouse and pushed up her T-shirt.

We froze when we heard the creak of the wooden stairs, listened — water was spilling onto the tile floor. The sink was running over! Nadja turned the tap off, plunged her hands into the water, scooped the peelings out of the drain, turned slowly around to me, raised her arms, and stretched, as if to show me her breasts. I was just about to kiss her when I felt drops falling on my head. Nadja was still holding the peels in her hands. Dora, the hound of hell, lapped water from the floor.

We went to work like half-naked strangers, tidying up, rinsing off, packing our things, then waited for each other outside the bathroom before climbing those endless wooden stairs up to our room.

I saw Nadja’s silhouette against the window. She still had her panties on. It sounded like a confession when she whispered in my ear that she was having her period and we couldn’t do it today…I didn’t understand why that should stand in the way, why one thing excluded the other, but was likewise — I must admit — relieved.

I learned soon enough how unnecessary my scruples were. Nadja had a gift for making me feel like the inventor of all these unfamiliar caresses.

Then, it was toward morning, there came a moment when I feared I had spoiled all our happiness. Nadja’s head had returned to my shoulder, and automatically I said “Thanks”—everything she had done seemed so incredible. But the instant I uttered it, I felt her stiffen, and I knew how wrong, how stupid I had been. Her face appeared above me, she propped her head on one hand, stared at me, smiled, and wanted to know what number she was for me. I hesitated. “Out with it,” she said. I raised my left hand and spread my thumb and forefinger.