Ingo Schulze - New Lives

I found Anton’s seminar work and translations disappointing. It’s no exaggeration to say that I never heard Anton express an original thought. He reacted to criticism with defiance and even tears, and despite his stubborn resistance to wearing a blue shirt, he folded immediately when pressed to become an officer in the reserves.

Anton had never dreamed of applying for an exit visa. He was perfectly aware that his appearance and choice of majors wouldn’t be nearly as unusual as they were in the East.

When Johann visited me in Jena after Nadja and I had split up — we hadn’t spoken with one another for an eternity — suddenly there was Anton standing at my door, wanting to pick up the letter from his latest sweetheart, which had been sent to my address. Anton paid no attention to either me or Johann, ripped open the envelope, withdrew to a corner, read, whinnying loudly a couple of times, and immediately set to work on his reply. Johann made fun of Anton’s behavior, whereas I had long since grown used to it. All of a sudden Anton asked if he could read us something, but first finished the last few lines of his letter, then sat there pondering for a moment while we waited for his presentation.

Anton read in a monotone, occasionally repeating a sentence, only to correct it on the spot. Anton’s story was about the Good Lord, about how God created man.

After a few sentences Johann and I listened spellbound. What amazed me was not so much the plot as the turns of phrase and details. I recall that there was an angel who comes floating past God singing, “Thou who seest all things…” But God in fact doesn’t see everything. Finally God puts his hands to work all on their own, so that he doesn’t have to take his eyes off the earth. And like children playing hide-and-seek he keeps asking his hands, “Ready yet?” He wants to be surprised. Suddenly something from very nearby plummets to the earth, God fears the worst. And now his hands appear before him, muddied with clay but without any sign of mankind. After a thunderstorm God sends his hands away, “Do as you will, I know you no longer!” And yet without God there is no completion, which is why his hands become discontented and weary and finally kneel down and do penance the whole day long. Which is why it seems to us that God is still resting and that the seventh day still goes on and on.

Johann wiggled his toes in his woolen socks and sought out my eyes. I looked up at Anton like a teacher gazing at his prize pupil and tried to hide my bafflement as best I could.

“A stroke of genius!” Johann exclaimed.

The real shock, however, was that, after asking for an envelope and stamps, Anton now folded up the pages as if he attached no real importance to their preservation. 224

I said we needed to celebrate his accomplishment — and invited Anton to share our dinner. At first I didn’t mind fading into the background. I was the host and my job was to take care of the two of them, who quickly took a liking to each other. What did annoy me was the way they accepted my waiting on them as a matter of course. While Anton ran through his repertoire of views and Johann, inasmuch as he was still under the sway of the story, was prepared to consider them or at least not dismiss them outright (Anton was a great fan of Klaus Mann and Erich Kästner), they began to eat and drink while I was still running back and forth like a waiter between the kitchen and the front room. A glance, a smile — and I would have been placated. Anton had moved on to his preferences in music, and Johann was trying to figure out what sort of music King Crimson played. They didn’t even notice when I raised my wineglass — theirs were already empty again.

After the meal, when Anton got up to go and Johann asked what his plans were, Anton invited him to come along to the Rose. They didn’t return until way after midnight, slept half the next day, and sat around in the kitchen after having first raided my fridge. It was Anton who accompanied Johann to the train station. 225

On Monday Anton told me he thought we had both known Rilke’s “Tales of the Good Lord.” It had been a little unfair of me to saddle him the whole time with my visitor. Did I want to take a walk with him by way of reimbursement? I received a letter from Johann in which he expressed his regrets that we had had so little time for each other over the weekend.

A couple of days later Vera wrote to tell me she had applied for an exit visa and had separated from Roland.

Enough, then, of my confusions for this round,

Your Enrico T.

Dear Jo,

What should we have done, in your opinion? Where else could we have got that many desks and chairs from one day to the next? And it was Helping Hand that got our obolus. Should it all have been demolished and burned? In Jörg’s eyes they’re trophies. During the occupation of Stasi headquarters, 226Michaela pilfered a silver Matchbox-size APC to prove she’d actually been “inside.”

Yesterday morning Ilona greeted me with sobs. Where had I been? She was close to pummeling me with her fists. She had wanted to come and get me, but she couldn’t leave the office unstaffed — and that’s what she had told Herr von Barrista too. He had called and hauled her over the coals three times.

It was a beautiful morning, warm and with lots of birds chirping away. I had bought breakfast rolls on Market Square. I asked Ilona to make us a pot of coffee, sat down at the telephone, and mulled over what it was Barrista might want.

The day before yesterday we were in Giessen. The publisher of the newspaper, who’s not much older than I, received Jörg and me as warmly as you could imagine. We assumed it was a bluff, since not one word was said about the reason for our visit. When Jörg openly addressed the issue and repeated the managing director’s threats, the publisher let loose with a peal of laughter. He knew nothing about that. He was so sorry, yes, really, it wasn’t his fault, or at most only to the extent that he had asked the managing director to extend an invitation for us to meet with him sometime, that was all — perhaps the fellow had thought that was the only way to rouse us to a visit. He couldn’t make any sense of it otherwise. All he had wanted was to learn a little about Altenburg firsthand. After that he gave us a tour of the whole enterprise and invited us to a little festive lunch in a Chinese restaurant, at the end of which he asked the waiter for the receipt. 227

When Ilona, still stony with fright, arrived with the coffee, I put some life back into her face by telling her about the baron’s proposal for a trip to Monte Carlo. It wasn’t until Ilona pointed to the telephone and reproachfully exclaimed, “And you ain’t got nothin’ to say about that, huh?” that I noticed the silence. And it wasn’t just the telephone. There weren’t any visitors either. I picked up the receiver and heard the dial tone.

Ilona watered plants, I sharpened pencils. When she sat back down with her hands in her lap and stared at her shoes, I told her she needed to find something to do.

She said she’d been here till ten the night before trying to get caught up, she couldn’t get anything done during the day. “This is spooky,” she cried, and started crying again. “Really spooky!” And then Ilona, who is constantly and for no good reason the victim of exaggerated fears, asked, “You don’t suppose something’s happened — an atom bomb?”

I sent her to the market so she could convince herself this was not the case. After she left, I sat there alone, waiting; I would have been happy for any call, any visitor.

When the phone finally rang, I flinched. I answered and right away I knew from the baron’s “Well, how’s it going?” that the world was in shipshape order. “Guess what I’ve got for you?” I would have loved to have shouted, “It doesn’t matter what you’ve got for us!” and wasn’t the least surprised when the door opened and Jörg and Marion entered.