Ingo Schulze - New Lives

And like some stroke of grace a fly joined me. It whirled around my head, and suddenly I could see an illustration from a physics text before my eyes: an electron orbiting the nucleus of an atom. 246

The fly landed on my left shoulder — I flinched and then held my breath. Had I scared it away? The fly dared not abandon me, it had to stay, the only living creature standing guard with me, my sole companion. When I felt it stir, I again held my breath and relished its touch as if it were a caress. Have you ever let a fly crawl over your shoulders and back? In the midst of my fear that sooner or later the fly could forsake me, for the first time in my life the idea crossed my mind that the world, just as it is, might end up lost to me.

It was not fear of nuclear war, of the end of the world. It was the fear that everything from which I took my bearings could be lost; the structure of the world to which I had adapted the permutations of my thoughts and emotions, might vanish from one day to the next, leaving nothing more than a great emptiness behind. Just as I had feared I would be inducted into the army too late, so now I feared that before I could fire my gun all the real game would be slain and only mice and rats would be left for me.

It was an absurd thought, but no less absurd than sitting naked in the woods, happy and grateful for the companionship of a fly.

Only the fly and the pain just above my heart seemed to exist, the sole realities at my disposal, the one thing that prevented my thoughts and emotions from evaporating into weightlessness.

On those spots where my sweat hadn’t dried I sensed a draft, and I felt chilled. With empty brain, with empty heart, yielding to my fate, I crept back to bed.

When I awoke, it was warm and flies, a whole swarm, were buzzing above me.

I presume that by now you think I am indeed crazy or at least more than a bit odd. But viewed from the present, that nocturnal experience is one of the few episodes that I can look back upon with sympathy for the person I was at the time.

But to return to Altenburg, to which I traveled in early September ’88, before starting my last year of studies.

Flieder’s rehearsals of Julie deserve a chapter of their own. Read the Strindberg play again yourself and pay attention to the breaks, to the steady flow of staying — going — staying — going. In a certain sense it was so much about me that it was eerie.

No less eerie was the realization of how closely related directing and writing are. From Flieder I learned that the purpose of dialogue is not to communicate something, but rather to clarify the relationships among the characters. That it doesn’t matter what the characters are talking about as long as you know what you want to say. That there is hell to pay if you neglect even one of the relationships, that not one item, not a single step in the choreography can be ignored.

Is there anything more beautiful than a plausible character? If I were able to attain Flieder’s level in my own writing, my novella would be a masterpiece. But then why, I anxiously asked myself, isn’t Flieder a famous director?

But what would Flieder’s rehearsals have been without Michaela! I was allowed to gaze at Michaela, to observe and study her, and no one, including her, could reproach me for it. One of my tasks was to devour her with my eyes. I dreamed that Michaela and I were a couple. This fantasy collided, to be sure, with my desire to leave the country as soon as I could. But I kept postponing taking the step — out of concern for my mother, only because it seemed better to first get my degree, because I hadn’t heard from Vera since her departure. And I had put on blinders to the fact that day after day Michaela arrived and departed with Max (our Jean). From her first marriage she had a son who sometimes waited for her in the canteen, where he painted or played cards with the kitchen staff.

After a rehearsal at the beginning of my second week, as always I gave Michaela a good-bye hug — and our cheeks touched. I was about to stand up straight again, but she held me tight — for an eternity, or so it seemed to me. And then as always Michaela climbed into the Wartburg with Max. I took that long hug to be part of the ragtag intimacy typical of the theater. The next evening, however, the same farewell repeated itself. This time I likewise held Michaela until she couldn’t stand tiptoe any longer. After Wednesday’s rehearsal we ran into each other in the entry to the canteen, or better, we ran toward each other. I still had my notepad in one hand. It would be too much to claim that the way she moved told me everything, but it would be no exaggeration to say that we virtually flew into each other’s arms — we were lucky not to have stumbled on the rippled linoleum.

“Do you know how to drive?” was the first thing Michaela whispered in my ear. She asked me to wait, stepped into the canteen, and returned with the keys to the Wartburg. It belonged to her, or actually to her mother, but neither of them had a driver’s license.

I drove Michaela home that evening for the first time. The light was on in Robert’s room. She called back to tell me what time to pick up her the next day, and ran off. The heels of her shoes echoed in the horseshoe of the new apartment building — and for whatever reason it filled me with pride. I stood at the open driver’s door, one elbow propped on the roof — it was as if I had won first prize in a raffle.

The next morning she asked me if I was a free man, whether the difference of seven years — she had found that out somehow — mattered, and whether I realized that she would always have to take Robert into consideration. Before I could answer, she gave me a kiss, and then Max rapped on the windshield.

I waited by the car for Michaela after rehearsal. When she finally appeared I could tell she wanted to leave with me. She said that I had on the shirt she loved to see me wear. I turned the ignition on, she slipped her left hand under my collar, I drove off, and we both stared straight ahead as if into heavy fog.

We scurried past the front desk; I had intentionally not left my room key with them. In the elevator Michaela said she felt like a fraud for having been taking the pill all this time. Robert wouldn’t be home before four thirty, so we had a little time. She pulled an alarm clock from her purse, and set it.

Once in the room, Michaela pulled down the blinds and drew the curtains. She extricated herself when I started to unbutton her blouse. She wouldn’t even let me watch her undress and called me out of the bathroom only after she was lying in bed with the covers up to her neck. At first I thought it was a game, but Michaela had very definite notions of what all I was and was not allowed to do.

Before evening rehearsal began, Flieder said he had done some rescheduling and needed only Max and Petrescu. Michaela and I drove to the hotel, and once again I waited in the bathroom until she called me. I asked her why she was embarrassed in front of me. I’d learn that soon enough — or maybe not — Michaela said, holding a hand over my mouth before I could ask the question I was on the verge of asking.

Later on we fell asleep and didn’t wake up until after midnight. In sheer panic Michaela could barely dress, but insisted that I turn my face to the wall.

The light was on in Robert’s room. I waited and listened again to the echo of Michaela’s footfall.

During the days left before semester began, we saw each other only at rehearsals. It was now Max who was again driving her between home and the theater.

A few weeks later Michaela revealed to me the reasons for her puzzling ritual. “It has to do with Robert,” she said, “with his birth.” I didn’t understand. “A C-section,” she said, and stared at me almost in fright, only then to suddenly bark at me, “It left a scar, a big, ugly scar.” I said that was no news to me, but only now had I made the connection.