Ingo Schulze - New Lives

Mario gradually began to show some theatrical qualities when doing quotes. He seemed especially taken by the word “shot,” which he repeated several times. From here on I had the impression he was speaking more and more to me.

“During this period of standing we were frequently maltreated and humiliated. The man standing to my left had his legs pulled out from under him, he fell flat on his face on the hardwood floor. Any movement was repaid with blows by a truncheon. A fourteen-year-old young man requested that his parents please be informed, and added that he had kidney problems and had to take medication. For that he was beaten and led away. When you could no longer stand, you had to kneel down on the backs of your hands until they swelled up. I had to listen to things like: ‘They’re all ringleaders, we’ll be giving them a good hard look.’ And: ‘His won’t be the first skull I’ve cracked, or the last.’ We were called ‘Nazi swine’ and heard threats like ‘Now it’s time to play Chile.’ Around 5 a.m. — my watch had been broken during a beating — we were regrouped several times. The large window was opened. It was drafty. I no longer had any feeling in my arms and legs. I fainted at one point. That was when they bandaged my head, but it wasn’t long before I had to return to my row. After another regrouping my row was shoved into another room. There was a bucket of tea. One of us then had to crawl around on his knees and clean up the mess on the floor. Then we were given bread and lard. Then regrouped again. Finally we stood for a long time in a hallway, near the kitchen. Another identification check. Then we were called out one by one. My name was included, too, my real name. Until then they had just called me the Indian. ‘What, y’mean to say we got Indians here too?’ A police lieutenant in civvies, lent for the occasion from the criminal division, did the questioning. Then it was back down to the room. As before, 1 or 2 guards stood in the doorway. They were charged with making sure no one slept. Whoever showed a sign, even the slightest sign, of dropping off, was hauled to his feet and freshened up, which meant special treatment out in the hallway. ‘Tired? Well then, wake up!’ They made sure we could hear them going about their business out there. Those who received special treatment came back with no blood left in their hands and for several minutes couldn’t even hold on to a mug of tea. One well-dressed gray-haired man sat inert on his chair, staring apathetically straight ahead. One side of another man’s face had been badly beaten, it was swollen and bloodied. An older man very plainly dressed had hands that looked like pulp. At the end of my interrogation I signed a statement. A woman in uniform, a captain, gave me my ID back, handed me a notification of disciplinary proceedings that I had to acknowledge with my signature, and asked if all my personal effects had been returned. After being advised to cut a wide path around the Central Station, I was released at 6:30 p.m.”

Toward the end here — there is no reason to keep it from you — I have departed from the printed version and relied more on my own memory. But even with my changes there is no way of capturing the eeriness of it all, which grew sentence by sentence, almost word by word. Mario was sweating. Toward the end he started and concluded almost every sentence with a burst of laughter. He downed what was now a cold cup of tea in one gulp.

Geronimo stared wearily into space. Mario insisted we break this up. I don’t know why I didn’t stay behind with Geronimo and wait at least until Franziska returned. We hadn’t exchanged two sentences with each other. I led the way down the stairs, and heard Geronimo lock the apartment door behind us.

Mario asked for a ride to the center of town. Just when I thought he had fallen asleep, his eyes flew open and he asked whether I still wrote poems.

At an intersection between Fucík Platz 294and the Kupferstich-Kabinett we caught up with the demonstration. I stopped and let Mario out. Our good-byes were brief. As chance would have it, someone took a photograph, and so that’s how I ended up in Geronimo’s book. Except I’m the only one who knows that. In the photograph at the top of page forty-five, I’m the driver standing beside the open door of his Wartburg.

I had just waved to Mario, who had called something back to me over the tops of other people’s heads — my eyes were following his white turban — when I heard my name spoken behind me. I turned around and there he was, coming toward me on raven legs, shoulders raised, smile askew, his hand extended. His feet looked like they were still stuck inside his father’s work shoes. I shook Hendrik’s hand. “I’m looking for my mother,” I said. We should get together sometime, he said. I asked whether he wanted a ride home. He no longer lived in Klotzsche, he said. Shortly thereafter I lost sight of him too.

As always when I was home alone, I lay down on my mother’s bed and soon fell asleep with her nightgown tucked under the pillow. 295

Your Enrico

Monday, May 28, ’90

Dear Jo,

If you were a local politician you’d be calling every day to announce you’ll be mailing us a letter — or maybe will just drop it off yourself — in a last desperate attempt to get on the list of candidates for a five-minute audience with the hereditary prince. Thanks to two pages on “His Highness,” our latest issue sold better than our scandal sheet.

The first resolution of the first meeting of the first freely elected people’s deputies in a little less than sixty years was an invitation to the hereditary prince — Barrista had more or less made the matter conditional on a unanimous vote, since “His Highness” did not want his wish realized in the face of any opposition or reservations. Even our members from the Party of Democratic Socialism thrust their arms high. They were all grateful that they could begin their work with an act so pregnant with symbolism. First they praised us — the visit carries the epithet “organized by the Altenburg Weekly ”—and then themselves for attempting to revive a tradition eminently important for the city and region after its having been suppressed and suspended during the decades of socialist dictatorship. At the local dance school they’re already practicing curtsies.

A couple of black sheep are trying to sidle up to the hereditary prince behind our backs. Half of them want to touch him up — which, according to the baron, the prince wouldn’t even regard as brazen impudence.

The baron has bought two large apartment houses, one adjacent to the other. On the north side, facing the street, they are black with soot. And his enthusiasm likewise remained a riddle as we stood in the stairwell. The high ceilings with their ornamental plaster and antique doors made the deal more plausible. Every apartment has two wooden balconies, one of which is to be converted into a winter garden. And the view! To the south it’s a direct shot to the castle and — on clear days — to the crest of the Ore Mountains. The facade of the castle glistens like a snow-capped peak in the twilight. In the distance, a dark blue streak. And as if that weren’t enough, down below is a meadow filled with fruit trees and ending in a rocky drop-off ten or twelve foot deep, which marks the beginning of the backyards of properties down in the valley. Renovation of his favorite bit of real estate will be done around the clock, since he pays in cash.

Even though I think I’m hardly pampering myself, in comparison to others I live an almost contemplative life. Andy not only wants to open a second shop, he’s also taken it into his head to open a car dealership just for 4×4s — something you won’t find anywhere around here thus far. Even when I drive home at midnight, the lights are still on in Cornelia’s travel agency. You can book with her now too, and not have to pay until July. People stand in line outside from morning till evening. Her husband, Massimo, wants to open up a pharmacy in the polyclinic, which is why he commutes back and forth two or three times a week between Fulda and Altenburg. Recklewitz-Münzner is recruiting partners here, offering continuing education classes, and buying up one piece of property after the other for himself and others. Together with his friend Nelson he’s reconnoitering for places to put gas stations. Olimpia, Andy’s young wife, who speaks every language on the globe, is doing research for Jewish organizations at the land registry office. And Proharsky, the Ukrainian, has gone into debt collecting on behalf of his whole family, and thus for us too. Need I even mention that all these threads come together at Fürst & Fürst Real Estate?