Ingo Schulze - New Lives

At this point in her narrative Michaela blew her nose. The toilet paper rustled on the coconut-fiber mat.

They figured, Michaela continued, you could talk to the ones without helmets. Thea spoke to several of them, each time mentioning her birthday and the children and guests waiting for her at home. When she got no reply she raised her voice. She hadn’t realized that it was now forbidden to return to your home — that would be just like this government, they might as well arrest her on the spot. Thea had just turned back around to Karin and her, Michaela, when three men in civvies stormed through the cordon and pounced on her from behind. One of them had stepped between her and Thea, which was why she, Michaela, couldn’t say exactly what happened to Thea in those few seconds. Thea had screamed, probably in pain. They both could see Thea holding up her ID as she was led away. Then she had vanished behind a truck. They picked up Thea’s purse, gathered up the spilled contents, and discussed what they should do now. They tried to describe for each other what the three Stasi guys had looked like, but had to admit that they could never identify them in a lineup. Five minutes later they saw Thea being thrown into a truck by two cops. She and Karin could swear to that.

They fled back into the pub and called Thomas, Thea’s husband. Karin began to weep hysterically and had to stretch out on the bench of the corner table reserved for regulars. They could hear screams coming from the street, and new people kept dashing inside, many with scrapes, bruises, and bloody noses. They were all afraid the uniformed brigade might storm the pub. She, Michaela, had almost wished they would, since just waiting was the worst thing of all.

When they got back to Thea’s apartment around half past midnight, all the birthday party guests were still sitting there. Thomas had first yelled at Michaela and Karin, as if they were to blame for Thea’s disappearance. More than ten guests had spent the night in the apartment — on the floor, in armchairs, sleep was out of the question in any case. Thomas spent the entire night making phone calls. He also drove to the police academy in Rummelsburg, but no one would let him in. They waited the whole day and left the apartment only to take the children to a playground.

Talking had helped Michaela calm down somewhat, but only to the extent that she could now be all the more vehement in her self-accusations. Thea had called to them as she was arrested. She, Michaela, had even tried to hold on to Thea, but had been pushed back by the cordon of uniformed men. Michaela broke into tears again now. One of the policemen — or whatever that uniform of his was — had asked her if she wanted to end up there too. “End up there,” those had been his words, and it had been clear that “there” was some horrible place. But now she could only ask herself why she had been so horrified, why she hadn’t joined Thea as she ought to have. “No!” Michaela cried, rejecting all our attempts to comfort her, it had been her duty to follow her and not to have let that “there” frighten her. She could understand Thomas’s reaction — of course he was right to reproach her. “I let it happen! I abandoned her!”

Robert sat there totally helpless at her side. Then Michaela stood up and announced she was going to the telephone booth to call Thomas. Besides, she could use the fresh air.

Robert and I ate alone. As we were washing up, he told me how his homeroom teacher, Herr Milde, had said we ought never shed a tear for those who turned their backs on our republic (a well-worn phrase in the newspapers at the time), but that his friend Falk had responded that he was sorry that Doreen, his deskmate who had emigrated with her parents a few days before, was no longer here. At first Herr Milde hadn’t reacted at all, but then had admonished him to raise his hand if he wanted to say something. Falk had then raised his hand, but wasn’t called on. Herr Milde had said it would be easy for a boy like him to find a prettier girlfriend than Doreen. Robert asked me if he should have raised his hand too.

“Bad news,” Michaela said. It seemed to me as if at some basic level she was proud of the fact. Karin had stayed with Thea’s children, Thomas had written up a report on Thea’s arrest and read it aloud in Gethsemane Church before posting it there. Karin had signed as a witness and had given her address. Karin had promised Michaela that she would add her, that is, our address to it as well. “All hell must have broken loose there,” Michaela said.

We were at the theater by a little before ten the next morning. There was a press of people in the dramaturgy office, a long, low room directly under the roof.

Michaela at once grabbed for the telephone receiver, clamped it to her ear, and put a finger to her other ear while she talked.

Most people seemed to have ended up there out of pure boredom. They inspected our little library, paged through old programs, and spoke about productions and colleagues, as if this were what the occasion required. Each time the door opened, conversations faltered for a moment.

Amanda from props appeared and shortly after her our stage manager, Olaf. Norbert Maria Richter hadn’t arrived yet. Amanda lit a cigarette and asked what we planned to do. “I’m not planning anything,” I said.

Some were discussing a resolution that came from the Dresden Theater and was to be read from the stage there, others talked about blood banks and hospital wards cleared for patients. Word of it was in fact circulating in Leipzig, Patrick confirmed — Ellen had called him at the theater just to tell him about it. Amanda showed us an article from the Volkszeitung. “Working People Demand: Hostility Toward the State Should No Longer be Tolerated!” read the headline. A cadre that went by the name of Geifert felt inconvenienced by certain unprincipled elements disrupting their well-earned rest after a day’s work. The conclusion: they were ready and able to defend and protect the work of their own hands and to effectively put an end to these disruptions once and for all. “With weapons in hand if need be.” I read the article aloud and passed the newspaper around. Amanda held her cigarette butt under the tap and laid it alongside others next to the soap. She smiled.

“Today will decide everything,” I heard Michaela suddenly declare. “If we fail today, then we will have failed for good.” Her eyes wandered from one person to the next. “If we ourselves don’t take to the streets today, we’ll be betraying every person who’s been arrested and tortured.” This was followed by her report of what Thea had just told her.

Michaela took time to give her speech, rarely raised her voice, and let everyone sense that she was struggling to be factual and understood that she had to hold her emotions in check — this was, after all, her best friend. She sounded a lot like a television reporter when she mentioned a girl who had been forced to strip and then chased naked along the hall to the laughter of the police. Thea had been spared that bit of martyrdom. But she could still feel the blow to her head — she had lain unconscious in the truck for several minutes. But even worse was the pain in her back, her whole right side was one single bruise. They had been beaten at every turn, even when they were standing facing the wall with their hands behind their heads. And some of the younger guys had frisked them over and over again.

After thirty-eight hours without food or sleep they had been released. Yesterday evening someone had thrown the switch for all the streetlights in the area around Gethsemane Church and then uniformed men had started whaling away — to the sound of church bells ringing out a tocsin.

“If we don’t act today,” Michaela said, giving her coat collar a tug, “we’ll have squandered our chances for a long time, maybe forever.”