Wolfgang Hilbig - The Sleep of the Righteous

Maybe you got a reference like that from me one time, you just don’t know it. Could be, eh? — I see him grin in the morning light. — But this isn’t getting us anywhere. Come on, join me for a bit!

He noticed I hadn’t given him a clear enough dismissal, but that probably wouldn’t even be possible. The clearest no bounces right off them; if there’s anything they’ve learned, it’s how to ignore rejection. I light a cigarette as well:

All right then, let’s walk around the block. .

I wasn’t one of those who had to loiter on the street, he begins his story. At least not for long, I didn’t do so well there. Pretty soon I stumbled up the ladder, they saw what I was better at, and soon I had a desk job. I liked dealing with written material, but I wasn’t terribly good at writing reports. I handled evaluations: for instance, this and that is perfectly fine, this or that can go through, or that there mustn’t get where it’s going. In other words, I read the things my poor victims wrote, and believe it or not, I always served them well. .

That’s what they all say!

I know, but still, that’s how it was. If there was something in there that was outright embarrassing, I kept my mouth shut. Tighter shut than the people who’d written these things. . He laughs and chokes on his smoker’s cough.

You’re trying to tell me that the. . the victims had no idea what a friend you were to them?

Oh! He’s still coughing. That’s nice of you, but honestly, it’s much too nice. .

So, if you weren’t a stool pigeon on the street, what were you, a kind of case officer?

I don’t know exactly, and it doesn’t matter anyway. We called ourselves a secret service, you know, so we were secret on every level. As I said, I stumbled up the career ladder quite quickly. If I’d wanted to, I could have asked to get an informer. . a stool pigeon, we called them that ourselves. And I tried two of them, but they didn’t pan out. You’ll. . you’ll laugh, but I’d have liked to get you. .

Very flattering, I say. What was so appealing about me?

Oh, he says, you were difficult, that’s all. You were unreliable, always caught up in your own craziness. And that would have been totally convincing. You were always running away from things, completely egotistical, phony, and neurotic, a real artist, in other words. All that stealthiness of theirs was second nature to you, they wouldn’t have had to give you a new image. Officers with charisma, no, we had enough of those. But you. . you would have been it !

Well, and. . what put you on to me, anyway?

Quite simple, I was responsible for reading the mail.

You’ll excuse me for thinking that’s a pretty sleazy job. Quite clever, by the way, to wait for me here at the mailbox.

Yeah, that was kind of dumb! He says it with a grin. But we always did call for an ability to free-associate. Besides, you didn’t want to go to the pub with me. And incidentally, sometimes I’d wait for you at the mailbox back then, too; there was a vacant apartment nearby, and I could watch when you came, almost always at the same time. But I did that on an extracurricular basis, it was almost a hobby of mine. As I said, I started to take quite an interest in you.

A hobby! I repeat. So that’s why you’re here. . you’re just keeping up your hobby!

Sensing the anger in my voice, he suppresses his ironic tone effortlessly:

It was more than a hobby! I can tell you — in this case I was more on your side than on my Firm’s. It’s true, you were an extracurricular pursuit of mine, even after closing shop, so to speak.

But that’s how your Firm wanted it. Vigilance by day and night, round the clock, isn’t that so?

You know your stuff, he noted dryly, but you misunderstood me. I meant the big closing-shop. . I meant when everything closed down, the state, the Party, us, the party newspaper, and the whole centralism thing. Don’t you think we still had a few people in the post offices afterward who were quite capable of picking out the things we needed. .? Oh, give me a light again, would you!

I give us both a light, and we go on walking our common path; I’m silent while he speaks:

You know, your private letters interested me more than your, so to speak, business correspondence. Hey, don’t get excited, now. . by the way, I know that for you everything was private. Even your business dealings with publishers and so on, that was ultimately private as well. That was the thing about you. .

You call those business dealings!

Well, that was how you made your living. . sometimes better than I, but that’s not what it was about for me, that you can believe. I was more interested in the human side, as they call it. Now you’ll yell that we had to be interested in that side, working for the Firm. . oh yes, I know all that. Let me tell you, more than once I risked a disciplinary transfer for failing to report certain things, practically hushing them up. .

Heroic! A resistance fighter, that’s what you were!

Just as little as you. As heroic as you. When I read your mail, sometimes I’d sit there thinking, what business is this of mine? Here I am, I thought, constantly dealing with all this paperwork, and what am I missing out on in the meantime? Nothing the whole time but letters, letters, words, phrases! And now and then you take notes, and they’re in writing too. It’s like a blanket of writing covering everything. . and often enough it’s illegible writing! A film you maybe can’t see through anymore. A haze of writing. . and can you even still see the life behind it? Is there actually still flesh behind the writing? Or just more writing? Does this writing mean just writing now, or did there use to be something else behind it? Is this writing just writing about itself. . didn’t there use to be women there somewhere? But is a woman really still what this guy means? These were the things I thought about.

A haze of writing, I repeat, that’s probably quite well put.

It could’ve come from you. Maybe it really did come from you, and I just. . what’s the literary term. . appropriated it?

You read it somewhere. Still, I don’t doubt that you really felt these things.

Yes, well, I was a real bloodhound. I even found out the woman you were writing those lovely cards and letters to. I don’t know if you remember her, it’s ten years ago now. Ten years ago or longer, first the cards came from the east, then suddenly from the west. I mean that little woman from Leipzig, who wanted to be a writer too. . nothing like you, of course! Marie A. was her name, I think, just like in Brecht. A name for a Madonna, eh. .?

He breaks off; with his keen instincts he noticed quite well how I flinched. I’d flung the half-smoked cigarette in the gutter and immediately lit another one. The name’s been said. . I feel I’ve been expecting it the whole time. I don’t know how to describe my feeling: rage or horror; at any rate, I feel exposed. . a feeling they still manage to provoke, with the same ease as ten years ago.

Ah, you’re seeing red, he says. Take it easy, we’re men of the world, after all!

Her name was Marie H., not Marie A., I say. But I’d rather we stayed on the subject of literature. You know the poem by Brecht. . could you explain that to me, so I can be impressed?

No, no! he replies with a laugh; it seems to hold something like relief. No, it’s nothing, really. .

I say nothing, taking hasty drags from my cigarette; without my noticing, we’ve already passed the mailbox and are heading around the block for the second time. — He’s got a hold on me, I think, just the way he meant to! With an effort I remind myself that I must have an edge on him as far as my relationship with Marie goes; he can’t know how things stand now ; he’s speaking of a state that’s passed, washing the dirty linen of his memory. . all the same, it’s a nightmare.