7
Then I woke up in a double bed with starched sheets; on the pillow beside me slept a single long dark hair. That made me very happy, although I wished that I could remember who my co-dreamer had been; on the other hand, if I really chose to know, I could have made inquiries through the Gehlen Organization. Throwing a white bathrobe around my shoulders, I opened the French doors and stepped out upon the terrace, enjoying the sunshine on my bare feet, and the lovely terrace-view of the squat white dome of our Great Hall of the People—how fine it felt to be home again! I let my gaze be carried down the wide white boulevard which passes through the Arch of Triumph (which of course overtowers the French original), then widens, widens again into a perfect white channel in the white maze of Berlin; it becomes a narrow strait between watchtowers, then widens into a horseshoe-shaped courtyard gripped by the rectangular wings of the vast white ministry where our sleepwalker watches over us. Just then my case officers knocked. I rushed back to bed, and hid the long dark hair beneath my pillow just in time. There were three of them—GRAENER, who bore no resemblance to GREINER; HAVEMANN and PFITZNER—and they trooped in almost shyly, because I was their hero, you see; they gathered around my bed, smiling forgivingly. The anti-sleeping pill was working even better than expected, they assured me. I shouldn’t feel discouraged. With a wink, GRAENER patted my pillow and added: The German people need romanticism once more. Then PFITZNER raised the syringe: Here we go again! Close your eyes! They re-injected me into the Soviet Zone.
8
This time I was getting better at, at, so to speak—my God! Now I was thought-stuttering like him—
I swam through Europe Central, which is an aquarium scattered with the stone shells of ancient Polish institutes. I went to Moscow, which might well have been Leningrad, found Shostakovich, and shot him as dead as I could. That is what I did, more or less. He was alone that time; he must have fallen out with G. I. Ustvolskaya. This time I finished it. I transformed him into a new man. When I’d completed my world-historical mission, he was smashed like the stone lion of Potsdam, and his brains were scattered over three rooms. Since there was one bullet left, I also made sure that his heart had stopped. I repeat: It was only a question of time and manpower. Then I slipped the Walther back into the pocket of my trenchcoat. I was on my way out when he said to me: My heart is actually, so to speak, inside that piano. I wouldn’t have minded if you’d actually, er, written me out of the score, but unfortunately you’ll have to . . .
How could I bear to look at him? And the timbre of his voice, my God, my God! What was he going to say about me behind my back? I went out into the snowy street, trying not to fall asleep amidst the translucent rushing crowds. Evidently there was more, how should I say, complexity to this situation than I’d been informed. Well, that’s not uncommon in intelligence work. Was I in over my head? I’d better return straightaway to the office and request a deeper briefing.
L. Moholy-Nagy once wrote: Penetration of the body with light is one of the greatest visual experiences. And so I came back into my Germany, the real Germany, where the sunlight was as white as Heydrich’s hands.
9
Who moves the mover? inquired the pale man in dark glasses. He seemed far unhappier than I. He longed for the old days when soldiers, not dreams, marched through the Brandenburg Gate. He reminded me of his chief grievance: They all dance to Shostakovich’s tune.
I felt so ashamed of my failures that I simply bowed my head. HAVEMANN waggled a finger a me.
Somehow the brightness felt less bright. It was doomed since it was already articulated. What if even the pale man were doomed? I’d begun to feel more suspicious of him, although I still declined to fear him, since I had so easily tricked him. Reminding myself that I had often voyaged eastward of my own volition, I shored myself up; wasn’t I doing exactly what I wanted?
PFITZNER entered the room, bearing more silver bullets on a tray. GRAENER brought me a ring of invisibility. The pale man, frowning and rising, said to me: You’ll be in our thoughts when you’re on the other side.
Then I wondered: What is the other side?
10
That night I had to meet them on Stresemannstrasse. They injected me into the Russian sector right across from the ruined dome of the Haus Vaterland. It took six motivated ex-Nazis to lift up the Iron Curtain for me. There was no distinction between them and me, except that they knew who they were. One of them slapped me between my shoulderblades and whispered: Thank God somebody is finally doing something.—Another one slipped an American cigarette between my lips. NEY whispered a report into her empty basket. Then off I went. I felt as lonely as a dispatch rider cycling off into the enemy’s field of fire.
I floated around, trying to get my bearings.—We’re going to get all that back, the pale man had insisted, but what exactly would we get back? Was he longing for the good old days of Kontroll-Girls in three grades and Bubis in long coats dancing with their Mädis in lesbian bars? The sleepy feeling retreated, leaving me as nauseous as if I’d overdosed ever so slightly on some narcotic.
Location: East Berlin. Russian soldiers were carrying messages in and out of what used to be our Air Ministry, with the Wall before them. I could hardly prevent myself from envying these individuals. They seemed so happy, with their smoke-blackened faces and their looted wristwatches! (Top secret: Their Party already planned to make office blocks out of the Cafe Kranzler.)
This time I had brought with me, disguised as a rolled-up umbrella, one of those old Faustpatronen we’d handed out to the old men in the Home Guard at the very end; this one-shot weapon was meant to kill a tank, and my plan was to blast it through both of Shostakovich’s pianos, in hopes of finally stopping his heart. The pale man in dark glasses would have been disappointed to be informed, if he hadn’t been already, that I’d given up on his silver bullets. As much as I cared to please him, I preferred to be returned to the list of people who could be trusted. The worst part was knowing that I couldn’t trust myself.
As for the ring of invisibility, I’d already lost it. Well, in every mission something goes wrong. No doubt there’s a scientific explanation for that.
Before I knew it, I was in a wintery sort of place whose frosted icicles reminded me of the snow-white walls and crystal bed of the Cave of Love in Gottfried’s Tristan. Somebody was kissing me; I’m fairly sure that this time it was Elena Kruglikova. Now here came evenly spaced tanks (three abreast) clanking down Gorki Street. Quick! I dodged out of sight. Elena seemed disappointed, but only for an instant, since I wasn’t real; she was already dreaming of someone else, probably a certain, well, you know. Where was he? I spied the triple smokestacks of the Aurora protruding from the harbor’s ice; over there, the Univermag Department Store memorialized Stalingrad; now if only I could see the Bronze Horseman . . . Pretty women from the Home Guard marched past the long facade of the Winter Palace, with their rifles pointed at the sky; they hadn’t yet begun to starve. Then I heard the inimitable sound of Shostakovich’s fingernails clicking down on piano keys; he was about to play this reduction of the Seventh Symphony; Elena Kruglikova was already beginning to sing. There he was! I could see him perfectly through a frostless circle in the window. What an interesting composition it was, without atonal fallacies; the Rat Theme especially, which made me want to dance. (But I’m positive that had I not been eavesdropping, it wouldn’t have appealed to me nearly as much.) I waited until he had finished. He rose from the piano bench, bowing awkwardly, with his fists clenched at his sides, and E. Kruglikova, who in real life might never have met him (I have no confirmed information on this), smiled lustrously; she was wearing a formal black dress and a necklace of frozen tears. Their friends applauded, thereby imitating static on a clandestine radio.
Excuse me, excuse me; it was nothing but a little nothing, apologized Shostakovich (who was codenamed ELENKA; I neglected to tell you that.)
Standing on my tiptoes, I fist-rocketed him as planned, following up with light machine-gun fi
re until everybody was dead, blackened and pockmarked like Saint Hedwig’s Cathedral—you can count on it! He was gone, just like the Romanisches Café. His severed hands scuttled inside the piano, where they doubtless lived in some sort of nest or spider-hole; but I had plans for that piano! Two hand grenades later, I couldn’t even have picked my teeth with it, it was so perfectly pulverized. I waited. Very cautiously, blood began to leach out of that pile of sawdust, so I must have gotten his heart at last. Then a sky-blue icicle peeped out, so I stamped on it.
I know I should accept it and simply, so to speak, be, well, dead, said Shostakovich, carefully inserting the bloody teeth back into his mouth, especially since not many people listen to music nowadays. It’s all very . . . But I can’t. There’s something in me that won’t let me accept, how should I say, fate.
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I certainly couldn’t imagine the report I would need to write. Instantly, I was suffering what we used to call a crisis of nerve—bring your own gas mask! And Shostakovich kept pattering on:
Maybe on account of that bastard, you know who, that Kremlin mountaineer who climbed up his heap of corpses; I could have been one of them, but somehow I was never able to surrender, musically I mean, since of course I did abase myself in every other way—not that I joined the Party, at least. Come to think of it, if you want to kill me you’re going to have to make me write false music—
Clearing my throat (why not try to be pleasant?), I ventured: What about your “Song of the Forests,” Herr Schostakowitsch? Isn’t that a bit of Stalinist ass-kissing?
Not at all, my dear friend! I said, not at all! You see, even there, there’s parody—not that that bastard would ever notice—and it’s swollen with self-loathing. But the one I loathe tonight is you. Just because you’re a monster, do you have to be an idiot?
Herr Schostakowitsch, I’m as tired of this as you are.
Now he could put his spectacles back on, so that he could glare at me. He said: Once or even twice, that’s, you know, because I kept saying to myself, he’ll learn. But you haven’t. This is almost not funny anymore.
11
With perseverance I’d get him. Back in Berlin-West, I took a sleeping tablet and dreamed of Valkyries. When I woke up, I went to the office, where they gave me American instant coffee. The pale man wasn’t there, but somebody codenamed LEHMANN told me that they were all proud of me; even Adenauer had been informed. Would I like another coffee? I felt valuable. This would constitute the turning point. It had better, since my existence in both zones remained potentially punishable.
I could see a long line of shabby shoes marching eastward under the Iron Curtain, and in a counterattack of self-confidence I told myself: Let those poor dreamers queue up to be examined; as for me, I’ll come and go as I please; I work for the Gehlen Organization!
If only I hadn’t misplaced that ring of invisibility! (The problem was that I couldn’t see it.) At least I had the latest crop of silver bullets; PFITZNER had assured me that they’d been blessed by a Croatian priest. If I failed this time, it would truly be my fault. How embarrassing, that Shostakovich considered me to be an idiot! Once upon a time, in some fairytale or other, I used to think well of myself, but I don’t remember when or where. At least I had one thing going for me: I was a realist.
At 0210 hours I breached the Curtain through a cellar in the ruined Kaiserhof Hotel. They had cut a diaperlike flap of grey Ur-metal to hang down across the broken stairs, and it proved more challenging than I had imagined to worm myself underneath, for it was so heavy, cold and dead; at least it wasn’t yet poisoned or electrified. Anyhow, up I came. No more dancing with Aryan girls at the Berolina Haus! Smashed tanks around the smashed Reichstag, black marketeers doing business in the moonlit grassy rubble all around (because the People’s Police couldn’t crack down on everything yet), this was not the Berlin that I could have imagined back in the days when our stone eagles flew. If only LEHMANN were here to repeat how proud of me they all were!
All the same, the instant I reached the East I’d begun to feel different, as if I’d escaped from false consciousness. They were marching, or gliding as I should say, beneath a banner which proclaimed their lives better and more joyful; I got caught up in their emotion: Life seemed that way to me. I dreamed about marrying the owner of that long, dark hair, whoever she was, just as soon as the pale man confirmed my presence on the safe citizens’ list. Or arguably I’d go into currency speculation. But first I needed to be vigilant. Suspecting that once again Shostakovich might doublecross me, I resolved to keep calm no matter what; according to any enlightened calculus it didn’t matter if he got to play dead once or twice more. Eventually he’d stay dead. After all, if he didn’t, how would I ever get my name moved from the bad list to the good list?
At a café in a ruined courtyard I stopped for a beer. Didn’t I have the right? I was an operative in good standing of the Gehlen Organization! On the radio, Klavdia Sulzhenko sang “The Blue Kerchief.” The war had died; that song was getting old; then again, so was I. But the beer was good; it actually tasted like something more than dreamwater; night by night I was adopting a more realistic attitude to the East. For instance, the Iron Curtain was better for both sides; I’d realized that now. It used to be that the NKVD drove right into West Berlin to kidnap people they didn’t like, and once they were back in the Russian sector there was nothing anybody could do. Now we were safer from them, and they were safer from us; that was why LIFE HAS BECOME BETTER. I was also thrilled by the degree to which this zone had retained its infinite character, endlessly bearing dark grey European field-rectangles outlined in white or sometimes silver; this unlimited aspect reminded me of the good old days when we’d dreamed of a summer to which no one else could put a final four-beat rest. When did Europe actually come to an end? In the Urals, so I’d been advised, there were places where the map had been crumpled into mountains, that was where the Frost Giants dwelled. But first things first: I’d now perform Opus 110: “The Execution of Dmitri Shostakovich.” Poor man! It was nothing personal. Time to fly over ruins, ruins again, orienting myself (assuming that I actually cared to be oriented) by those parallel railroad tracks as multitudinous as the music-lines for a single measure of Wagner’s Ring; long trains rode them eastward, bearing German prisoners and machine tools.
Someone tried to kiss me, but I’d have none of it; I wasn’t about to let myself be caught in an East German honeypot trap. The waitress brought me another beer.
Now where was I? Was I drunk or merely sleepy? How long ago had Klavdia Sulzhenko finished singing? I wanted a warm voice to drink; Elena Kruglikova’s would do, but better yet would be that sweetly husky cigarette smoker’s voice of Shostakovich’s bisexual Muse. Hiding in the oblivion behind a hill of rubble, I spied on a bright-lit doorway which was all that remained of a building; its broken brick edges ended as distinctly as a starfish’s arms; they were dead white against the darkness; and within the doorway was also darkness; foregrounded against that darkness stood Elena Konstantinovskaya with her hair down and her brown eyes wide with sadness and love.
Knowing that in Dreamland one meets the anima wherever one goes, I left that incarnation of her to grieve in peace; doubtless she’d just separated from Shostakovich. Verification (achieved through Zeiss lenses): Tears nearly as large as grapefruits were rushing down her cheeks. I’ve heard from Comrade Alexandrov, who continues to closely follow this case and who’s codenamed LYALKA, that the last thing she said to him, or rather called out or sobbed out as she went down the stairs, leaving our composer writhing on the bed like a loathsome worm of agony (she’d kissed his mouth, then his forehead, then one last time his mouth; he’d kept his lips closed) was that she was sorry and that she loved him. He called down that he loved her, too. If this intelligence is true, then what? I theorize as follows: She was afraid of being alone with him, isolated, locked into a dark bedroom beneath the piano keys. She screamed an obscenity at him; at least she didn’t break dishes.
He expected her to change, in order to accommodate his desire! (Am I thinking of Shostakovich here or of R. L. Karmen?) That was why she’d left him twice already; and that third time, when it was really him forcing the issue, he asked her to write out on music-paper what she wanted of him; he wrote out what he needed of her; he agreed to everything she wanted of him but now she refused to believe that he could live up to that, and she for her part couldn’t do what he wanted, which was to give him ever more of herself; she feared being consumed; and so the last time he’d come to see her they quarreled and hadn’t made love at all; then the time after that, which was the absolutely last time, when she’d come to take care of him after the first time I assassinated him, she’d slept with him, but only slept, and with her clothes on; she’d embraced him, but never closely enough to stop the draft which blew in between them, and when he’d begged her to hold him tight she’d angrily refused, and so they were compelled to part forever; it was she who pronounced the sentence, but only when he asked her; and she could have been willing to go on as they were—poor Elena!—she didn’t want to lose him or hurt him; she was sobbing and sobbing as she went down the stairs forever, with big tears speeding down her face. I can’t say I didn’t long to comfort her.
But maybe it never happened like that; maybe she never left him. I was in Dreamland, so I might have been getting Elena mixed up with Lina, who left me before Operation Citadel; I forget why; sometimes we forget in order to, you know.
Well, now that she’d officially left him, I wouldn’t be hurting her if I shot him. The theme I meant to instill—renunciation, letting Elena go, helping her find her ideal one, her true Shostakovich—could best be played out by liquidating the false one upstairs.
The American bombers had blown off the front wall of this stage set, so I took aim, but every bullet turned into a black music-note that screeched straight into his heart!
Europe Central Page 69
