The Valley of Unknowing

by Sington, Philip

  ‘And that isn’t all, I’m afraid,’ she said, over the muffled sighs and groans. ‘As you know, the council granted us leave to develop this site nearly two years ago. They have just informed me that if the swimming pool is not near to completion within four months, they will find another use for the land.’ Her voice became softer. ‘And we will have to give up on our plans.’

  Nobody spoke. Frau Wiegmann, I couldn’t help but notice, was looking at me.

  ‘We’ll find another Begler,’ I said finally. ‘Or we’ll find another source of cement. Look outside. The city’s full of the stuff.’

  Frau Wiegmann smiled and nodded. I saw now why she had been so anxious that I should attend the meeting that day. She had been counting on me to take up the banner, to help carry the torch in this hour of need. And I would too. It was either that or my battle-weary Sonja, who had already lost so much, would lose her faith as well, the one thing she had left. I felt a joyous compulsion to rush to her aid, to be the champion – in fact, the hero – of that dark hour.

  ‘What do you propose, Herr Krug?’ she asked. ‘Is there someone you could talk to?’

  Everyone in the room was looking at me, the People’s Champion. I couldn’t disappoint them. ‘There’s always someone. Someone who knows someone.’ My face was burning. ‘We must press on as planned. The cement will come!’

  ‘Well, that is encouraging,’ Frau Wiegmann said, addressing us all. ‘I knew we could count on Herr Krug in a crisis. I would like to propose a vote of thanks.’

  And, in spite of my protests, a vote was taken and passed, after which there was a wholly unexpected round of applause. Then discussions moved on to the subject of electricity.

  I said nothing else for the rest of the meeting and left as quickly as possible. By that time my sudden flush of ardour had all but disappeared, to be replaced by a weight of obligation. But as I trudged home across the soft, new-fallen snow, I felt increasingly confident that the cement could be procured somehow. It was simply a question of petitioning the right people and doing something for them in return.

  7

  The next Monday morning I had business in the city centre and stopped off at the publishers on the way. It was an opportunity to give Michael Schilling the promised raincoat, and to find out more about Richter and his book. Why didn’t I drop off the manuscript at the same time? Firstly because I wanted to reread it. Secondly – and perhaps this was less than magnanimous – because I didn’t want to admit that I had finished it, not in a matter of two days. That would have meant that I had liked it – loved it, in fact – and I was not sure I did love it. It is very hard to love something that unsettles you, even if the unsettling (like the loving) stems from its manifest power.

  I was surprised to find Schilling’s son Paul slouched in the corner of the office, smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine. His father explained that he had taken the day off from his job at the gun club and would be catching a train back to Berlin that afternoon. From the shifty look on the boy’s face, I felt sure this was a lie. Most likely he had simply done a bunk.

  ‘We’re going to have lunch together first,’ Michael said, smiling down at his progeny, his hands braced awkwardly against his hips. ‘I want to try and fatten him up a little, as my mother would say. Put a good meal inside him.’

  I laughed supportively at this display of familial normality, but it seemed to me Paul Schilling was in need of more than a couple of bratwurst and a dollop of potato salad. The fact was he looked awful. He wasn’t only thin (arguably a family trait); he was very pale, his skin waxy and pimply, and beneath his eyes were dark pouches that looked like the aftermath of a fight. As a boy, even as an adolescent, he had promised to be much more handsome than his father, having inherited most of his looks from his mother, the dark and lovely Magdalena. But none of that counted now. What remained of his youth was clearly being eaten away at a terrible rate. It was no wonder his mother had been worried.

  I attempted some light conversation with the boy, enquiring after his mother and his putative new job, but my efforts only seemed to make him uncomfortable and in no time he shuffled off, muttering something about buying cigarettes.

  ‘He should give that up,’ his father said, watching him go. ‘Filthy habit.’

  I nodded, not wanting to suggest that an overfondness for nicotine might not be the sum total of the problem, and reached for the raincoat.

  ‘Not quite the thing for midwinter,’ I said, holding it open, ‘but it’ll keep you dry come the spring.’

  The fit, to my surprise, was good. Schilling ran his hands over the cloth and the heavy silk lining. ‘It’s a beauty. You must let me . . .’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ I said. ‘I can’t have an editor with pneumonia. I’d be sure to catch it, for one thing. Apparently microbes can live on a sheet of paper for anything up to a month.’

  I sat down and watched as Schilling paraded up and down, trying to catch his reflection in the cloudy windows. The mood was already more relaxed. The gift was a success and, for the first time in days, Schilling wasn’t thinking about his son.

  ‘So, I’ve been reading that manuscript,’ I said casually, though just the mention of it produced a prickly heat across my entire body. ‘Enjoying it, actually. It’s very well done.’

  Beyond the glass, the towering phallus of the Rathaus loomed blackly out of the mist.

  ‘I wanted you to be the first to see it,’ Schilling said, ‘for obvious reasons.’ Literature, a new raincoat: I could almost see the clouds lifting. ‘I hope you feel flattered.’

  I shrugged, ignoring the extraordinary presumption behind this remark. There was a fine line between hommage and misappropriation, one to which Schilling seemed quite insensible. On the other hand, was it reasonable to object to Richter’s theme and argument when I myself had left them unresolved for twenty years?

  ‘I haven’t finished it yet,’ I said. ‘Let’s not praise the day before nightfall.’

  ‘I don’t mean to rush you,’ Schilling said. ‘But I do want to discuss the issues when you’re ready.’

  ‘Issues? Like the title?’

  ‘Yes, that too. And whether we can really call this novel science fiction.’

  Schilling had stopped pacing and was now looking straight at me. I had been so preoccupied with my own reaction to Richter’s book that I had hardly stopped to consider anyone else’s. Now, all at once, it was clear to me what was on my friend’s mind.

  ‘Michael, it’s not science fiction. It’s not set in the future, not really.’

  Schilling bit his lip. ‘No.’

  ‘What is the title?’

  Schilling pulled up a chair beside me and sat down, still wearing the raincoat. ‘Originally? The Valley of Unknowing.’

  He looked sheepish, as well he might. The Valley of Unknowing was not, as you might think, a fictional, mythical or poetic name. As far as we were concerned, it referred specifically (often sneeringly) to the place we inhabited, a place where, for topographical reasons, it was impossible to receive Western television transmissions. Why did that matter? Because it made the whole book metaphorical, contemporary, relevant. It might appear to be about an imaginary time and place, but it was really about the here and now, about our society, our system, our state. The non-political setting concealed a deeply political intention and the title gave that intention away. Richter’s story was not a vision of a war-torn future; it was a vision of the war-torn past and of the present – a present in which peace and order were maintained only by violence and the threat of violence.

  ‘The story has so much momentum,’ Schilling said. ‘You feel instinctively that you’re looking forward. And everything is so focused on the individuals, it comes over as a study of human psychology, of character. Nothing political at all. It’s not until you stop to think about it . . .’

  ‘Which most people won’t,’ I said, ‘you hope.’

  ‘Well, that’s the question. The question I have for you, Bruno: do
you think the ministry will stop to think about it? In your experience, do you think they will see . . .’ – he fingered the lapels of his new raincoat – ‘if they’re not told?’

  I shifted in my chair. This was a difficult question. I had seen the connection to Orphans almost at once, but then I was bound to. The functionaries at the Ministry of Culture might not see it at all. Outside, in the main office, I could hear Schilling’s colleagues talking quietly, a steady tap-tap-tap from an electric typewriter. Now I understood why Schilling had been so furtive about handing over the manuscript. He was the only person in the company who knew of its existence; and that was how he wanted to keep it, at least for the time being. Reading the novel must have been almost as painful for him as it had been for me, albeit it for very different reasons. Richter’s book was trouble, but it was also a discovery, a rarity, a gem. Schilling must have wanted to embrace it and run from it, to celebrate and bury it, all at the same time. The Valley of Unknowing, I now realised, had been pulling him apart.

  ‘I need to finish it,’ I said. ‘You can’t talk about a book until you’ve finished it.’

  Again, Schilling looked disappointed. Perhaps he sensed that I was playing for time. I was only too happy when the door opened and his son shambled back into the room with a pack of cigarettes in his hand, forestalling any further discussion.

  8

  The last meeting of the pool committee had not been a complete loss. On the way out I had noticed a hand-decorated poster advertising a Christmas concert by a school orchestra and it had given me an idea. If an ordinary high school was putting on a musical event, surely a college of music would do the same.

  It turned out that giving concerts and recitals was a central plank of the curriculum at the Carl Maria von Weber, the aim being to train public performers rather than recording artists. Unfortunately there was no way of discovering which, if any, of these events would involve Theresa Aden. So for the next week or so I turned up almost every night at one draughty venue or another, full of expectation (much like the parents, friends and teachers who made up most of the audience), only to be disappointed. There were, I discovered, quite a number of viola players among the alumnae of the college. Every quartet, quintet and sextet had its own. I heard a lot of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms – passionate, romantic, melancholy music that deepened and gave noble lustre to my otherwise commonplace frustration, so that by the end of each performance my failure to locate Theresa had all the tragic profundity of Isolde’s tryst with Tristan or Romeo’s with Juliet. And when at last I caught sight of her, instrument in hand, taking her place in a full-sized orchestra for a concert at the Kulturpalast, I felt as if Fate itself had finally stepped in to help me.

  By this time my mental image of Theresa was all but worn out. All I remembered was the excitement I’d felt when we met, an excitement I wanted to feel again. Seeing her now, features reanimated and refreshed, gave me a physical rush. It was halfway through the first movement (of what I can’t recall) before my heart rate and breathing were slow enough for me actually to hear the music over the blood thrashing in my ears.

  This reaction, I knew, was ridiculous for a man my age. Passions are like loud clothes: only the young can wear them and get away with it. I can’t explain why I allowed myself such romantic licence at this particular time. Perhaps it had something to do with Richter’s book, the way it seemed to connect me with my past. Perhaps I had already sensed something about Theresa that I would later see more clearly: a reticence and modesty born of incompleteness, of a deep, unspoken need. In any event, I did not resist my feelings – though I did my best to camouflage them, you can be sure – because I did not expect them to last. I expected youthful passion, like youth itself, to prove ephemeral, likewise Theresa Aden’s power to disappoint me.

  Even from a distance she looked more alluring than before. The imperfections I had detected were no longer imperfections: the defiant jaw, the dimpled chin, these were now part of her, which made them indispensable. Proudly I watched her tuning up. Impatiently I watched her play. Jealously I watched her between playing, when she would whisper remarks to the violinist next to her: sly, musical jokes that I couldn’t share. Sometimes she would glance up at the audience, scanning the rows of faces, causing my heart to leap into my mouth. Once, when she was looking squarely in my direction (what could she see beyond the glare of the lights?) she smiled, which was unfortunate, though it thrilled me at the time. For I passed the rest of the concert waiting and longing for her to do it again, which she never did.

  As soon as the final encore was finished, I went in search of the dressing rooms. The Kulturpalast was a modernist building of lofty, derivative design, but the backstage area could only be reached from the audience side of the building via a bewildering series of corridors and tunnels. By the time I found it, the last of the orchestra had left the stage, creating a euphoric crush of players and instruments: a double bass being carried shoulder high, a clarinettist playing a jazz version of ‘Silent Night’, a pair of trombones interrupting with ironic cartoon asides. To make matters worse, several of the string players recognised me from their earlier chamber concerts and took this opportunity to introduce themselves. Unintentionally I had acquired a reputation as a music lover and my opinion was eagerly sought.

  I moved away as quickly as I could, but there was no sign of Theresa in the crowd. I was checking the last dressing room when a stout girl with short dark hair came up to me. ‘Looking for someone?’ she asked, a hostile edge to her voice.

  I may have blushed. ‘Theresa Aden. She plays the viola.’

  ‘Yes, I know what she plays. You’re too late. She’s gone.’

  ‘Already? Are you sure?’

  ‘Gone home to pack. She’s leaving tomorrow for the holidays. I can take a message if you want.’

  I hurried back into the corridor. None of the other players were in a hurry to leave. Someone had cracked open a bottle of vodka and was passing it round. Distinctly unmusical singing came from several of the other dressing rooms. I headed for the stage door, stepping over instruments and cases, unable to believe that my chance had really gone, that Fate could be that much of a tease.

  Then I was outside. Snow was falling, the drifting flakes caught in the cone of a solitary street light. This was the back of the building, a small yard in which a van and three cars stood parked, their windscreens and windows frosted up. A single pair of footprints – too small for a man’s – led across the yard and turned right along the pavement in the direction of the river. My overcoat still over my arm, I set off after them, my feet slipping and sliding.

  Theresa was standing in the darkness a few yards further down the street, silhouetted against the dim façade of the building opposite, her viola case in her hand. I was about to call out to her when she turned and walked back a few paces the way she had come. There, under the street light, a man had appeared, a man I recognised with a heavy, sickening feeling as Wolfgang Richter. She had been waiting for him.

  I was sure neither of them had seen me. I stepped carefully into the shadows beside the van. They exchanged a few words; I couldn’t make them out. Then Richter reached into his coat for what looked like a book and handed it over. Theresa looked at it for a moment, then slid it into the pocket of her coat. They said a few more words and, for a moment, I thought they were going to say goodbye. But then Richter threw his arms round her and buried his face in her neck.

  I would have stayed to see what happened next, but I was afraid the loving couple would turn back towards the concert hall and discover me hiding in the shadows. I didn’t want to imagine Richter’s triumph at that moment, or my own humiliation. So, shoulders hunched, head bowed, I left, my heart as cold and heavy as a fist of stone.

  9

  In my regular circle of acquaintance there were only two people who expressed unqualified admiration for the Factory Gate Fables, and who counted them among their favourite books. Herr Andrich and Herr Zoch described themselves a
s employees of the city council. Their precise function was never clear to me, but every time we met, which was roughly five times a year, my less-well-known titles would come up in conversation. Herr Zoch, in particular, was always anxious to know how the latest novel in the series was coming along, what new characters would be in it, and upon whom these characters were based. He even took notes. My inspiration and research methods were a subject of constant fascination for him; so much so that, in any other circumstances, one would have thought he harboured literary ambitions himself.

  I should explain that the Factory Gate Fables – a series of interconnected novellas, in which certain characters, like actors in a theatrical company, pop up again and again, sometimes in minor roles, sometimes in major ones – drew its inspiration from the lives of people I knew. At least, that was the widely held belief. My characters were not created to suit the story. Instead I created stories with the aim of portraying real individuals as fully as possible; their dreams, foibles, struggles and triumphs.

  Like many widely held beliefs, this one was nonsense. My characters were fabrications. So was everything else in the Factory Gate Fables. I had not, in reality, been anywhere near a factory gate, let alone a factory, for many years. My starting point, it is true, was very often people I encountered in daily life. I drew on their mannerisms, habits and appearance (and not infrequently their smell); but as far as their inner selves were concerned, I relied entirely on my powers of invention. I had no way of portraying their inner lives and no desire to do so. In the East, this lack of factuality, this reliance on pure imagination, was a small but guilty secret. But then, I was only dimly aware of the ready excuses available to authors in the West, where individual self-expression is all that counts, no matter how disconnected from reality. A writer’s words might not be literally true, the argument goes, but they describe a greater truth, an artistic truth that soars above the contradictions and inconsistencies of real life. In this sense Western fictions are like news bulletins used to be in the Workers’ and Peasants’ State: they might not be literally true, but they propagate a useful message, which is to steer its audience in the right moral, philosophical or ideological direction.