The Valley of Unknowing

by Sington, Philip

  ‘Suppose we put your name on the book? Suppose we tell the world that you wrote it? I can’t be criticised for a book I didn’t write. And as for you, frankly what a Westerner gets up to in her own country is of no interest to the authorities here. Western books aren’t available here. They’d never even read it.’

  This then was the plan: not a solution to my difficulties, but a useful accommodation with them; an improvised construction that, in the best traditions of Actually Existing Socialism, made the best of a bad job. I could not bring myself to destroy Richter’s manuscript, but neither could I keep it. Getting it out of the country was the obvious alternative. Richter’s novel could not be published in the East, for fear of retribution; nor could it be published under his name, even in the West, for the same reason. How had the work found its way across the border? Who was responsible? Who had been complicit? These questions would be asked – but not if the writer’s identity and nationality were concealed.

  And then there was Theresa. She already believed the book was mine. The discovery had thrilled her just as it had thrilled Michael Schilling. There was no going back on that score. Then why not take full advantage of the situation? Why not make her a part of the thing she loved? Her name on my book (to be accurate, her name on a book I had inspired): it would give us a common project; it would braid our hopes together like two strands of a single rope. She had been hurt when, as it seemed to her, I shut her out of my creative world. Now I was flinging the doors wide open.

  We crossed the road and headed into the park. Theresa looked frightened. ‘I don’t know the first thing about publishing,’ she said, ‘or writing books. I wouldn’t know what to do.’

  ‘You look up some publishers; you send them the manuscript. It goes something like that.’

  ‘But they might talk. How could we trust them?’

  ‘We wouldn’t have to. This has to be between you and me. No one else can know.’

  As for the book’s political dimension, I said she should keep quiet about it. I didn’t want it spelled out, by the publishers or by her. I wanted it to emerge slowly, over time. ‘Let people discover the deeper meaning for themselves,’ I said, being confident they never would.

  Theresa shook her head. ‘I’d never get away with it, Bruno. I wouldn’t fool anyone.’

  ‘I know it’s a lot to ask. I’ll understand if you say no. It’s just a book, after all, not a matter of life and death.’

  I meant what I said, but I don’t imagine Theresa thought so.

  We walked on in silence. I suppose what troubled her were the lies she would have to tell: to the publishers, to a putative reading public, to people she knew. She was not a natural dissembler and there was no denying that the burden of dissembling fell all on her. The book might not be mine, but neither would the name on the cover.

  ‘It wouldn’t be for ever,’ I said. ‘One day, when thing’s are different, we’ll tell the truth.’

  Like the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche, like the fall of the Workers’ and Peasants’ State, I assumed this would never happen in my lifetime and probably not in Theresa’s either.

  She shook her head. ‘No one will believe I wrote that book. Would you?’

  ‘Nearer the time you could put on some glasses. And maybe dye your hair an acceptable shade of mouse.’

  ‘Seriously.’

  ‘Seriously, seeing is believing. Besides, what you do already – your music – that’s much more difficult than writing and more beautiful. I’d happily believe that writing was just a sideline.’

  We could split the money, I added, if there was any money. A little hard currency might come in handy for both of us.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t take your money.’

  ‘You could take a third of it,’ I said, as we stopped beneath the branches of a dying cedar. ‘A third, I insist. Anything less wouldn’t be fair.’

  She put her arm round me. For a minute or so we clung to each other, saying nothing, the smell of wet earth filling our nostrils.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to leave?’ Theresa said at last. ‘At least that way you could take the credit for your work.’

  ‘I don’t care about the credit. I thought we’d established that.’

  We headed back to the road. I was elated at the efficiency of my improvised plan, the ease with which everything was already falling into place.

  After a while Theresa said, ‘I think you like living among all these ruins, Bruno Krug. I think in some strange way you need them.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘A lot of people in your position would have left a long time ago.’

  ‘A lot of people did.’

  ‘Then why not you?’

  I shrugged. ‘Someone had to stay. For the sake of the others. Besides, it’s nice to be needed.’

  I wasn’t joking. To me, there had always been the element of desertion involved in the decision to flee. No matter who you were, someone was always left behind, someone whose life was harder for your absence. It was also the case that by the time I was in a position to defect, my reasons for doing so were fewer than ever; a grateful state had made sure of that.

  ‘But you’re not married,’ Theresa said, as we reached the north edge of the park. ‘You’ve no children, no family . . .’

  ‘You’re right. There isn’t much keeping me here, not in that way.’

  ‘And you could work just as well in the West, couldn’t you?’

  We were standing at a kerb, waiting for a signal to cross the road.

  ‘I write about the world I know, which is right here.’ I paused to recall a literary reference, one that would lend weight to my argument. ‘You’ve heard of Isaac Babel?’

  ‘Kind of. Wasn’t he Russian?’

  ‘Yes, and he went back to Russia, though he could have lived safely in exile in Paris. This was more than fifty years ago, in Stalin’s time. “I am a Russian writer. If I did not live with the Russian people, I would cease being a writer.” That’s what he said. He couldn’t write about a place where he was a stranger.’ Opposite us the signal turned green. ‘I don’t think I could either.’

  I crossed the road while the traffic stood waiting. Theresa remained motionless on the kerb for a moment, before setting off after me.

  ‘So what became of Babel, back in Russia?’

  ‘No one knows,’ I said, which was true. It only came out later that he had been executed on orders from Stalin.

  23

  She left early on the Monday morning with her viola and a large suitcase. In the suitcase, besides clothes, were books, files and folders: hundreds of pages of lecture notes, study notes, sheet music and essays – material she needed to revise for her final exams. One of those files, an old ring binder with a grey cardboard cover, began with a series of photostat articles on counterpoint and fugue, continued with essays on Stockhausen and the Darmstadt School and concluded with an untitled manuscript, which I knew to be Wolfgang Richter’s The Valley of Unknowing.

  If there had been more time for conjecture I might have foreseen the dangers more clearly. I might have had second thoughts. Theresa might too. I didn’t know it, but she had special reasons for caution, for going back on her promise. Yet she never flinched, never hesitated, never let me feel, even for a moment, that I was asking too much of her. When I recall her steadfastness at that time, it strikes me as the best and clearest evidence that she truly cared for me, that her love was real.

  The night before, we had sat together carefully punching holes through the manuscript. It seemed to me then that The Valley of Unknowing, far from being destroyed at my hands as I’d promised, was now multiplying. From one identity, it now had three, each one distinct from the others; each one illuminated by a different authorial light (Richter’s, Theresa’s and mine), giving rise to different interpretations. Michael Schilling was not going to be pleased, if he ever found out. But at least there was no danger of his betraying us. Schilling was my friend and be
sides, he could not expose my ideological backsliding without exposing his own.

  To leave the manuscript in plain sight had been Theresa’s idea. Any hint of concealment ran the risk of arousing suspicion. In the unlikely event that a border guard got past the Stockhausen (the essays were as digestible as the music), she would claim that the novel was hers, that she had penned it at home during the holidays. There was nothing very suspicious about that.

  We rehearsed the putative interrogation as best we could. This was my idea. If questioned further, she was to say her book was a work of science fiction. She was also to imply that it wasn’t very good. She had already tried to find a publisher in the West, but none had been interested. She was disappointed, but not heartbroken. Writing was only a sideline, after all. Why had she taken the manuscript back to the East with her? Because she’d hoped to work on it. In the event she had never found the time.

  The mock interrogation did not begin well. Theresa tended to blush when she was lying and that was not the only problem.

  ‘Who gave this to you? Who wrote it?’

  I played the role of the interrogator as sternly as I could, pacing up and down in my sitting room while she remained seated in an upright chair.

  ‘I told you: I did. I wrote it.’

  Not content with blushing, Theresa now nervously folded and unfolded her arms.

  ‘Where’s the machine you typed it on?’

  ‘At home. It’s my mother’s typewriter.’

  ‘Where did you get the paper?’

  Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. This was an issue we had not discussed. In fact, that the origin of the paper might give us away had only just occurred to me. I suppose I hoped for some brilliant piece of improvisation.

  ‘What do I say?’ Desperation had crept into Theresa’s voice. ‘Where did you get the paper?’

  The real question was: where had Richter got the paper?

  ‘Say you bought it in East Berlin, the first time you went home. It was half the price of paper in the West.’

  ‘Okay. So where was the shop exactly? What was the name?’

  I had no idea.

  ‘You’ve forgotten. Somewhere near Alexanderplatz. There are lots of shops near Alexanderplatz, aren’t there?’

  Theresa nodded. ‘I think so.’

  I cleared my throat, reassuming my role. ‘You’ve been seen with Bruno Krug. Did he put you up to this?’

  ‘Put me up to what?’

  ‘Did he give you this manuscript? To smuggle out?’

  ‘Of course not. Why would he do that?’

  This was better. Theresa was looking me straight in the eye.

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I can’t see what he would possibly gain.’

  ‘What about money?’

  ‘Bruno Krug has no need for money. He’s perfectly content with what he has – which is a lot.’

  No blushing now. The arms lying relaxed in the lap.

  ‘Is he going to defect?’

  Theresa shook her head, slowly. I was impressed by her cool. ‘That will never happen.’

  ‘What about Wolfgang Richter?’

  A flicker of confusion this time; not unconvincing, though.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘You were seen with him too.’

  ‘We were acquaintances, nothing more.’

  ‘You went to his funeral.’

  ‘He seemed nice. I wanted to say goodbye.’

  ‘You were seen kissing him.’ I sat down in the armchair opposite. ‘Do you kiss all your mere acquaintances?’

  Theresa frowned, faltered, touched absently at the depression at her temple. ‘What? I don’t . . . What are you talking about?’

  ‘Tell the truth. Were you lovers?’

  ‘No. No, we weren’t.’

  ‘Are you doing this for him? Did he give you the book?’

  I had to be sure. I had to probe a little, just in case she knew. I might never have another chance.

  Theresa took a deep, steadying breath. ‘No. No one gave me the book. I wrote it, for what it’s worth.’

  ‘Really? Then what’s it called, this book you say you wrote?’

  ‘It hasn’t been . . .’ Theresa checked herself. ‘I haven’t decided yet. I’m still thinking about it.’

  I have to confess, absurd as it seems, that the ease with which she gave this answer momentarily unnerved me. She hadn’t decided, she who now had the power of decision over the work and its fate – or would have, as soon as she was over the border. Of course, Theresa was only playing the part I’d asked her to play. Besides, the book was no more mine than hers anyway. All I can say, looking back, is that it felt more mine than hers; more mine, in fact, than anyone else’s (that is, anyone living). The cuckoo’s egg had been laid in my nest. I had inspired it, or provoked it. I had given rise to the itch that had given rise to the scratch, creatively speaking – Schilling had confirmed as much. That surely gave me some degree of precedence, a scintilla of entitlement.

  ‘Is that it?’ Theresa said, regarding me steadily. ‘Am I free to go now?’

  I dismissed these vain and petty thoughts, and smiled. It was good to see my lover play her part with confidence. It was exactly what the plan called for. It was an augury of success.

  *

  Two hours later Theresa was back in her apartment and I was alone in mine. We had decided she should go to the station on her own by taxi the next morning. Police were everywhere on the railway and, given Theresa’s cargo, it was better if I didn’t see her off. Theresa had also decided, unilaterally, against having me stay the night. It wasn’t just the narrowness of the bed and the arduous journey that lay ahead of her. She wanted to have her wits about her the following day, she said, just in case.

  This opportunity for a tender, valedictory bout of lovemaking was the first casualty of our scheme. An element of danger is an aphrodisiac for certain types of people, leading them in some cases to embark on sexual acts in semi-public places – department store changing rooms and municipal parks – where they risk discovery. On this evidence Theresa was not one of those types. Perhaps it was just a matter of degree, I thought. Perhaps, in her mind these risks, our risks, were too great to associate with pleasure. If so, I wondered that she was prepared to take them and whether she did so in the cause of truth, of art, or of love.

  24

  If the level of my anxiety over the following weeks were to be represented graphically, the resulting figure would be V-shaped. For the first days – days of steady, unceasing rain – I worried intensively, to the exclusion of all other activities. I worried that Theresa had been interrogated at the border and forced to reveal the truth. The lies with which I had equipped her seemed, in retrospect, inadequate. It was credible that Theresa had written the book, but when and where? She could not claim to have done the work in the East, because she could not produce the typewriter she had used; but the claim of Western provenance was almost equally vulnerable to disproof. For what if the authorities already knew what Theresa had brought into the country on previous visits? What if her effects had been examined and listed, there being no manuscript among them?

  I did not walk, my usual antidote to stress. Instead, I stayed by my window, watching the street outside for the approach of arresting officers, struggling with a feline impulse to avoid being anywhere without an obvious means of escape (but where could I possibly run?). I worried that Theresa would have her visa revoked, permanently, making it impossible for her to return. In my darker moments I worried that she would simply disappear, because such things were rumoured to happen in the Workers’ and Peasants’ State, the way the toothpaste was rumoured to contain mercury. My one sustaining notion was that wherever Theresa was, whatever her predicament, I could not be far from her thoughts. My scheme would at least guarantee that. For better or worse, I had written myself into the story of her life – on to the jacket, on to the blurb – and nothing would ever write me out again. Even Wolf
gang Richter could not say that (had he been alive to say anything). His role had been that of enabler, an involuntary Cupid, put to the service of my grimy, earth-bound Vulcan.

  But the days passed and nothing happened. My neighbours came and went, hunched and hurrying to escape the weather. By now water was seeping in through a gap in the window frame, obliging me to place a towel along the sill. But the state security apparatus did not see fit to visit. No one visited me at all, in fact, nor I them. I was in no mood for company, there being no one I could confide in. In the Workers’ and Peasants’ State, where the citizen’s duty is always to report, the risk of official displeasure is like a disease: it spreads on contact.

  Gradually my anxiety lifted. If something had gone seriously wrong, I would surely have heard before long. In the churning wake of relief came the spume of self-congratulation. The Richter manuscript – not just its disposal but its very quality – had been an embarrassment, a thorn in my side; but with a stroke of inventiveness I had turned it to my advantage. And gone unpunished. In such cleverness there is a special kind of delight. The impossible heist, the anonymous graffito, the perfect murder all impart to the perpetrator the same egotistical thrill.

  After five or six days I felt calm enough to attempt some long overdue work. Awaiting me, half-finished, was a new Factory Gate Fable based on the struggles of Frau Wiegmann and the swimming pool committee. All the necessary ingredients were there: recognisable types, a worthy social purpose, obstacles both animate and inanimate, endless potential for conflict without recourse to serious social critique. But I found the subject, the whole, strangely unappealing. Instead I found myself digging out stories and sketches I had written years before: starker, bolder tales that a changed political climate had made it impossible to publish (Schilling himself had warned me off). The prose was rough and ready, but the voice was powerful. Was it too late, I wondered, to find that power again? I struggled with those stories late into the night, trying to re-enter their world, to write in the same vein.