The Valley of Unknowing

by Sington, Philip

  As for Theresa Aden, I made no attempt to seek her out. Nor, when messages from her reached me via Michael Schilling, did I respond. This is not to say I didn’t think of her. I thought of her every day and dreamed of her every night (in my dreams my desire for her was always unqualified and unambiguous). But I couldn’t picture a real-life encounter with her that wouldn’t be either squalid or sad. I couldn’t stand to hear more lies, to be pacified or bought off. Nor was I in any hurry to draw a line under our affair, to shake hands and part – nominally but not actually – as friends. I was sure that somewhere in her soul Theresa must have craved absolution, an acknowledgement at least that there had been fault on all sides, but I saw no reason to oblige on either count. It seemed fair to me that she should live in suspense, not knowing how or in what way the fraud of Eva Aden would be revealed, because I was living the same way, courtesy of the puzzlers of Zirndorf and the open archives of the state security apparatus. In this way Richter’s book would do a little of what I had intended it to do: namely bind together Theresa’s fate and mine in a way that could not be easily undone. Was this selfish of me? Was it unforgiving? To both questions the answer is yes. But among the great panoply of sins being uncovered at that time, these seemed inconsequential and easily borne.

  I made myself invisible to Theresa Aden, but she was not invisible to me. Newspapers and magazines continued to mention her name in various cultural contexts. A motion picture based on Survivors won several awards for production design and music, but disappointed at the box office. Critics complained that by adding a happy ending (a change made in haste after ominous test screenings) the producers had confused the central message of the film. Theresa attended the premiere at the Venice Film Festival and was quoted as saying she was ‘impressed’. I searched for photographs of the occasion, but the ones I found were all of the director and the cast. Eighteen months after that Theresa was living in Berlin. By that time the absence of a new book had become a talking point. In a feature entitled ‘New voices for a new world’ Theresa conceded that Survivors had been a difficult act to follow.

  I laughed when I read this (partly out of amusement, partly out of relief), but my laughter was cut short by the revelation that Theresa was cohabiting with an unnamed boyfriend. This turned out not to be the agent, Martin Klaus, but a jazz pianist named Rolf. Rolf was succeeded by a property developer called Oscar Schmidt, then by no one. A year later the concluding paragraph of a brief colour supplement profile described Eva Aden as living alone. In the photograph she was depicted sitting on a park bench staring straight at the camera, as if posing for a passport. Over the years she had lost weight. Her face had a hard, sculpted look, the youthful roundness of her features having all but disappeared. The girl, I supposed, had become a woman and, as such, more of a stranger than ever. The year she had spent with me was now just one year among many; our mutual involvement an interval, an episode that could be recounted without emotion, as if it had happened to someone else.

  Slowly the press mentions dried up. The occasional passing references added nothing to the sum of my knowledge. In Germany the Zirndorf effort began to wind down. Departing staff were not replaced and soon the number remaining had dwindled to less than twenty. The unmaskings and retributions gradually ceased. Meanwhile in west Cork, at the suggestion of some local residents (admiring ladies of a certain age, for the most part), I took up teaching at an adult education establishment, my subject being ‘creative writing’. A good portion of my students had never heard of me before. I preferred it that way. The Orphans of Neustadt remained firmly off the syllabus.

  It was in Ireland, after seven years’ residence, that I finally began work on this account of my last years in the East. I set out to write it not to justify myself, or to reanimate a vanished career, but in part-fulfilment of a debt. This is the story Wolfgang Richter wanted me to write (in a dream, but also in life), or as close as I can make it. I began, I persevered through the yawning middle, but the problem was always in finishing it. The difficulty lay not in my choice of language (I chose English, partly for the challenge; mostly for the sense it gave me of a fresh start); it lay in the fact that until you came along, Miss Connolly, hot from Zirndorf and the Berlin archives, I could identify no clear or satisfying ending. My story was like a country whose borders are invisible beneath an impenetrable fog. This failure, this narrative irresolution, has tormented me more than I can say.

  I had been gone more than ten years from the valley when I found a letter waiting for me at the adult education college. The stamp was German and the post mark said DRESDEN. I knew at once that it was from Theresa. I stood in the corridor, staring at the unopened envelope, trying to pretend that everything was normal as my students filed past on their way into the classroom, bestowing their usual cheery greetings. It took a feat of willpower just to smile back at them, a still greater one to leave the envelope unopened until the end of the class. Still, I doubt if anything I said that day made sense.

  The letter had been written in Berlin, months before it was actually posted. It seemed Theresa had been carrying it around for some time, searching perhaps for a reliable address. The tone was strangely formal to begin with, but beneath that stiffness I detected bewilderment and anguish – and felt it too, just as if it were my own. Most of the money arising from our venture was still intact, Theresa said, and awaiting my instructions. She needed to know where to send it. Then came the questions: why had I never come forward to reclaim my book? Why had I remained silent? Why had I avoided her for so long? If she had angered me, she had a right to know how and why. She had respected my decision to disappear, she said, and to put the past behind me, but now circumstances had changed. She was sick and needed to put her affairs in order ‘just in case’. If she had ever meant anything to me, she asked that I reply.

  This mention of sickness had all the hallmarks of a ploy. Perhaps the undertones of indignation were a pretence, a carapace of bluster. But such reservations hardly registered. I was overwhelmed by this simple appeal for clarity. I ran out of the college and into the street, needing to be alone and unobserved. I ended up in a churchyard. Was it possible I could still hurt Theresa after so long and from so far away? Was her eagerness to clear things up prompted by a bad conscience? Or was it possible that her feelings for me – never unmistakable, never couched in grand declarations – had outlived the satisfaction of her new-found freedom? Had our love, by some miracle, survived?

  And so, in spite of all I had learned, in spite of the wounds I had determined never to reopen, in spite of the years invested in forgetting, I crumbled. The next day I sat down within sight of the sea (it was a clear, cool day in September, gulls looking over my shoulder as they drifted by on the wind) and wrote back. I told Theresa I would meet her, in Berlin if that suited her. It would be good to see her again. I was eager to know her plans for the future, I said, and if she had found happiness in our time apart. In that regard I couldn’t help adding one sentimental observation: that many of the hours I had spent with her were, with the benefit of hindsight, the happiest of my life.

  I sent the letter by airmail. Weeks went by and I received no response. I wondered if Theresa might be on her way – the troublesome journey, perhaps, a small act of contrition on her part. I pictured her arriving on my doorstep, freshly soaked from an untimely downpour. I didn’t go out for days at a time, in case she should arrive while I was away. When the telephone rang (which was not often in the normal course of events) I found myself disappointed when the voice at the other end wasn’t hers. Such occasions betrayed a disturbing reality: that, like many a battered wife or bullied husband, my irrational feelings of love were stronger than any rational assessment of the facts. In such cases the imbalance lies in a general expectation of abuse or betrayal, a deep-seated conviction that the treatment is merited. But not in my case. My opinion of myself had always been higher than that. Besides, in this world what we deserve and what we get have no more relation to each other than o
ne roll of the dice with the next – except, of course, in fiction.

  Eventually my letter came back to me unopened. Accompanying it was a note from a Frau Hanssen, who turned out to be Theresa’s aunt. She told me that Theresa had succumbed to ovarian cancer some months previously. At her request the funeral had taken place at the Johannis Cemetery in Tolkewitz, close to where she had spent the last months of her life. It seemed, in the months prior to her illness, that she had just taken up a teaching position at the Carl Maria von Weber College of Music.

  It was two days after I received this news that you first contacted me, Miss Connolly, with your request for an interview. You wondered if I could shed any light on some bizarre discoveries among the scrambled files of Zirndorf; in particular about a book smuggled out of the Workers’ and Peasants’ State and published under a false name, of a planned defection by myself, of a hitherto unknown informer at the heart of the literary scene, living and working in my city. My regular dealings with the state security apparatus were, I assumed, about to be made public. You were fortunate. At any other time I would have refused your request. But at that moment I could not summon the will for evasion. My mind was elsewhere – on the past, to be precise, on what could have been and never was. The future was no longer of any great concern.

  You arrived the next day. You were afraid, I suppose, that a rival would get to me first. As a journalist, as a dealer in discovery, it must be hard, when you have a secret, to know how long it will remain one; when to keep it as a means to uncover still more secrets and when to cash in. Still, you surprised me with your courtesy and your eagerness to listen. Maybe you were wearing a disguise, but I didn’t sense that you had plans to judge me. Even when you talked about The Orphans of Neustadt, it was with nostalgia and regret at time gone by, which is much how I think of it myself. Perhaps, in different circumstances, we could have become friends.

  Eventually, sitting at the kitchen table, you shared with me what your sources at Zirndorf had shared with you. Among the scraps of intelligence, of briefings and action plans, there was, after all, no reference to Herr Anders or Herr Zoch, or any of my conversations with them. Your interest was in an informer whose name was ‘Nachtigall’. It was his or her file that had been partially reassembled, not mine. It was reports made by ‘Nachtigall’ that told the authorities about the smuggled book, and of my plans to cross the inner German border.

  Could I shed any light on the identity of ‘Nachtigall’, you asked me? His or her cooperation had been secured following the arrest of a son on narcotics charges. I was not sure if I fully believed you until you showed me that sheaf of photocopies, the fuzzy, reassembled type, enlarged beyond its original size. The son, it seemed, had been a heroin addict. He had stolen a gun and attempted to rob a pharmacy. The authorities had promised ‘Nachtigall’ a reduced sentence for his son, and treatment with methadone, in return for regular intelligence on the cultural community. Then, on one of the copied pages I saw the report of a conversation between the informer and me. It concerned a forged passport, my need for a photograph and the authorship of a book published in the Federal Republic under the title Survivors.

  At the end of this report was a note from the handler, one Lieutenant Ulrich. In it Ulrich wrote that he had rebuked ‘Nachtigall’ for not coming forward with his information right away, given the imminent possibility of Republikflucht, instead of waiting for the scheduled monthly meeting. ‘Nachtigall’ had expressed regret and requested permission to visit his son in prison at Christmas. In the light of his recent lapse, permission was refused.

  I am sorry, Miss Connolly, if the rest of our interview did not go as well as you’d hoped. I didn’t mean to be uncooperative, but forty years of circumspection has lasting effects. The consequences must always be considered, even if they cannot be foreseen. The habit is hard to break. Besides, I was in a state of shock. I know you went back to Dublin disappointed that so many questions remained unanswered. A more ruthless soul might have pressed me harder on the meaning of ‘Nachtigall’s’ reports, with all their details so tantalising to the investigative mind. I wonder, in fact, if your sensitivity makes you ill-suited to your trade – if you had not better been a doctor, a teacher or, better yet, a musician. But these professional shortcomings do not discourage me from sending you this manuscript, which I have finally finished. Far from it. There is no one better to receive it, no one better to decide its fate – if only because in some small way you remind me of her, of my Theresa, and because in visiting me, Miss Connolly, here in my valley of unknowing, you have brought structure and form to my story, and made clear to me at last how it should end.

  Afterword

  Liebermann & Klaus AG

  Heliostrasse 32

  8032 Zürich

  Switzerland

  6 July

  Dear Miss Connolly,

  Thank you for the proofs which you were kind enough to send me, and for this opportunity to comment on their contents. While the speculations regarding myself contained in the work may not be technically libellous, there is a danger that some readers will be left with a wholly inaccurate impression of my conduct and that of my firm. As you will understand, this could prove very damaging.

  I should like to state at the outset that at no point did I knowingly make any communication with the East German security services regarding a possible escape attempt by the late Bruno Krug, or any other matter. Until now, I was only dimly aware that Herr Krug had ever planned to defect from the then German Democratic Republic (even assuming the claim is credible). I would suggest, since Herr Krug failed to suggest it himself, that the idea of my involvement, and of Theresa Aden’s complicity, was deliberately planted in his mind by the security services themselves. Their intention, I feel sure, was to undermine his reasons for leaving the country and thereby retain his loyalty. It seems to me that Krug’s description of his interrogation in Berlin reveals, perhaps unintentionally, how this manipulation took place – manipulation which the information from ‘Nachtigall’ made possible. I can see no other rational explanation.

  I was also completely unaware, until many years after publication, that the novel Überlebende (‘Survivors’) had not in fact been written by my client, Theresa Aden. It was more than ten years later, by which time Theresa was gravely ill, that she confided in me that the real author was, as she thought, Bruno Krug. This she did in the strictest confidence – confidence I breach now only with great reluctance.

  By this time Theresa had ceased to be an active client, having turned back to music. I had given up hope of seeing another novel, but we had remained friends. In our final encounters she described to me her time in the GDR and her affair with Herr Krug. She told me that she had seriously contemplated moving to the East permanently so as to be with him (a move to the West, she was convinced, would snuff out Krug’s resurgent creativity, of which he openly and repeatedly boasted). She also told me that she had become pregnant with Krug’s child, but miscarried while in the West. I believe she must have kept this from Krug himself, since he makes no mention of it, but she told me the incident triggered a period of depression and doubt, which she found difficult to hide – and which I myself recall. From what she told me, I estimate that Theresa’s miscarriage took place a few weeks before her final visit to Krug in Dresden.

  I would like to add that in my opinion Theresa Aden kept the secret surrounding the authorship of Überlebende not out of greed or fear of censure, but out of loyalty. I believe her love for Bruno Krug was genuine, and that his resolute and inexplicable absence following the collapse of the GDR may have contributed to the illness that eventually killed her. Though medical opinion might dismiss such an idea, I believe it is an idea Bruno Krug came to share and that his death can best be understood in that light. The coroner may have recorded an open verdict, but I firmly believe Krug took out his dinghy that day with the firm intention of never returning to land. The fact that you were sent his last work immediately beforehand provides further s
upporting evidence.

  There remains one awkward matter, to which I plan to attend. If the claims in this book are true, the estate (if such exists) of Wolfgang Richter are due, morally if not legally, whatever royalties can be recovered from the past and present sales of his novel. I have already begun preliminary enquiries in Dresden and while I have not yet identified the next of kin – Richter is not an uncommon name – I have made one surprising discovery: that of a public swimming pool in the district of Blasewitz that was reportedly reopened a matter of weeks before German reunification. It is known officially as ‘The Wolfgang Richter Hallenbad’. Whether or not the late Herr Krug was responsible for this unusual name is not something I have been able to establish. Either way, only time will tell if the facility will prove a more lasting memorial to the young writer than any work of fiction he may or may not have written.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Martin Klaus

  Acknowledgments

  My wife Uta grew up in the former German Democratic Republic, and without her recollections, inspiration and support, this book would not have been possible. I would also like to thank other members of the Bergner family for sharing with me their memories of life in the GDR, most especially my father-in-law, Jürgen Bergner, whose extensive Stasi file provided an indispensable insight into the workings of the Stasi informer network.