The Weather in Berlin

by Ward Just

  Greenwood said, The schnitzel is good.

  It’s the specialty of the house, Anya said.

  So, Greenwood said after a moment, you were fired.

  Like that, Willa said, snapping her fingers.

  Any explanation?

  She laughed through a mouthful of schnitzel. She said, They did not want Ossies in charge. They think we are unsound. They want their own people to manage the accounts and the news also. So one of their song-and-dance men arrived from Hamburg. He was very young. He had never been in Dresden or anywhere in the East. His German was of the guttural Schleswig type. No one could understand him. Some of the technical staff remained, and when one of them tried to sabotage him—a clever prankster, he manipulated the sound levels—he, too, was let go along with the other old-timers. They said we lacked flexibility. We refused to accept the changing nature of things, by which they meant we refused to accept their authority. They said we lived in the past, and of course that was true. Things were different when our government was running things, I can tell you. There was spirit. There was confidence and pride of craft. There was security—

  Yet here you are, the director of television films. Surely a step up.

  Yes, Willa said. I was fortunate.

  Willa was a director in one of the Dresden theater companies, Anya said.

  It was my passion, Willa said. But I liked the news also.

  What did you like about it? Greenwood asked.

  Willa’s eyes glazed a little and her expression softened, as if she were remembering a tender moment from her youth long ago. Its order, she said at last. Its tidiness. Its resolve, I should say.

  Coherence, Greenwood said.

  Yes, coherence. And predictability. I knew, and my listeners knew, that what I told them was a version of events. The facts were not always in order, and much was deemed beneath notice. But the arrangement did adhere to a certain scheme of things and everyone knew enough to read between the lines. Our citizens did not live in a vacuum after all. They had eyes to see and ears to hear and while not everything was known, nothing was forgotten, either. We believed an editor’s responsibility was to edit, to give the news shape and familiarity. People knew where they were because the news was familiar.

  Consoling, Greenwood said.

  That is correct. The news was consolation.

  Because it was censored, Greenwood said.

  Wrong word, Willa replied. What is news but a description of action after the fact? The actors and the acted upon. And who is to say which one sits at the head of the table. So the teller of tales has a place of honor also. I would say that the news was shaped, as a piece of clay or a block of granite is shaped to make a sculpture, a mermaid or a heroic general or a bird in flight or, in the event this was news from abroad, from America or Western Europe or the famished nations of the Third World, something like—that! She pointed to the poster above them, a drawing of a grieving woman.

  Käthe Kollwitz, Karen said. A very great artist.

  She lived in Berlin, Anya said.

  Her great subject was the grief of the proletariat, Karen explained.

  So we brought order to things, Willa said.

  And the Wessies had different ideas for our block of granite, she went on. The Wessies had one view of things and I had another. So I was fired because they wanted a Hummel doll. They didn’t want Käthe Kollwitz. Käthe Kollwitz was not in their plans. I took my severance and went back to my theater and in due course I was hired for the Berlin television—and here Willa looked up, her eyes narrowing, as the slender Vietnamese approached with three glasses of beer and a glass of wine, courtesy of Frau Munn, who appreciated their patronage, as usual, such distinguished foreign guests in her humble café—

  Danke, Willa said.

  No problem, the Vietnamese replied in English, adding a thin smile before he glided off in the direction of the bar.

  Where was I? Willa asked.

  Fired by the pigs, Karen said.

  Hired by Berlin television, Greenwood said.

  Yes, the head of production and his assistant came down to Dresden to see my direction of Mother Courage. We had an interview, and they hired me that night. You have a name for it in your country. I was the affirmative-action woman. They wanted to demonstrate their Wessie open-mindedness, their open arms. They wanted an Ossie. For the diversity, and also because it would be good for them, too, knowing one. So they chose me. She took a swallow of wine, smiling over the rim of the glass.

  Willa had a friend at the station, Anya said.

  Yes, that’s true, Willa acknowledged. He, too, was born in my little town near the Oder. But his family moved to Berlin when he was a boy. He didn’t like the life there, the East Zone. He wanted to be part of the economic miracle. He was a boy who believed in miracles. And one day he went west and found himself in television work, though he never forgot his hometown. We stayed in touch, the way friends do. And when he had an opening, he called and offered a job. The Wall was down, he could do what he liked. By then he was a higher-up and able to make his own decisions. That was when his head of production came to Dresden and we had our interview, a sort of show trial. He pretended to ask me serious questions and I pretended to give him serious answers. That is, I agreed to everything he said. I was grateful for the opportunity to explain myself. We ate very well. We got drunk and went dancing later, the assistant, too. They told me how much I would like Berlin, its worldliness and confidence, how robust it was, how unlike other cities of the West. A strange sensation for me, listening to them. They truly believed that we were one nation again.

  One nation, still two peoples, Karen said.

  So you can see how fortunate I was to be born in the East. It was only this accident of birth that allowed me to contribute to their diversity.

  Tell him about the trouble, Karen said. They are such bastards. No wonder we hated them and their puppet state.

  Willa took another sip of wine. She said, They didn’t like it that I was a member of the Party. But they brushed it aside. The Party wasn’t a serious thing at all to them. It was old news. The Party didn’t exist anymore except in the minds of a few sentimentalists, bitter-enders who didn’t know or hadn’t the imagination to see that the world had turned. When the Wall came down, our state came down with it, and the Party also. Good riddance, now we were free. We were free to be like them.

  Schwein, Karen said.

  They didn’t have anything specific on me, Willa said. I wasn’t in the secret police, and if I had informed, they couldn’t prove it. They weren’t interested anyway. What would you say to an American who had declared allegiance to the Confederacy? You would call him retrograde. You would call him out-of-date. Perhaps you would call him a racist, but you wouldn’t take him seriously. What’s the word for him? Crank. This was the finding with me. I was the victim of youthful indiscretion, like a case of the clap when you’re a schoolgirl. They were very good about it, very understanding, sympathetic even, that we had been manipulated by rascals. But that was over, and now we had the opportunity to be good Germans.

  Willa raised her eyes to gaze at the Kollwitz drawing.

  So that’s what we have, she said, legends and a flag we can’t wave and a few hard old men and a few more skinhead romantics who drink too much beer and assault Scandinavian tourists. We did have something of value in our state but it’s vanished now. Our leaders they are putting on trial. Our people they patronize. They falsify our history as we falsified their history, but the difference is, we knew we were doing it. And when there’s an inconvenient question, a question they want to pretend doesn’t exist because they want you for their diversity, they call it youthful indiscretion. We wink at each other during the interview but there is no doubt who is in charge. No doubt whatever. Willa paused, considering something.

  She said, I suppose there was some virtue in your Confederacy also.

  Southerners thought so, Greenwood said.

  Only southerners?

 
And their northern sympathizers, not very many.

  They are bastards, Karen said again. They are brainwashing us.

  Some sympathy also in the western states, Greenwood said.

  They tell us to leave it behind, our inconveniences. We are supposed to say goodbye to our fifty years, like a friend who has grown too difficult. But you can’t erase your memory. You can’t forget the place you grew up in; it’s your conscience after all. Listen to me, Dixon. You can’t forget the hopes you had, that when the system matured . . . Willa shrugged and tried to smile but failed at the attempt.

  And even today there are admiring accounts of prewar southern society, Greenwood went on, speaking directly to Willa. Some revision of attitude toward the pastoral life on the plantations, its chivalry, the wholesomeness of the agrarian existence, its leisurely pace and abundance. Its neighborliness. On many plantations the slaves were looked after like members of the family. The family was the center of things, along with Christianity.

  Anya looked sharply at him.

  As opposed to the haste, aggression, disorder, and injustice of the crowded northern cities, Greenwood concluded.

  Lost in thought, Willa was silent.

  We had nothing in common with the American South, Karen said indignantly. We were an advanced industrial nation!

  That’s what the CIA thought, Greenwood said.

  I wish I had my news program back, Willa said glumly.

  Someday you will, Greenwood said.

  But I’m bringing the news to them in my own way with Wannsee 1899.

  We are all trying, Karen said. And we don’t need the approval of your CIA.

  Greenwood smiled. In the 1980s, he said, the CIA thought East Germany had a gross national product only slightly less than Great Britain’s.

  They wanted to destabilize us, Karen said.

  The Vietnamese arrived to clear the plates, humming a tune that sounded suspiciously like “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The table was silent while he went about his business. Everyone ordered coffee, except Karen, who took schnapps.

  My husband stayed behind in Dresden, Willa said when the Vietnamese had gone. He refused to move to Berlin, even the East part. He believed that the fascists had infected the city. He thought Kohl and his people were a kind of plague. Move to Berlin, catch the fascist disease. Dresden was his home and he was loyal to it. We lived in his family’s cottage in the country. His father lived with us. My husband was adamant. If I wanted to sell my soul, that was my business. Cowardly business, he said. So he stayed put.

  Also, she went on, he had his own interests. Football. Dominoes.

  He is an enigma, she concluded.

  There was a sympathetic murmur around the table. Karen turned her head impatiently, waiting for the Vietnamese to return with her schnapps. Anya was staring thoughtfully at the Kollwitz poster. Again Greenwood thought he had been caught in a time warp, and he had to remind himself that the year was 1999, the millennium almost done, the new era around the corner. He thought that these Germans did not live in the past, the past lived in them.

  Dix said, Are your children with him?

  Willa replied, We had no children.

  I’m sorry, Greenwood began, and then caught himself. Many people were happy without children, Germans especially. He smiled an apology but Willa appeared not to have heard him or, if she had, was indifferent.

  I have not seen him in years, she said. I know he was involved with someone and I suppose he still is. Why not? It’s logical. Living alone is unnatural. He worked for the post office. He delivered letters. The woman he became involved with delivered letters also. I suppose they’re still delivering letters. The fascists did not interfere with the postal service.

  Coffee and schnapps arrived. Greenwood noticed that Munn Café was almost empty, with only a murmur of conversation in the outer room. He looked at his watch and saw that the time was past three. The windows were gray with fading afternoon light.

  You were never happy with that man, Karen said.

  We were together twenty years, Willa said. We were together almost as long as you have been alive, so you are not qualified to say. You should keep your mouth shut. He was an enigma.

  He didn’t want to leave home, Anya said. That’s understandable.

  Your marriage was a misalliance, Karen said.

  Willa made a dismissive gesture and drank her coffee.

  The time had come. Greenwood turned in his chair to call for the bill but the Vietnamese was already at his side, the reckoning in hand. He placed the bill carefully on the table and declared loudly that the service was not included. When Greenwood made no move to examine it, merely put his thumb over the total, the Vietnamese turned his back and walked away.

  The schnitzel was good, Greenwood said.

  Schnitzel is the specialty, Anya agreed.

  Are you serious about traveling in the East? Willa asked.

  I’d like to meet your family, yes. The enigma, too.

  Forget him. He does not like Americans.

  This is normal, Karen said. You should not be offended, Herr Greenwood.

  Takes more than that, Greenwood said.

  You’re interested, Willa said. I can tell.

  We can go tomorrow, Karen said.

  I will direct you along the Oder, Willa said. There are many fine villages where I have friends and some relatives also. A good inn is nearby. The countryside is very beautiful. I will show you Seelow, the site of the last battle of the war. The Russians won it, of course, but they paid a terrible price. Our army fought like crazy men. One of my uncles was killed there. And my aunt was lost, no one knows how, at the end of the war she was unaccounted for. It’s only a plain on the west side of the Oder, the soil is poor but some things can grow. In the spring and summer the Adonis rose blooms, a white rose that grows only there and someplace in Siberia. There are storks’ nests also. An unusual place, as you shall see.

  Good, Greenwood said. We’ll do it.

  It’s only a few hours’ drive, Willa said. It’s a very poor region now. There are only a few small farms. And some very large landholdings. When the Wall came down, the Junkers came back into Prussia to reclaim their estates.

  We’ll need a car, Karen said.

  I know one of them, Willa said. I’ll introduce you.

  I’ll rent one, Greenwood said.

  He has a wife and six children, all boys, Willa said. They all look alike.

  We’ll need an early start, Anya said.

  He was too young for the war, but his father was involved. Hers too.

  Yes, Greenwood said.

  He and his wife are helping to rebuild some of the churches of the region.

  The peasants are happy about it, Willa added. They miss their churches, the old ones anyhow. The young ones don’t care. The young ones want blue jeans and modern music. What does Martin Luther have to say to them?

  They will deliver the car to Mommsen House, Karen said.

  Willa looked around warily, then lowered her voice as if she were afraid of being overheard. She said, Your film meant so much to us. Some of us went three, four times. We had never seen our country filmed in this way, artists going about their work normally, creating the future. Of course the circumstances were strange. They were unfamiliar to us. We knew nothing of the outside world and how others saw us. So we were naturally defensive. We wrote critical articles but after the articles had been written and the arguments made and debated, the film stayed with us. Summer, 1921 became part of our lives. I think it became a myth, truth and falsehood woven together in such a way that we could not separate them. So we lived with contradictions. This was a difficult time for us, our socialism did not seem to be working properly. So much was forbidden. The future was so difficult to see that after a while we ceased to think about it. When we saw your film we were excited, believing we were watching something fresh even though the action was taking place in 1921. The Sorb girls were exquisite. Where did you find them? The auth
orities said that the girls were underage, an example of the decadence of Western capitalism, child prostitution. But we decided you meant to display the vigor and resilience of the proletariat, girls choosing their own path in life. Which is true?

  Willa did not wait for an answer but rushed on, deconstructing Summer, 1921 scene by scene and frames within scenes. She thought that on the whole the boys were less successful than the girls, except Wendt. She thought at first she was seeing a younger brother of Steve McQueen, he had the same spirit and coiled quality. A to-hell-with-you look, even when he was loving Jana. And when he painted he was coiled then, too, and we had the feeling that if anyone had interrupted him, he would have shot them dead and without remorse. They seemed to live outside of time, those six, and that was another thing forbidden to us. We were not permitted to live outside of time. Can you tell me where you found the boys, Wendt specifically? And what happened to him later?

  When Greenwood said he didn’t know where Wendt was, that Wendt had never made another movie, that he had disappeared somewhere inside North America, Willa shook her head sadly.

  His name was Thomas Gwilt, Greenwood said.

  Yes, Willa said. I remember. He was a wunderkind.

  I suppose he was. He thought so. And the critics did.

  Greenwood was accustomed to insincere enthusiasm. In Los Angeles, insincerity was a sacrament, the bread and wine of Industry communions. That was the way people went about things, the intensity varying according to what they wanted and how badly they wanted it. Greenwood listened for the false notes but did not hear them; he wondered if he was tone-deaf to the language of German women. But there was no mistaking Willa’s distress. She sat with her face turned away, staring out the dusty window at the gathering darkness.

  Then Frau Munn was hovering over them, smiling at each client, her cheeks dimpling, asking if they had enjoyed their meal, what a pleasure it was to have them at her table, and if they would like to see her pictures, she would be honored to fetch the albums, her photographic record of life in Berlin before and during the war, the look of this very district in the spring of 1939 and the fall of 1940 and all the years thereafter until the Red Army arrived—