by Ward Just
At the hospital, Dix was told Jana was in fair condition.
Was her life in danger?
They thought not. But there were tests.
What sort of tests?
Tests that the doctors would determine, Herr Grunewald.
And when would they know for certain?
Not long, Herr Grunewald. In due course.
He returned the next day and the day after, but still Jana could receive no visitors. On the third day they said she was better but resting. On the fourth day they agreed to admit him to her room but he must remain only a short time, under the supervision of a nurse. Frau Jana was weak and had lost much blood and the extent of her injuries to her head were as yet not known. But she was resting comfortably.
He had brought her books in English and German, and his Erich Heckel poster, Drei Madchen, three Sorb girls exchanging secrets. He taped the poster near the door where she could see it, then turned to look at her closely, her head wound tight with white bandages. But her eyes were clear, and he thought he caught a mocking smile when he showed her the poster. The girls were nude, whispering in a forest clearing.
Do you remember any of it? he asked.
Some, she said. Not all.
You said they were Reds.
I don’t know who they were, she said. They weren’t Sorbs, I know that.
Nameless rioters, he said. A cop told me it was a coalition of the disaffected.
I’m tired, Dix.
I’ll come tomorrow, he said. Her eyes showed great weariness, and her head was set at a strange angle. She did not look herself.
Jana settled into the bed, hooking her finger around the plastic bracelet on her wrist. Tell me about the scene on the lake. Was it good?
Superb, he said.
Karl?
Karl was fine.
I thought so, too. He’s a real actor.
The scene upset him.
Why wouldn’t it? I hate what she said to him.
You played it wonderfully, Dix said.
I didn’t believe a word of it.
That’s acting, he said.
Playing someone else’s life, she said.
There was some of you in it.
Not enough, she said sharply, and turned her face and closed her eyes. The nurse guided him from the room.
Dix went to work at once editing Wannsee 1899, episode 145, astonished at how economical he had been with film—or tape, as they insisted on calling it. Willa came by to see the results and pronounced herself delighted, and he admitted to himself that what he had was good. He believed he had an ear for the German language, at least when it was spoken softly, at slow speeds. He was depending on the patience of the audience.
He returned to the hospital the next day but they said Jana was sleeping. And the day after she was not feeling well and receiving no visitors. Dix missed a day, and when he arrived on Tuesday, eight days after the demonstration, the receptionist looked at him in surprise and said Frau Jana had been discharged. Yes, she has gone home. To her apartment in Kreuzberg? The receptionist looked in her book and said, No, not Kreuzberg. Frau Jana gave her address as Mommsen House, Wannsee.
But I have just come from Mommsen House, Dix said.
Nevertheless, the receptionist said. That is her address.
But I have a film she must see—
Frau Jana said nothing about a film, the receptionist said.
Did she leave a note?
No note, Herr Greenwood.
On the street again, Dix began to walk south toward Wannsee. The distance was only a few miles and the day was mild. The time was near noon and he was thinking of lunch at Charlotte’s or the Imbiss on Koenigstrasse. He took his time, strolling listlessly like any flaneur, and when the traffic began to build he feared another demonstration. The line of cars barely moved, and then in the block ahead he saw the cause of the obstruction, a giant McDonald’s, its parking lot full and the cars waiting for a space or in line for the drive-through. He suspected a school holiday; many of the cars were filled with children.
Suddenly he did not want lunch at Charlotte’s or at the Imbiss, or anywhere in Wannsee. Dix hurried in the direction of Zehlendorf, where he could board the S-Bahn for Potsdamer Platz, and a few blocks away, down the squalid alley, he would find Munn Café, a glass of beer and a schnitzel, and Frau Munn’s warm smile to take the edge off things. He did not like to think of Jana alone in the world. Yet that was what she preferred.
The café was not crowded. Frau Munn set him up at the far end of the bar. He drank two pilseners and ordered the schnitzel. While he ate the schnitzel he read the newspaper, a London paper, one of several that hung from well-worn wooden racks. There was news of Russia but little from America and nothing at all of the Industry. Then he remembered the Academy Awards and wondered who won. Certainly at the end Ada Hart was mentioned in the necrology; perhaps one of the presenters had a word also. He read the paper slowly but without interest, then put it aside and ordered another pilsener. When Frau Munn brought it, he asked her about the Vietnamese waiter, nowhere in sight. She said he had gone to visit relatives in Haiphong and was due to return to Berlin at the end of the week.
Dix said, Why did he come to Berlin to live?
She said, I believe he was dodging the draft. He arrived many years ago as part of a cultural exchange. He came to East Berlin to read his poetry and one night he slipped through the Wall; and he came to me.
And stayed on, Dix said.
Yes, but he misses his homeland.
So many do, Dix said.
Frau Munn looked at him sharply. His situation is not amusing, Herr Greenwood. Not at all amusing. At the time of the Vietnamese New Year, Nguyen was often in tears. When you saw him the first time, his New Year had just ended. He was not himself. And you, Herr Greenwood. You do not seem yourself either.
Comes and goes, Dix said.
You have the sad face, she said.
A friend has gone away, he said.
I am sorry, Frau Munn said. Was she a special friend?
We were collaborators, Dix said.
And your film? Completed?
Yes, completed.
Well then, Herr Greenwood. Allow me to buy you a schnapps in celebration.
If you will have one with me, Dix said.
Frau Munn went to the refrigerator and returned with a bottle, pouring icy schnapps into tiny flutes. She raised her glass and said, Prost.
Dix said, Your very good health.
Frau Munn smiled indulgently. You never learned our language, Herr Greenwood. It’s just as well. German is a difficult language, often unpleasant in its sound, hard to hear correctly. Few foreigners speak it fluently, yet there are advantages. Our language gives us some privacy. We are able to say things to ourselves that we would never say to outsiders. It is a blunt language, as you know. It’s my opinion that our difficult language gives us a measure of exclusivity. Our German exceptionalism, our particular spirit. The French are always complaining that no one speaks their language. They impose it on others as a matter of national pride. They are so busy protecting it from outside influences they neglect to use it creatively. They are taken up with their struggle to preserve it, is this not so? They feel they are humiliated when they are obliged to speak English, as they often are. But isn’t it a strange emotion, humiliation? You cannot be humiliated unless you choose to be. Humiliation is a self-inflicted wound. We Germans are intimate with our language, and it is never a source of humiliation. How could it be? Speaking German when others cannot makes us feel superior.
I wouldn’t think superiority comes into it, Dix said. It’s a language like any other. Perhaps more difficult than some.
It is the language of Goethe, she said.
I don’t mind being on the outside of things, Dix replied.
Frau Munn said, There are advantages of course. I wonder if this is a specific American condition. So much missed. So much ignored. If the thought cannot fit into an American sentence, t
hen it could be said not to exist. This, in turn, would make an uncluttered Weltanschauung. Surely that’s for the best.
Dix looked at his watch as Frau Munn poured a second schnapps.
Do you know, during the war in the Pacific, the Americans used Cherokees to transmit secret messages en clair. No Japanese understood Cherokee. Cherokee was an enigma to them, no better than animal sounds.
It was Navajo, Dix said.
Was it Navajo?
Navajo, Dix said. Navajo definitely.
So many tribes in America, Frau Munn said.
And now I must leave, Dix said.
Americans are happiest with their language! But they do not value it. They do not take pride in it. They assume everyone speaks it. And in time, everyone will.
Do you suppose everyone will be comfortable in it, Frau Munn?
When they are not talking among themselves, they will, Herr Greenwood.
Dix looked at her over the top of the flute. Some American academics say that English is the language of the oppressor and that peoples everywhere would be better off if it were abolished, like thumbscrews and the iron maiden. They view English as a violation of human rights.
They do?
Yes. They are quite insistent about it.
Academics are dreamers, she said.
Dix finished his schnapps and stepped back from the bar. It was a pleasure meeting you, Frau Munn. I wish you the very best.
And you also, Herr Greenwood. Would you send me your photograph for my wall?
Assuredly, Dix said.
And when do you leave Berlin?
Dix thought a moment and blurted, Tomorrow.
So soon? We will miss you. The spring is beautiful in our city.
And I will miss Berlin. The spring especially.
You have enjoyed yourself, then?
I have found my audience, Frau Munn.
In that case, Berlin has been a success for you. I was afraid that you had become discouraged with us. I know we can become strenuous and demanding in our efforts to make ourselves understood. Not everyone approaches us with an open mind. And we, too, are often lacking in objectivity. We have so many shadows, you see, those of us who lived through that time. We have difficulty expressing ourselves.
Dix said, You are my audience, Frau Munn.
She looked at him, holding his gaze with her clear blue eyes. I am flattered you would think of me in that way, Herr Greenwood. It is the way I have often seen myself. I shall try to be a responsive audience.
Dix paid the bill, correct to the last pfennig, and was almost at the door when he heard Frau Munn’s lisp once again.
A friend of yours came by yesterday.
He turned, grinning wildly. He knew who it was.
Herr Blum, the archivist. He said he had a most interesting interview with you.
Oh, yes, Dix said. Blum.
He was looking forward to another.
I’m sure he is, Dix said.
But if you are leaving Berlin—
It will have to be another time, Dix said.
Frau Munn hesitated, and then she said, I want you to have something from me, Herr Greenwood. She motioned him closer while she rummaged in one of the bar drawers. She handed him a photograph, a near duplicate of the one on the wall, Fraulein Munn with two American army officers, circa 1945. In this one she was standing about where Dix stood at that moment, her arms linked through the arms of two civilians, her smile brilliant, a pretty young girl out for the evening. Dix noticed her earrings and nylon stockings, a necklace at her throat, and the wide-brimmed hats and long coats of the men. They were unremarkable men, one with a mustache, the other without, but something in their postures and the disdain of their expressions reminded him of tabloid photographs of Chicago gangsters. He stared at the photograph, more than half a century distant—the date in the margin said 1943—trying to connect that time to this time. He looked at the photograph and thought of the nebula of a long-dead star, a cloud of dust that would diminish but never vanish, an enduring feature of the night sky in Berlin. What seemed to connect Frau Munn then to now was her smile, the same soft smile in both photographs—indeed she wore the same face in both, as if they were trick pictures of the sort found at carnivals, Frau Munn with Jimmy Stewart, Frau Munn with Al Capone. But smiles were superficial. What was not superficial were her eyes, the saddest eyes he had ever seen, eyes that seemed to him filled with unwelcome knowledge.
She said brightly, Look this way, Herr Greenwood—and she took his picture with a one-time Kodak, its flash blinding him for an instant.
Now I have one of my own, she said, and gestured at the wall, her rogues’ gallery, photographs of musicians, comedians, impresarios, politicians, army officers, Nazis, poets, grifters, athletes and actors, bankers and thieves, her regulars.
Auf Wiedersehen, Frau Munn.
Until we meet again, Herr Greenwood.
Dix saluted her, a sloppy hand-to-forehead such as one of the American officers might have given. He stood unsteadily at the door, his hand on the weather curtain, his head spinning from the pilsener and the icy schnapps. In the dusty silence he heard Frau Munn’s radio, dance music, German swing, Kurt Weill’s “September Song,” sung by a sinister prewar voice that was just this side of a growl.
Oh, es ist eine lange, lange Zeit
Dix recollected Sinatra’s three-in-the-morning baritone and Lester Lanin’s society two-step, regret in the first, promise in the second. But this was not that. This was not in the vicinity of that. He looked back to nod at Frau Munn. She had poured a third glass and was snapping her fingers in time to the music, standing behind her long bar as sovereign as the skipper of a great vessel. She nodded back, smiling, her head cast to one side—and then Dix stepped through the door into the late Berlin afternoon.
24
THE CABDRIVER was friendly and talkative, and when he learned that Dix had been three months in Berlin, surprised. You were wise to spend some time among us. Americans were so restless, they arrived one day and left the next, always in a rush. A great city was like a human being, revealing itself slowly, and some of its contradictions would never be resolved. A hospitable city, would you not agree? Not a city of repose, and therefore not a city for the faint of heart. And amusing also, if you had a taste for sarcasm. He asked if Dix agreed that music was the soul of Berlin. Music was to Berlin what skyscrapers were to New York. Had he heard the Philharmonie? The Israeli Barenboim was a genius. Only the other night Barenboim conducted the full orchestra and the baritone dwarf Quasthoff in Brahms’s German Requiem. Sublime, sublime. Five curtain calls and still the audience would not leave. Many wept. A beautiful performance, sir.
No, Dix had not been to the Philharmonie.
Not once?
Not once, Dix said.
You do not appreciate music?
The opportunity did not arise.
The cabdriver was silent a moment, evidently disappointed. He said that he and his wife and their son and his girlfriend often went to the Philharmonie and then to the cellar in Kreuzberg for cabaret. Of course Berlin cabaret was not what it once was. Some of the spirit had gone out of it, and many of the great musicians were dead. Greta Keller, she is dead now, but when she was in the prime of her life she was the best. She could sing in seventeen languages! She was to us what Piaf was to the French. That one, she could break your heart with a lyric and then, in an instant, you would be laughing. That is the essence of cabaret, entertainment that is at once ambiguous and perverse. One moment your heart is full, and the next you see that she has cut it with a razor blade.
If I may ask, sir. What is your profession?
The movies, Dix said.
You are an actor?
Director, Dix said.
You were working in Berlin?
On Wannsee 1899. You know it?
I know it. I do not watch it.
Dix smiled and turned his attention to the traffic, slowing as they approached the airport. An early morning fog o
bscured the lights but every few minutes he heard the roar of jet engines. The cabdriver eased his Mercedes close to the curb and stopped.
Maybe an American can make sense of it. It makes no sense now.
I hope so, Dix said.
Prussian nostalgia, the cabdriver said.
Dix laughed. Is that the worst kind?
Not the worst. Almost the worst. But I was born a Rhinelander. I have no patience with Prussians. They are very sure of themselves, always.
Dix paid the fare and laid a fat tip on top.
Thank you, sir. Have a pleasant trip.
I intend to, Dix said.
Next time, see Barenboim.
I have seen Barenboim in Chicago, Dix said.
But Chicago is not Berlin, the cabdriver said.
It is closer than you think, Dix said.
There were no direct flights from Tempelhof to North America, Berlin not yet a magnet for either tourism or commerce, the capital of the nation merely another midsized, landlocked German city. The way out was via Frankfurt, Geneva, or Paris. Dix had flown in from Paris and was going out the same way, connecting with the midday run to Los Angeles. Now he was stalled on the tarmac in the fog, aboard one of the scores of aircraft standing nose to tail, awaiting clearance. The intermittent rush of engines told him the wait would not be long, an hour at most. The pilot thought less but admitted he might be mistaken.
The cabin was warm. A steward came by with a tray of drinks. On offer was orange juice, coffee, and champagne. Claire on his mind, Dix took coffee with sugar and said no to breakfast. He heard a rustle of newsprint and gruff laughter following a whispered conversation from the businessmen in the seats ahead, normal cabin sounds, somehow muted owing to the enveloping fog. Nothing was visible in it. He could not see the terminal but he knew it was receding and believed then that he had come full circle, leaving Berlin at about the same time of day that he had arrived. Claire was on his mind then, too. But things never came full circle. Perfect circles did not exist, in nature or in life. Three months was not duration enough for a circle, perfect or otherwise. He believed he had described an arc, a fragment beginning at one point on the circle and ending at another, with much that had gone before and something still to come.
