The Dance by the Canal

by Kerstin Hensel

  On my third day, after I was led to the milling machine – which Kulisch more precisely called a horizontal shaping machine – I didn’t even make it to the second work process. Actually, I clamped one of the plates I’d already filed and drilled into the machine, then everything swam in front of my eyes. I gave it some juice, the milling cutter began to turn, the iron plate slid forward, everything was measured incorrectly – the cutting edge crunched against the plate, jammed, a bang, the machine came to a halt.

  – In the shit again! Kulisch bellowed.

  I avoided his grasp and ran out of the hall. Down the dark stairs, dark-red brick, brown tiles, a hundred doors, a hundred halls, no exit. Green arrows, warehouses, tool store, first hall, second, third, insulation, pumping hall, paint shop, no exit, off limits, caution: explosion hazard, no light, a placard newspaper listing Best Workers, mildew, fug, emergency exit. I, Gabriela von Haßlau, trainee in the first year of an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer, stood outside the back exit of the Leibnitz I-Plant in overalls and protective footwear. This was where the canal flowed by. Goldenrod and plants that looked like huge sticks of rhubarb rose stiffly from the bank. The canal was brown here. Whatever the I-Plant released into it was thinned out a couple of kilometres along by the coloured waste from the wool-dyeing factory. I stood on one of the large concrete pipes protruding like the rectal opening of a mighty beast and stared at the thick brew of waste water. Concentrated drill liquid, shavings, blood, along with kitchen waste and shit. Everything into the murmuring canal running along its stony river bed. Then sunshine. The factory roared behind me. I didn’t want to do it any more. I won’t cooperate. Then he got me. Kulisch grabbed me from behind by my braces, I slipped away, slid down the bank to the canal. Kulisch, uncertain of his prey, slid down behind me.

  – What’s wrong, Gabriela?

  – Don’t touch me!

  Kulisch threatened to make me stand to attention in front of the assembled workforce. But of course I could trust him. He wasn’t a monster. I tore myself away, rammed my right knee into his hip. My mentor toppled and fell into the canal. He climbed out on the other bank, stinking, dripping. I ran as fast as I could. I was grabbed just before the wool-dyeing factory. Two men linked arms with me.

  – Good afternoon. Name’s Queck, said one, and the other said:

  – Never mind.

  They drove me home.

  – Get changed, then come with us.

  I did what they said without protesting, took leave of my room, took leave of the world. The men put me in a black Volga. Queck sat in the back next to me and nudged me in the ribs.

  – So pretty and already so badly behaved.

  He laughed and wiped his bald head.

  He had a pot belly like Pittiplatsch, the goblin from the television show, and wore a gold woman’s wristwatch. I decided not to say a word and to switch off my fear just like the drilling machine. Who were these men anyway? We drove through the whole of Leibnitz. Queck gabbled about his time as an apprentice: he learned cooking, ha-ha, nothing much, he got where I was coming from, ha-ha, although he could still cook, ha-ha. Can tell by looking at you, said the other one.

  Semmelweis-Märrie is satisfied.

  – You’ve got a screw loose, but it’ll do for washing up.

  Semmelweis-Märrie pays me 800 a month, I don’t know what to do with this windfall. Everything’s happening all at once: the magazine Mammilia, my story serialized, and now – a job. A secure, well-paid job. I clean glasses like I’ve got a life to make up for. For three days, four. Then I’m fed up with it. Get an infected thumbnail and backache. The Three Roses is busier every day, the usual characters jostle about, gloomy grunting men… some of them just stand around, don’t order anything, simply warming themselves. When it’s late in the evening I have to chuck them all out; it’s not a refuge, it’s a pub. I turn them out of the door into the snow. They grope their way into the crisp white, each to their den, some hole in the Leibnitz earth, to come back here the next evening to thaw, to spit frost, tiredness, thirst in my face, because I’ve made it, I’m out of the shit.

  Now I sleep in the broom cupboard. Semmelweis-Märrie reluctantly allows it.

  – You need to look for another place, slut, she says, moving ladders and mop buckets to one side to make room for me. The cupboard reeks, I can’t get to sleep the first night because of the strong stench of Ajax and liquid soap, firelighters and detergent. But it’s warm and private. If only you knew!

  The next day Chief Inspector Paffrath is standing in the Three Roses, leaning his fat belly against the bar and demanding to speak with Gabriela von Haßlau.

  – That’s me.

  The Three Roses holds its breath. A cop at this time can’t mean anything good. Everyone’s on edge. Semmelweis-Märrie’s cherry-red mouth warbles:

  – Fräulein von Haßlau is officially employed here. Everything’s above board with the tax office, Inspector.

  Paffrath knows his audience well, and couldn’t care less about practical jokes, but there’s one he has to pursue. He places something on the bar, colourful, beautiful, a magazine. The cover photo shows a grey-faced woman in a Russian hat, large dark circles retouched under her eyes, something like pockmarks on her cheeks and forehead, badly healed cuts. Headline in fat yellow letters: ‘Leibnitz Poetess Scrapes by on the Canal’. A feature spread and the first part of my life story.

  – Is that you? Paffrath asks.

  The Three Roses gawp like they’ve never gawped before.

  – The Binka’s cuckoo, we knew it.

  – Yes, that’s me.

  Look at that: the cop’s smiling! A potful of lard smirking, his fish lips tilting upwards.

  – Don’t you feel ashamed, putting something like that out there?

  – What’s that supposed to mean?

  The Three Roses piss themselves laughing. Beer sloshes over lips and bellies. Paffrath changes the leg he’s standing on and asks whether we could speak, just the two of us… It’s ultimately a city matter and he didn’t come here to make accusations, but rather…

  – Rather what?

  Semmelweis-Märrie allows me to leave.

  – Take the cop with you and don’t go thinking you’re better than us!

  – Don’t you have somewhere to live?

  – Yes, here.

  – In the bar?

  – Yes.

  – So the article’s true, is it?

  We walk through the snow in silence. Past the closeddown factories, black houses, across the Green Bridge and the Sunday Bridge. Further on, through vacant streets, across squares, wondrous glitter, the once-in-a-century winter. Just before my bridge.

  – This is where I used to live.

  The policeman laughs.

  – Now you’re exaggerating!

  We remain standing there, leaning over the railings. The canal swirls beneath us, snow hangs over the embankment, great white bales of magical sugar. The little moss house is snowed under.

  – Do you know who lives there?

  – Grit for the roads. Paffrath lights a cigarette, gives me one too. We smoke in silence.

  – Why are you shaking your head, Fräulein von Haßlau?

  – Because it’s not true.

  – You made up the story.

  – No.

  I’m standing and chatting on my bridge with a cop.

  – It’s strange, but do you know what?

  – We’re going down to the station?

  – No. Paffrath’s gloved fingers roll up the latest issue of Mammilia and he smacks it against the bridge railings.

  – You look completely different from the photo.

  I close my eyes, let the winter snow settle. And let the chief inspector stand, smoke, jabber on next to me. Wake up and know: it’s time to keep writing.

  – Where do you want to go now?

  – Back to the Three Roses.

  – Can I see you again tomorrow?

  – A cop tells, he doesn’t
ask.

  – Off duty, he says.

  – What do you have in mind?

  – Goodnight, Paffrath says, shakes hands like a good little dog, goes on his way.

  Queck and his driver took me to an apartment in Leibnitz’s newly developed Fritz Heppelt quarter, named after the anti-fascist resistance fighter. Ground floor, two tiny rooms, overheated. The door to one of the rooms is closed. They placed me in the armchair of a scuffed, teddy-bear-amber three-piece suite in the other room. The armchair was on wheels and beneath it the imitation parquet flooring was worn from being run over. Queck fell onto the sofa opposite me, breathing heavily. The Pittiplatsch pot belly sagged into the upholstery.

  – Huh! whistled out of him.

  Wall-mounted shelves with books and bric-a-brac: a clay-coloured deer, thick Bohemian glassware, the Berlin TV tower made of plastic. Right at the top was a dusty, stringless violin. I gazed at it in irritation.

  – Played by a faaaamous virtuosa, Pot Belly bragged, waved the driver over and whispered imploringly: Make it a strong one, Manfred.

  Manfred disappeared into the tiny kitchen, the coffee machine started gurgling, and Queck proceeded with the preamble, building trust: I shouldn’t worry, shouldn’t be afraid. Many had sat here before me, I must know that our republic offers many opportunities, and anyway, and this is the main thing, this is why I’m sitting in this lovely chair: it’s come to their attention that I write stories, assignments.

  I flinched.

  – How do you know that?

  Queck gave a friendly wave of his hand. Manfred served the coffee in yellow waffle-patterned stoneware cups, ripped open a packet of Hansa butter biscuits, arranged them on a plate. He sat down next to Queck, nodded encouragingly and told us to help ourselves. Manfred was a head taller than Queck, with a smooth, childlike face. I wondered if he had ever grown a beard. I was sweating and found it hard to listen to Queck’s speech.

  – We know, Gabriela, that a lot has happened to you. An unfortunate story, as it were.

  – Filing isn’t a lot of fun.

  – We can understand that. But we mean the other things: your father, your mother, the actor Samuel, your late Uncle Schorsch, not forgetting Katka Lorenz, your friend, am I right? And also not forgetting the strange incident where you cut your arm.

  – I was attacked.

  – You already told us. But we don’t want to talk about that.

  Queck slurped his coffee and bit into a bone-dry biscuit. Sweat glistened on his fat face, while Manfred listened sitting very still, nodding every now and then.

  – Oh, and not forgetting, ah, the thing with the mentor… well, um, ha-ha, ha-ha…

  Queck wiped a biscuit crumb and with it my past from the table. I added triumphantly, because I had something to add:

  – Not forgetting Frau Popiol, my teacher.

  Queck looked puzzled. Manfred shrugged.

  – Don’t know her.

  Faint nausea came over me like hunger pangs. The violin lay on the top shelf looking like a dachshund. What had happened?

  Manfred opened the window. Outside, children jumped between sheets and duvet covers drying in the yard.

  – A once-in-a-century summer! Queck sighed.

  We’d been sitting in the amber three-piece suite for two hours already. My thoughts strayed, the laundry brought in a fresh breeze, Manfred tapped the face of Queck’s woman’s watch.

  – Let’s get to the point, Gabriela.

  I was half asleep as Queck laboriously lifted himself up off the sofa. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been talking. I wanted to go home. I was free. I never had to operate a machine ever again.

  – Never again, Queck confirmed.

  They loaded me into the Volga and drove me a different way home from the one we’d taken before. Father went the same evening: he had to travel to a surgical conference for a couple of days. He kissed me, stroked my hair. He left me money.

  – You’re old enough, Gabriela.

  Four weeks later I received a postcard of the Bamberg Horseman. ‘There was nothing I could do’ was written on it. I ripped up the card. There was no one I could show it to. With the green kneeling cushion under my knees, I scooted across the bathroom tiles and the linoleum in the kitchen. Scrubbed, wiped, polished away the last of Father’s particles. I took the curtains from the windows, filled the bath with water, soaked them. The dark brew spurred me on: tablecloths, towels, rugs – everything underwent a thorough clean. I pounded, rinsed, wrung until I fell into a deep sleep, my heart racing.

  The next day Queck woke me up. He knew about the Bamberg Horseman.

  The cultural department of the Leibnitz Industrial Plant. My first area of operations. No more filings, no stink of metal – a desk with a yellow Sprela top, a telephone, folders. I didn’t know what I was entrusted with, sat about and didn’t do anything at first. Three long days of doing nothing: show up in the morning, eat lunch in the canteen, finish at four o’clock. My two colleagues in the department ignored me. They didn’t say a word to me. They sat with their backs to me, rummaging through paperwork and processing employees’ holiday requests. Barely a word was exchanged between the two of them either. They would give each other the odd telephone number at best and said words like bed occupancy and trade union. After three days Queck picked me up from the factory:

  – What do you have to show us?

  – Nothing.

  Queck’s comfy pot belly tensed menacingly.

  – You’ve got real talent. My God, Gabriela, you would be doing us a huge favour.

  I did him a favour, followed both of my colleagues from the cultural department to the bathroom. There they would puff on long Duett cigarettes and in whispers I heard the words bed occupancy and trade union again. In spite of my best efforts, I couldn’t understand anything more than that. I retreated to the women’s relaxation room, which was empty most of the time, and which Queck had had allocated as my space. I wrote a piece about bed occupancy and trade unions, wove observations like whispering and Duett cigarettes into my prose and bemoaned the secret smoking. After composing these lines I lay down to rest, slept. The week wasn’t yet over and I was fired from the industrial plant for a second time. Queck and Manfred drove me to the open-air restaurant at the racetrack, bought me beer, tried to convince me of something or other. They put me between the both of them and walked me through Schiller Park, round and round the goldfish pond. Gabriela, Gabriela, you can write, we know you can. They chauffeured me to this place and that, over bridges, past restaurants, they stopped at the Kabinett Mühle, Leibnitz’s artists’ cellar. They knew of it, gave me instructions. I listened to them, forgot immediately – awakening was the worst! Queck stroked his belly.

  – Quatsch-Platsch! he laughed, and Manfred:

  – You’re no longer called Gabriela, you’re called…

  They let me go. They stood in front of my door. I waited for a postcard of the Bamberg Horseman. A payslip arrived. What for? I thought.

  The curtains, towels, carpets had been washed. I’d done nothing since then. Am I called Binka? Am I called Ehlchen? The neighbours gossiped behind my back. I wrote and wrote. Crazy, unreal stories. Full of errors, full of pride. Queck came in, gave me time, gave me encouragement. What for? You’ll see. No one gets lost. Who am I supposed to find again? Anything but awakening. Awakening was the worst.

  I have to suspend all glass washing for a week. My infected thumbnail hurts, the nail bed festers. Semmelweis-Märrie froths in anger:

  – It’s not a castle, Your Majesty!

  I wash glasses one-handedly. The regulars breathe out winter, only Rampen-Paul’s cigarette gives off a glimmer of warmth. They all cluster around it, frozen or beaten blue, in thick tattered coats, with five o’clock shadows. Leibnitz has spat out its people. The canal freezes at the edges and Semmelweis-Märrie keeps the Three Roses open half an hour longer than she has to. She gets off at half past one in the morning, stomps home to her heated flat, while I clean dirt
and slush from the barroom and turn out Noppe; open the windows so the fug can escape into the bitterly cold night, a cloud of bad breath.

  Chief Inspector Paffrath is on night duty. He looks in when the last guest is out of sight. I unlock the back door and the Inspector says:

  – Evenin’.

  Semmelweis-Märrie forbids me to put more coal on the fire at night. Paffrath says it’s a disgrace. Me behind the bar, Paffrath alone in the barroom, he orders a tea.

  – People are talking about you.

  – Time I got out of here.

  – Yeah.

  Silence. The hot tea warms the whole room. Paffrath sucks on a cigarette. He’s taken off his hat and his thin hair stands up on end, quivering.

  – Baby hair, I say, giggle, chuckle, holding my stomach, which aches from laughter. Paffrath tousles the silky quiff.

  – Yeah, baby hair, but there’s a man underneath!

  Our laughter fills the Three Roses. I come out from behind the bar, pointlessly adjust the two standing tables, clean the windowsills. Paffrath wants to know how my writing’s coming along. He’s been following the series in Mammilia. I give him a light for the cigarette.